Britain's First Black Prime Minister?

A few months ago, one of my production team called me excitedly: “I’ve just spoken to Britain’s first black Prime Minster!”. He had just interviewed Chuka Umunna MP for the Panorama film “Carry On Banking”.  Of course, political predictions by journalists are notoriously unreliable. If the majority of journalists had been right in 2009 Hilary Clinton would be President now. However, it demonstrates that even for hardened Panorama journalists, the young black MP did make an impression.

I was reminded of that Panorama and the Umunna interview today, with the bankers’ bonuses back in the news, and the charismatic young MP seeming to be on every TV and radio news outlet.  They reminded why that one interview encapsulated all the reasons why it‘s crucial to have people from diverse backgrounds working behind the camera.

The Panorama was, as the title suggests, an investigation into bankers’ bonuses. During the  production meetings, we would think through all the relevant people that we could interview – including banking experts, small businesses, banking insiders and of course politicians. It was at one of these production meetings that I suggested we interview Chuka Umunna for the programme. At the time, he had been sitting on the Treasury Select Committee in charge of examining banking practices, and prior to that had worked in the city as a lawyer.  I also knew he was very eloquent. In short he was perfect for our programme.

Despite all of these qualities, no-one else on the production team had heard of him. To be honest, it wasn’t that surprising. He had only been an MP for 6 months, so was still relatively unknown to the majority of people.  At the same time however, I don’t think there was a single black British person interested in politics who did not know of Umunna. So I pushed my team to interview him for the Panorama, and as I anticipated, he proved to be a valuable contribution to the programme.  And obviously, he improved the programme’s on screen diversity.

What this experience proved to me was just how important it was to have people from diverse backgrounds  on production teams if we want to get the very best contributors. The fact of the matter is that while all journalists try to have as large a black book of contacts as possible, we all have different strengths and weaknesses. If all our journalists come from the same background, we will invariably have the same weaknesses and strengths in our knowledge of contributors. It is crucial to draw our journalists from as wide a pool as possible in order to make sure our strengths and knowledge on a team are as  broad and strong.

Working in Scotland news and current affairs I regularly see the benefits of this diversified strategy. Scottish journalists regularly know of contributors that might escape our London based colleagues. For example, the majority of Scots are very aware of Margo MacDonald’s campaign to change the laws on assisted suicide. She is a politician, an MS sufferer and in most Scottish circles considered a “national treasure”. When my Scottish team were pulling together an excellent Panorama – shown in the whole of the UK – on assisted suicide called “I’ll Die When I Choose”, Margo MacDonald was the obvious choice for presenter. But I think it would be fair to say that not many London colleagues would have thought of working with Margo MacDonald on the film. I don’t think it is controversial to say my Scottish colleagues are more aware of potential Scottish contributors and issues than journalists who do not live in Scotland.

But it’s not just important to have people from diverse backgrounds in the production team.  They also need to be in positions of power and influence. Trying to persuade my team that they should interview Chuka Ummuna,a contributor they had never heard of, was certainly difficult. But as the executive producer, ultimately they did as I said. If I had been a researcher with the same suggestion and knowledge, I’m not sure my suggestion would have gone that far.

Following his interview in our Panorama programme – his first on a network current affairs programme – Ummuna is now on our screens and on the radio pretty consistently. You definitely no longer need to be from a diverse background and take a special interest in BME politicians to know of him. However, every time I think of that interview, I wonder how many other great “next Prime Minsters” as my colleague put it, be they black, Asian, disabled or come from any manner of diverse background, aren’t making it to the screen.  And whether that’s simply because the production teams aren’t as diverse the population we make programmes for.

Would You Like A Blindfold Next Time You’re Interviewed For A Job?

Filming starts this week on the BBC’s new big Saturday night family entertainment show “The Voice”. These are the kind of shows that can be the lifeblood of a broadcaster delivering huge audiences. Think X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. The Voice boasts an all star cast including Jessie J, Will.i.am and the living legend Tom Jones.

“The Voice” is a talent show similar in vein to Britain’s Got Talent but with one big difference. The judges have their backs to the contestants not being able to see them. The idea is that the judges’ sole focus will be on the singers’ voices. Appearance, gender, age, race, levels of beauty none of that will matter as the programme emphasises the only thing that should matter in a “talent competition” the contestants’ “talent”.

