Air controller and blogger Melanie Schregardus has lodged a complaint with the Irish Mail on Sunday after the newspaper ran an article about her at the weekend. Schregardus was horrified, she says, when a friend notified her about the article, entitled ‘The male chauvinist pigs of Irish air control’.

The Irish Mail on Sunday (part of the Associated Newspapers group) reported, alongside her photograph, that she had ‘lifted the lid’ on a ‘den of male chauvinists’ in the Shannon air control tower.

[Bernie Goldbach on the Inside View blog hosts a PDF copy at this link / Twitpic from Ian Walsh]

Schregardus was surprised because, she claims, the journalist had not been in touch to ask about her blog, or inform her that they were writing an article.

The article was based, she later explained in a new post, on a blog item penned in November:

[I] wrote a blogpost called “Women? In Air Traffic Control?”. I wrote it in response to people on Twitter and in my life who wanted to know what it was like to do my job. There aren’t many of us. Most people don’t meet many Air Traffic Controllers, and it has, in films, media, and most portrayals, been depicted as a job done mainly by men.

I tried to talk in it about what it was like for me, nearly a decade ago, being one of the first women to do my job in Ireland. I didn’t then, and do not now, think my work colleagues are “Male Chauvinist Pigs”, as the Mail headlined their article. I love my job, and the people I work with. I was talking about how I felt years ago, starting out, slightly scared and intimidated by the responsibilities that people who do my job hold in our hands.

Schregardus’ originally deleted her blog but told Journalism.co.uk that was a “knee jerk reaction” and she later realised she “had nothing to be ashamed of”.

“Luckily I had always saved my posts so I set up a blog again and copied everything back in. The only difference is that the dates on all posts is now the 24th Jan.”

[the original posting, with its correct date can be viewed in the Google cache]

Upset by the way her blog comments had been used in the Mail on Sunday, she has now contacted the newspaper to make a complaint. After speaking to a member of the newspaper, she now awaits a response.

She has also contacted the press commission, she said, and is seeking legal advice.

The Irish press council could not confirm the status of Schregardus’ complaint: “The policy of this office is that all matters relating to a complaint remain confidential until the complaints process has been concluded, when all the relevant details are published on our website,” the body said in an email to Journalism.co.uk.

Journalism.co.uk will continue to attempt to contact the Irish Mail on Sunday for further comment.

Update 28/01/10: Please see a statement later issued by the Irish Mail on Sunday at this link

Hat-tip to Alison Gow for alerting us to this story.

Listen to more about the case on the Hobson and Holtz report podcast.