A Victory! BBC agree to fund BAME journalism in same way it funds local newspapers

I am not one for hyperbole but...

...possibly the biggest development in UK media diversity was announced on Monday 21st October and nobody noticed.

In the short-run the announcement will be a lifeline to BAME (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) journalism providing them with much needed finance. But more importantly it could reshape the entire diversity debate provide a precedent for good practice for years to come.

WHAT IS THE ANNOUNCEMENT?

The BBC has got a special fund for "Local News Partnerships". It was set up in recognition that local newspapers and local journalism play an essential role in our local democracy. They expose important local stories - sometimes with national significance - that national and international media organisations just miss. And finally they provide an essential pipeline for local journalists to enter larger mainstream news outlets. But local newspapers are in financial difficulties - we cannot afford for them to go to the wall.

The BBC's fund financially supports around 140 journalists in different local newspapers to the tune of £8 million.

The BBC is not the only media organisation who recognises the importance of local journalism and supports it. Google and Facebook both have schemes to financially support local journalism and a government select committee published the Cairncross Review in February arguing the government should do the same.  

I not only support these initiatives but have argued in the past that all the reasons for supporting local news apply to supporting the "ethnic press" and BAME media organisations like; The Voice, Black Ballad, Eastern Eye, etc.

So in February after the publication of the Cairncross Review I spoke to fellow diversity champions and had meetings with BBC executives, Facebook executives and one or two MPs who had been on the government committee.

And guess what - the BBC heard us!

BAME MEDIA ORGANISATION CAN NOW GET EXTRA MONEY

  

Six months after my initial meeting with the BBC they have revised their criteria for media organisations to apply the Local News Partnership funding. 

It now states the local news provider must: 

"Target an audience typically located in a specific geographical area which is no greater than a single Nation of the UK or which targets a BAME community of the UK"

That means the Voice, Eastern Eye, Black Ballad, Gal Dem, can all now apply for funding.

IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN FUNDING A FEW BAME JOURNALISTS

The announcement however is far more important than funding just a few BAME journalists - important as that is. 

For a long time campaigners for BAME media diversity have pointed out that attempts to increase regional diversity (supporting local newspapers, producing more programmes outside of London) have been backed by real money and real jobs. While efforts to increase BAME diversity have usually been in the shape of mentoring schemes, more training, or onscreen initiatives.

Over the last twelve years efforts to increase regional diversity have been extremely successful, while efforts to increase BAME diversity behind the camera have been incremental at best.

There is also the natural tension that increases in regional diversity to areas outside London can be detrimental to the BAME community that is heavily concentrated in London. 

The BBC announcement sets a precedent that every person wanting to increase BAME diversity will be able to point to from now on.

It says that BAME diversity should be treated in exactly the same way as regional diversity  with financial support.

When the BBC and Channel 4 for example ring-fences money for regional productions it is hard to justify why no money should be ring-fenced for BAME productions if the BBC recognises this important principle with its Local News Partnerships.

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN NEXT?

In the short run the BBC needs to be applauded for what it has just done. I cannot stress enough that I went to ALL the large media organisations with schemes to support local journalism arguing that they should include BAME journalism. ONLY THE BBC CHANGED ITS POLICY.

We also now need BAME media organisations to apply for the money that is rightfully theirs. There is no point fighting for a change if we do not then follow through. Taking the money does not compromise your editorial position in anyway, all the local newspapers that take the BBC money are fiercely independent and do not hesitate to criticise the BBC when they think it is necessary.

We now need to go back to the government select committee, Google and Facebook and restate why they should follow the BBC's example.

And lastly we should argue that the BBC should not stop here. It should look at all of its policies to support regional diversity and see how they can adapt those successful methods to support not just BAME diversity but all other types of diversity including; LGBTQ+, disability and gender.

But before we do all that we might just want to go and get a drink. We don't often get wins like this one - this is worth celebrating.

Are "racist" journalists out to get Sir Mo Farah?

Is the “racist” media out to get Sir Mo Farah?

That is definitely what the Olympic multiple-gold-medalist implied at a press conference recently when asked questions about his former coach Alberto Salazar being found guilty of drug doping.

When first asked about his former coach his response was basically to say it has nothing to do with him; “The headline is Farah, Farah, Farah. There is no allegation against me. I’ve not done anything wrong. Let’s be clear – these allegations are about Alberto Salazar.”

