Ah, 1986: the year of the infamous Challenger explosion, the debut of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
This is the world we're dropped into in ABC's new series, The Newsreader.
Amongst the big hair, tapping of typewriters and sizzling reels of film, we meet Helen Norville (Anna Torv), a female journalist desperate to establish herself in a clearly male-centric industry.
You don't need to look much further than the trailer to get a sense of just how difficult that might be.
And when real life becomes TV, it's hard not to be a little curious about how far fiction is from fact.
So what's changed over the years for women working in broadcast news? Is 1981 a little less foreign than we may think?
'Can you make them want to f*** you?'
Newsrooms of the 1980s and early 90s were microcosms of Australian society at the time. When it came to gender, the divide was real.
"I think that women were treated differently, definitely," says Nicole Chvastek, host of ABC Victoria's Statewide Drive program.
Chvastek's career has seen her move from her first gig as a production assistant with Channel 9, to cadet at the ABC, to reporting and presenting.
A solid skill set was not enough. Like many women in media and other industries, Chvastek found her image came under intense scrutiny.
Chvastek says it was working at commercial stations where the problem was far more profound.
"The emphasis on the way you looked was far more confronting," she says.
"There were different rules for the men and women, which remain to this day."
Chvastek reflects on one particular exchange during her time as a newsreader.
"I didn't know how to respond."
Forty years ago, there were no courses of action for this type of thing. No robust HR departments. Situations like the one Chvastek faced were simply laughed off.
"You knew that your role as a woman was to be sexually attractive, as well as present the news," she says.
It's a similar memory for Juanita Phillips, host of ABC's New South Wales 7PM news.
Over the course of her career she's worked across broadcast and print, both in Australia and abroad.
"When I started reading the news in 1990, it was fashionable to have a 'double header', which was always a much older male newsreader — for credibility — paired with a very young female," Phillips says.
Four decades later, nitpicking and assessing of the physical form is now fuelled even further by social media.
Unending comments, direct messages, and for the unlucky few, entire Facebook photo albums dedicated to what you wore on the television the previous night.
Meanwhile, if you're a man, you're very likely to get away with wearing the same suit for an entire year — just ask Karl Stefanovic.
These differences extended beyond the news desk, says Chvastek. Forget crime or politics — in the 80s, health and 'fluffier' stories were a woman's domain.
"In the very early days, as a young journalist the girls were never put onto police rounds, but that's because the police wouldn't talk to us," adds Juanita.
"They were really sexist days, but that was a reflection of the society."
Alcohol, smoke and adrenaline: The newsroom of the 80s
Despite all of this, both women look back on much of their early careers fondly.
For Phillips, taking on a cadetship with The Courier Mail in 1981 was a dream fulfilled.
"I walked in not knowing anything and luckily just kind of loved it from day one," she says.
Chvastek remembers the newsroom's energy and pace.
"I found it exhilarating," she says.
For Chvastek, the idea of being a journalist was fantasy, until she secured that first role as a production assistant with Channel 9.
The realisation that the newsroom was the place for her hit "like a tonne of bricks", she says.
She remembers a place of high energy, a lot of shouting, drinking, laughing and drama.
"My boss would give over his office to staff at the end of the day, so we could watch the news bulletin that we'd all contributed to," she says.
"We would sit in there with our colleagues — cameramen, journos and editors — as one collective group, laughing, judging what we see go to air."
It was a similar collegial atmosphere in The Courier Mail newsroom — a mix of early career cadets like Phillips, and more senior, seasoned staff.
"There was a group of young people, young cadets who all hung around together, and we were trained on the job by the older journos," she says.
In many ways, the social side of the newsroom of 1981 is not too different from what you might find in 2021, save for a few key features that have since been retired.
"Alcohol was a really big part of it," notes Phillips.
Even in those early years, Phillips says she was already noticing a shift in the working environment.
"When I went into television it was completely different because we were entering an era where that kind of thing — the drinking — was looked down on, in a way."
Times change, but there's work to be done
With more and more female journalism graduates heading into newsrooms, it wasn't long before tides were turning and a newsroom cultural shift was afoot.
For Phillips, this has been one of the most exciting and rewarding developments.
"Having women in senior positions has changed the kinds of stories that are deemed to be news," she says.
"And even five, 10 years ago, I don't know that there would have been that power balance in play."
But she says there's one key, frustrating hurdle that persists.
She says it's something she has observed in nearly every workplace. When a woman has a baby, her career "generally takes an enormous hit".
Again, Phillips points out, it's a reflection of the broader experience women face.
"Until our society actually changes so that women are supported in child rearing and domestic duties, I think that's still going to happen," she says.
"I think that's the biggest disappointment to me, that we are still kind of being penalised for having kids."
The Newsreader airs on ABC TV Sundays at 8:30pm, and is available on iview.