I’ve never entered a talent competition, and anyone who has ever heard me on a Karaoke night would laugh at the very idea, but I am sure like most people working in television we can all relate to going to interviews and the focus not being solely on our “talent”. A simple look at employment figures across the industry would suggest that consciously or subconsciously issues of race, gender, and disability play a role in deciding who are offered jobs. People from diverse backgrounds simply do not fare as well in interviews.

So could we copy BBC’s new Saturday night show “The Voice” and start holding “blind” interviews? This may not be as ridiculous as it first sounds. 

In the 1970’s approximately just 10% of new hires at major U.S orchestras were women. The justification put forward by those in positions of power was that “women were just not very good musicians”. But suspecting prejudice was at play the musicians’ unions insisted that orchestras should hold “blind” auditions, the applicants would play behind a curtain, concealing their appearance and gender. The results were striking. By the 1980’s half of new recruits to the New York Philharmonic were women, 40% in the San Francisco Symphony and a third in Boston and Chicago. Although this cannot be put down solely to the implementation of blind auditions studies by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin and Princeton’s Cecelia Rouse show blind auditions heavily increased the chances of women being hired.

As someone working in television and interested in diversity what concerns me the most is that playing an instrument is a relatively objective technical skill, far more so than the “soft skills” researchers, producers and TV executives are judged on. And so if prejudice can play such a large role in judging whether someone can play an instrument, that auditioning behind a screen can make such a difference, what subconscious prejudices are at play each time someone goes for a job interview in the media?

Now I am not suggesting that the BBC and all the other broadcasters and production companies start conducting interviews behind a screen or with the interview panel turning their backs to the candidate as in The Voice. However other industries have started to realise that a certain degree of “blindness” can be a good thing in their recruitment. 

In the first round of interviews for some Medical Schools and Business Schools the interview panel are not given the applicants’ Resumes to ensure that they concentrate on the interviewee’s answers and are not prejudiced by whether the person went to the “right” school or any other such irrelevant facts. And two years ago research commissioned by the Department of Work And Pensions suggested that CV’s for government posts should strip away surnames to avoid prejudice against people from Asian and African backgrounds.

The Voice will start broadcasting on BBC1 later in the year. As with any big Saturday evening entertainment show there is a lot riding on it for the channel. But for those of us trying to increase the diversity in the media there might be more than one reason to tune in and who knows this show might, in the classic BBC Reithian tradition, educate as well as entertain.

Why Doreen Lawrence Is My Hero

I love Doreen Lawrence. In a world of few heroes and role models (especially for a hardened cynical journalist such as myself) Doreen is a real inspiration.  Her son Stephen was stabbed and killed in Eltham, south east London, in April 1993 by a gang of racists.  After a long, 18 year struggle for justice, this week two of those racists were finally jailed for that act. But over that same period, I’ve also noticed that despite her heroism, for many working in the world of TV and newspapers Doreen is also a real “problem”.

Over the past 18 years, there have been numerous documentaries and News specials produced and aired, focused on the murder of Stephen Lawrence and Doreen’s fight to bring his killers to justice. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a couple of these, and for the others I’ve usually known most of the people working on the productions. But in nearly all of these documentaries and news programmes, at some stage, I have heard the director or producer say “Doreen is a problem”, or use other words to that effect.

This “problem” is always the same. But before I explain what the problem is exactly, let me give you some background.

If you really study them, most documentaries and news and current affairs are quite formulaic. Possibly the easiest and most common formula is the “Goodie - Baddie – Victim” formula. For example, the baddie might be racist police, the victim the black person on the receiving end of the racism, and the goodie the outsider that comes to denounce the racism and solve the problem (sometimes the reporter themselves). This formula is played out time and time again, from elderly people falling victim to consumer scams, to victims of war crimes in the Congo or other countries.

However, for this formula to work well, the baddies need to be really bad and the goodies need to be really good. And crucially, the victims need to be sympathetic people clearly in need of rescuing. They might be resilient and able to take on incredible hardship, but at the same time they also need to be “downtrodden”, “beaten up”, and emotionally “destroyed”.  The formula works even better when a victim goes so far as to cry on camera, showing just how helpless they are and feel.