So far, so much a sports story that I wouldn’t normally write about in this blog. But then Mo went on. 

“As much as I am nice to you, there is a clear agenda to this,” Farah said. “I have seen this many times. I have seen it with Raheem Sterling, with Lewis Hamilton. I cannot win whatever I do.”

It was clear to anybody listening to the press conference that by invoking Raheem Sterling and Lewis Hamilton, Mo was calling the media out for being racist and they were targeting him with this line of questioning because he is black.

So is Mo right? Is he the victim of a racist media?

The answer is a definite “No - but Mo is not crazy to say it” 

The press conference once again it illustrates why diversity in the media is so important and why it is almost impossible to do good journalism without it.

Let me explain why.

First I must declare an interest in the Alberto Salazar story. I was the executive producer of the original Panorama that exposed allegations about the Olympic coach and the Nike Oregon Project which Salazar ran and Mo was part of back in 2015. 

Four years later Salazar has been found guilty of using drugs as part of his coaching methods to assist athletes. 

It is of course important to note that Farah and Salazar parted ways in 2017 (two years after the Panorama investigation) and Mo Farah has never been found guilty of any doping violations. 

However it is perfectly legitimate for journalists to put questions to one of Salazar’s top athletes about the illegal coaching practices which were going on while that top athlete was under his charge.

So, in that respect Mo Farah is completely wrong to level accusations of racism.

However his sense that he is being treated unfairly and the victim of a witch-hunt are supported by most academic research and it has to do with the lack of diversity of those questioning him.

During the course of the press conference something strange happened while I am watching it on my computer. At the start Mo fills the frame, but midway through the camera zooms out to reveal some of the journalists. And yes, you’ve guessed it, they are all white. (There may have been others questioning the Olympian who were not white but they were not visible). 

I am also reminded of a picture that circulated online a few days earlier of the BBC production team that covered the World Athletics Championships in Doha. In the photograph is roughly 200 people who appear overwhelmingly white.

What you have then is a GB athletics team where black sports stars are vastly over-represented coupled with an overwhelmingly white team of broadcasters deciding the editorial decisions of what should be covered and how. This is an issue that has been raised in the UK most notably by BCOMS (Black Collective of Media in Sport).

A lot of academic studies have been done into trust in the police but I think a lot of the conclusions are transferable to trust in journalism. Numerous studies have shown that trust in the police by marginalised groups is heavily correlated with their level of representation in the force.

To put it simply, it is hard to trust in the racial impartiality of a group’s decisions if it seems unable to hire impartially.

Or to misquote a well-worn phrase “Good journalism should not only be done, but also seen to be done”.

And this is where we get into the world of hypotheticals.

Would the predominantly white journalists have asked Sir Seb Coe the same questions during the height of his athletic powers about possible doping accusations in the same way they are questioning Mo? 

Would Mo be treated differently if he were white?

The truth is we will never know.

And that is the fundamental problem with the lack of diversity. It can cause you to question the very legitimacy of good journalism.

It goes from “Mo is just playing the race card!” to “Those are some legitimate questions but would they be treating him differently if he was white?”

One last point about some of those academic studies into police trust. A lot of them found that the actions of the police didn’t actually change when they become more diverse (arrest rates etc) but trust in those actions did.

I think the BBC and other media organisations have done some great investigations into doping (I’ve been involved in some) I don’t want a cloud to hang over the hard work of those journalists just because their bosses haven't put in the hard work to increase the diversity of their workforce.

Lack of diversity may have just changed how the BBC is run forever

Who runs the BBC?

Because of the BBC’s lack of diversity the answer to that question might have changed forever on Monday 7th October 2019, and with it the shape of our democracy.

A few months ago I wrote about “grey rhino” theory. This is the idea developed by policy analyst Michele Wucker that people, organisations and even entire countries, can be slow to react to impending disasters, even when they know they are coming. 

The coming disasters are called “grey rhinos” because we can see the dust clouds of the stampeding rhino but we fail to take the necessary action until the rhino is right on top of us and it is too late.

The best example of this is climate change; scientists continue to warn us that disaster is coming (we see the clouds of dust) but it increasingly looks like we are not going to act until it is too late.

