CNN International managing editor Tony Maddox said he stunned by results of an internal study which revealed that the global news corporation maintained a stark gender pay gap.
“To be absolutely candid with you, this survey has prompted us to do something we weren’t doing … I was surprised by this, shocked and disappointed,” Maddox can be heard telling CNN International staff earlier this week in a recording leaked to BuzzFeed News.
“When you look around, you see senior women here, you see senior women there, you don’t realize until it’s portrayed in this stark kind of way that you need to take a look at it.”
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CNN International was forced to take the survey — which you can read here — as part of an official requirement from the British government. The findings showed a notable difference in gender pay both in among base salaries and in bonuses.
A number of CNN employees, including Christiane Amanpour, voiced their dismay with the gender pay disparity.
“First and foremost the statistics are shocking not just here but around Great Britain,” Amanpour said. “One of the things they’re saying about this moment of legal requirement, it allows employees to get more of an insight, to get more transparency into the pay structure of their companies.”
In a statement to TheWrap, a CNN spokesperson said they were committed to shrinking the gap .
The data shows that an overall difference in pay between men and women exists, and we need to do better. And we will. We are proud of the success many women at CNN have achieved, both on the air and behind the scenes, in the UK and around the world. We have many highly successful and well paid senior women across our UK operation, and our newsgathering, programming, technical operations and digital functions in London all report into women based outside the UK. But we’re committed to addressing imbalance across all areas of the business, and to working with the industry as a whole to encourage more women into underrepresented roles.
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