Are Black People In Need Of Charity?

Two of my best journalists are currently working on an investigation into a possible miscarriage of justice. It is still in production so I can’t write too much about it but we are investigating whether an innocent man could be serving time for a number of murders that he didn’t do. In plain English: An innocent man may have been wrongly convicted as a serial killer.

You can imagine it is a big story.

Behind the headlines I hope will follow the programme’s broadcast however is another story. A story that may serve as a lesson for people interested in increasing diversity in the media.

The “miscarriage of justice” story was first brought to our attention through the work of a UK charity working with prisoners. Charities obviously have their own agendas and so as journalists we can not take their work on face value. A lot of my team’s work has been to make sure we report the story as objectively as possible and subject it to the same level of journalistic scrutiny we would to any other investigation.

However investigative journalists using charities and NGO’s seem to be a growing trend. In October 2010, two Guardian front-page investigations originated from NGO’s, BBC’s Panorama investigation into e-waste being dumped in Africa relied heavily on the charity Environmental Investigations Agency and when I watch documentaries on Al Jazeera I regularly play “spot the charity” they rely on NGO’s so much.

I believe that when it comes to increasing diversity in the media we could learn from this charity model. In the last six months the one investigative story covering BME issues that really caught my eye was how British teachers are failing black middle-class pupils. (It was reported in both the Daily Mail and The Guardian). However this investigation did not come out of any work journalists did but arose out of the hard work of academics and researchers working at the Institute of Education. You’ve guessed it the Institute of Education is a registered charity.

With shrinking budgets in newsrooms and across conventional media generally the question is; Are we looking in the wrong direction when it comes to increasing diversity? Instead of always looking at directly changing large media companies should we be trying to influence charities or even setting up charities of our own? Instead of smaller media budgets always being seen as an obstacle to increasing diversity could it be an opportunity?

According to Paul Lashmar, the Acting Head of Journalism at Brunel University, “NGOs have started hiring investigative journalists to provide the media with material that they are no longer willing to fund”. He wasn’t talking about increasing coverage of diversity issues but if other charities can see this as an opportunity should people interested in diversity be setting up charities with the agenda of uncovering great stories around disability, race, ethnicity, sexuality or class?

In the next few weeks my current affairs team should have a great programme based on the initial research by a charity into a possible miscarriage of justice. If another NGO can give me a great story that increases my diversity on screen it won’t be out of charity that I will be taking it on board.