Media diversity is a perfect example of a “grey rhino”. Everybody acknowledges that a lack of diversity will have catastrophic effects and yet we seem paralysed, unable to take the necessary steps to avoid the problem.

Now here is the really interesting part of “grey rhino” theory: We may know the source of the coming disaster (climate change, lack of diversity etc) but we do not know what shape it will take.

So for example, we might know climate change is coming but we don’t really know if it will be the sea level rise that will be the real disaster or crop failure or species extinction or something else altogether that we haven’t even thought of that will be the real catastrophe. 

This is precisely what has just happened at the BBC - a grey rhino is stampeding through the corporation but it is destroying things in ways no one predicted.

The grey rhino in question is of course diversity.

When it comes to diversity the common narrative is broadcasters need to increase their diversity otherwise viewers will not see themselves reflected in the output and go to other media which more accurately reflects them. 

In short;  We see the grey rhino, we might not be reacting but we are pretty sure what he consequences will be when the grey rhino arrives. 

This analysis gave broadcasters a false sense of security because viewing figures are falling but are still relatively stable and so the grey rhino is still some way off. 

But we were all wrong.

We were right about the grey rhino, we were just completely wrong about the consequences of ignoring it.

Let me explain.

Two weeks ago the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) partially upheld a complaint against Breakfast News presenter Naga Munchetty for breaking their editorial guidelines when talking about racism in relation to Donald Trump. It would appear that the ECU is overwhelmingly male and not a single person of colour works for the ECU (although the BBC have refused to give details of the of the racial makeup of the unit).

After a small public outcry over the decision the BBC’s executive committee publicly came out in support of the ECU’s decision, and one member of the executive committee, David Jordan, made public appearances defending the decision. This point is crucial because it was no longer just an issue for the complaints’ unit but had been elevated to the BBC’s highest committee. It is also important to note that there is only one person of colour on the executive committee. 

There then followed more public outcry following the executive committee’s actions, and a piece in the Guardian which showed that David Jordan was either not in possession of all the facts when he made the public appearances to defend the decision or actively misled the public when he made his TV appearances.

At which point the Director General, Tony Hall, overruled his executive committee and said they were wrong to defend the ECU’s decision.

Again this point of the story is crucial.

For the DG to overrule a decision of one department (the ECU) is serious but hardly catastrophic. For the DG to unilaterally overrule the decision of his executive committee is possibly the most serious thing any head of a company or organisation can do.

This means that the DG has either lost faith in the judgement of his executive committee, or he has not lost faith and has only reversed the decision for political expediency.

If the former then normally some members of the executive committee would be moved to new positions as their judgement is wanting.

If it is the latter then you would expect the BBC Board - who oversees the governance of the DG and the executive committee - to step in and discipline the DG for pandering to the public and not abiding by the corporation's own rules.

Neither of these two things have happened.

And so on Monday a small earthquake happened. 

Ofcom - the UK’s media regulator stepped in.

According to the Guardian,  Ofcom told the BBC that it has “concerns about whether the public broadcaster’s complaints process could still commend the confidence of the public, not least because it could not explain on what basis - other than public outrage- the director general had overturned the original decision.” 

Kevin Backhurst, effectively the number two at Ofcom, said “We’ll be requiring the BBC to be more transparent about its process and compliance findings as a matter of urgency.”

Now I cannot express strongly enough the importance of the last two paragraphs.

In plain English what Ofcom is saying is: We are stepping in to make sure the BBC executive is governed properly. 

Telling the BBC how to run its complaints procedure and how transparent the BBC executive should be in explaining its decisions is a question of governance. Telling the DG that he needs to be accountable to explain why he overturned his executive committee is a question of governance.

What Ofcom effectively did yesterday is tell the BBC Board, who are meant to oversee governance, you are not doing your job and we have been forced to step in.

This is massive. 

It potentially changes who the BBC is accountable to. It potentially changes the independence of the BBC from being overseen by a board at arms length of the government, to a regulator with a different relationship to government. If it doesn’t change it - at the very least it clarifies the relationship in ways people had not fully appreciated.

The BBC executive sees this as a major shift in their relationship with Ofcom, as they felt the regulator had “no clear jurisdiction” to undertake some of he actions they have undertaken and told them so directly.

