Bombshell allegations of "toxic" Channel Seven workplace aired
Allegations of a "soul crushing" and "degrading" workplace at Channel Seven have been aired by ABC's Four Corners, with current and former staff members lifting the lid on the "toxic" and "sexist" culture.
The ABC program spoke to more than 200 people from Channel Seven for the bombshell expose in which staff made allegations of a “boys club” where women were forced to work harder than men.
One female journalist claims she was told to handover her hard-won stories to male journalists while another said she had to work late while her male colleagues went out and got drunk.
As a result of the culture at Seven, one woman allegedly was left feeling suicidal over the work conditions and threw herself in front of a car outside the network’s Brisbane office after allegedly working extremely long hours for not much more than minimum wage.
The woman had tried to resign from her job, but claims the network wouldn't accept her resignation and was kept on for another six months.
“The only way I can describe it is I felt like I had a noose around my neck,” the young woman told Four Corners.
One of the woman’s colleagues received a call from her in which she was “wailing, hysterical, incredibly emotional”, and in notes taken of the incident, they wrote, “Couldn’t understand what she was saying apart from ‘they won’t let me go’, ‘i’ve f**ked up my career’, ‘I want to be hit by a car’.”
The woman attempted suicide and mercifully, the car didn't hit her. She was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and never returned to Channel Seven.
Another woman, who is suing Channel Seven for sexual discrimination, said she was left feeling suicidal after working on the network’s Spotlight program.
She claims she was forced to work 10-12 hour days, seven days a week and was once forced to use her own money to finish a story, leaving her with no money for rent while she waited for expenses to be reimbursed.
“[It was] incredibly stressful,” she said.
The woman then fell ill with a serious respiratory illness, and doctors told her she needed some time away from work to rest and recover.
“I just started sobbing because the pressure of going home and not going back to the office and what the retribution would be if I did that was so great,” she says.
“[The doctor] said, ‘If you don’t go home now, you’re going to be in bed with pneumonia for six weeks … I’ll call an ambulance to your office if I have to.’”
The journalist claims that the network wanted her to keep working at home.
“I got to the point where I was suicidal, and I remember in one particularly dark moment where I’d worked all weekend,” she says.
“I rang Lifeline, and I made a doctor’s appointment because I knew I was so close to taking my own life. And I had a child that I couldn’t do that to because I was a single parent.”
One Seven employee, Olivia Babb, told Four Corners of the unsustainable salaries within the network, revealing how many of her colleagues have been forced to take up second jobs to make ends meet.
On top of her fears of becoming homeless due to the minimum wages, Olivia also claims she was “harassed and bullied” during her time at Seven.
“It is one of the most degrading, soul-crushing places you can work,” the former reporter said.
Solicitor Josh Bornstein, who has multiple clients taking legal action against Seven, said there was “enormous hostility to women”.
In a statement after Four Corners aired, Seven West Media said it was “clearly concerned about allegations of poor behaviour and mistreatment of employees”.
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Image credits: Four Corners