When it comes to reporting racism, black people are invariably portrayed in the role of downtrodden, passive victims. The underlying journalism to uncover the story might be excellent, but to best attract and engage TV viewers, the characterization often ends up being more like pantomime.

And this is why Doreen Lawrence is a “problem” for many TV producers. She single-handedly destroys this neat journalistic formula. Here is a “victim” who is not beaten. Here is a woman who has lost her son but refuses to cry on television. Here is a woman who will not let us see her broken. When the Lawrence’s lost their private prosecution in 1996, Doreen refused to attend the press conference and locked herself away. It was only when the jury finally found Gary Dobson and David Norris guilty a few days ago that she allowed herself to softly cry in the public court room, before composing herself to then face the media outside.

But, most importantly, Doreen is both the goodie and the victim at the same time. She doesn’t need saving by a benign goodie outsider – who has been, in many other past circumstances, often white.  She made clear that she can save herself. She took on the police, the judicial system and wider British society - and this week her labour finally bore fruit.

While Doreen’s fight to achieve justice for her son Stephen has been incredibly remarkable in so many ways, just as amazing is how she has been able to take on the media and beat them at their own game.  She has confounded the simple stereotype of a long-suffering, passive victim and the easy narratives in which journalists and TV producers try and fit stories of racism into. She has constructed a new paradigm in which journalists must view her and other “victims” of racism.  Having worked in the media for almost twenty years, and knowing how difficult it is to change the industry and innovate, I’m not sure which fight was harder.

Whatever the case, as a journalist, this new paradigm that Doreen has created is the key reason she is my hero.  And I hope that in the coming years we will begin to see her new, more difficult but also more subtle and grown-up paradigm better reflected in programmes that aim to deal with racism and its effects.

Stephen Lawrence And What Every Journalist Needs To Know

Yesterday evening, nine of my friends choked back tears as they watched the moving Panorama Special on the conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence over 18 years ago. It was an incredibly moving piece of journalism as it followed Stephen’s mother, Doreen Lawrence, over the past year as the case against the two murderers was reopened and their eventual conviction on 3rd January 2012.

The Panorama special also charted the larger story of how the Lawrence’s have fought for justice for over 18 years – and how that fight has changed British society forever. Their struggle was marked by numerous different events – from Nelson Mandela taking up the cause in 1993 a few weeks after Stephen’s death, to the failed private prosecution in 1996, and the Macpherson Inquiry that ushered in the phrase “Institutional Racism” into everyday parlance.

But as someone interested in diversity, television and journalism the part of the story I paid closest attention to happened on 14th February 1997. On that day, the Daily Mail’s front page showed pictures of the five white men thought to have killed Stephen, accompanied with the headline: “Murderers: The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us”.

It is possibly the Daily Mail’s most famous front page, and marked a major event in itself by increasing the general public’s awareness of the case. The Daily Mail’s Editor Paul Dacre has said that some people even argue that it was this front page that prompted the Labour Party – who were then in opposition – to promise to hold a Public Inquiry when they came into power later that year. It is a headline that every journalist and anyone interested in diversity in the media should be aware of.

However, the story behind the headline is even more intriguing. According to the renowned journalist Nick Davies in his book “Flat Earth News” one of the reasons the Daily Mail took its strong stance was because – purely by chance – Neville Lawrence (Stephen’s father) had done some plastering in Dacre’s house. Davis argues that it was this personal connection that made the Editor look at the case favourably and publish the historic headline.

History often hangs on these kinds of chance meetings. If Neville had accepted another plastering job would the Daily Mail have run the same headline? And if there had been no headline, would Tony Blair and the Labour Party, who were always acutely aware of the Daily Mail’s opinion, have ordered the judicial inquiry? And if that inquiry hadn’t happened, would the legal and policing reforms have taken place to enable the two convictions to finally take place, 18 years later? The truth is, we will never know.

But what the story behind the historic headline does reveal is the importance of personal contact with people in positions of editorial responsibility. The reality is that more diverse the people with editorial control are the more likely it is that they will have social and professional contact with others from diverse backgrounds and hear their stories.

The Daily Mail headline may have changed history, but I don’t want us to have to wait for another editor’s house to need plastering before more historic headlines that fight racism and challenge the status quo are printed. And the only way that will be achieved is if more people from diverse backgrounds work in the media.