As the national broadcaster the BBC is a key pillar of British democracy. Whether its governance is overseen by a semi-independent board or a regulator with links to several government departments (although officially independent of government) might seem like a technical point but it effects the very nature of our democracy. 

Even if everything settles down after this, Ofcom has flexed its muscles and publicly put the DG, the executive and the board in their place. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Diversity was the grey rhino that we all knew was coming, but it has come far sooner than we all expected and for good or ill it is disrupting things in ways no one predicted.

I love the BBC and I have a lot of respect for Ofcom. Neither are perfect and maybe the changing relationship between the two is for the best. But ideally I want us to make any changes to governance and our democracy slowly and in a fully considered manner. Not for it to forced upon us by a stampeding “grey rhino”.

The first “grey rhino” is already stampeding through one media organisation, there is no doubt unless we address diversity there will be more to follow and who knows what they will trample on.

Sir Lenny Henry Speech - Fighting for Diversity is Scary

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.

I’m absolutely delighted to be here in the North of England.  Welcome to “things Boris Johnson has never said’. 

PHONE IT IN

First of all, I have a small confession to make.

Over the years I have made quite a few speeches about diversity in the media.

And believe me, it’s been a slog. In the early days, the BBC’s idea of diversity was to hire some blonde bloke who’d been to Oxford instead of Cambridge.

And so when I was first asked to give a speech, I thought it would be easy.

I would look over my previous speeches -cut a bit from the talk I gave at BAFTA – paste a bit from the one I gave at the Royal Television Society and throw in a few phrases from the last time I gave evidence to the House of Lords

I’d start off by telling you how dire the situation is : 

That only 13.6% of working TV directors are women

Only 2.3% of UK television is made by BAME directors

And only 0.3% of people working the film industry are disabled.

What does that mean? That a show was directed by a black guy’s left kneecap?

And then I’d round it all of with something inspirational and then end with a joke.

Like: Walt Disney once said “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

That’s inspirational.

Imagine how much courage it must have taken Donald Duck to go out every single day without pants.

But I’m not gonna do that today.

Seven years ago I promised myself I would never do that. I promised I would always try and speak my truth when I talked about racism or diversity or my experience in the television industry.

And I want to share a truth with you all today about talking about diversity in the media industry.

It is scary!

WHY DIVERSITY IS IMPORTANT

Doing the kind of speech I outlined earlier, quoting a few figures, saying that diversity is a good thing and everybody should be nice to one another - is easy.

But it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t achieve anything.

Hand on heart, I want the media industry specifically and Britain in general to change. I want us to become a more diverse and inclusive society

I focus on diversity in the media for two reasons

First, it’s an industry I actually know about, and second – I think it’s important for democracy and whether we can all live in peace with one another.

You can’t have freedom of speech if large parts of society are not given equal access to the media

What we see on the news determines what politicians talk about and actually do anything about .

There is not a single major news progamme - from BBC Breakfast news, The Today programme , Panorama , Dispatches - that is headed by a person of colour or a visibly disabled person. That is going to affect which stories they decide to pick and how they cover them.

And it is not just news that’s important – Drama affects us on an emotional level. It enables us to walk in the shoes of another person and understand their reality in a way factual programmes do not.

If we want to understand our diverse neighbours , if we want to be a society at peace with itself and not trying to scapegoat  one part of society or another, I believe drama is the best way to do that. 

So we need true diversity in drama. 

We need disabled people telling their stories so we can understand the world from their perspective.

We need women to have equal access to direct their own films so we can literally see the world through their eyes.

And I want BAME people to be able to create drama and comedy so you can all feel our joy and pain.

So why does talking about diversity sometimes make me scared?

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

Because as long as I just stop the speech at this point – everyone is happy. But if I want real change I have to speak truth to power.

I have to identify what powerful people are doing wrong. 

Tell them what they’re doing wrong - often publicly.

And then offer solutions that many of them might not want to hear.

And after I’ve done all of that – I’ve got to knock on their door and say

 “Hi, it’s Lenny here – that guy that was saying all that stuff? Can I have another job now?”

It is scary for all of us to speak uncomfortable truth to our bosses, but for people from diverse backgrounds: women, disabled people, BAME people  it is particularly difficult.

Study after study  has shown that women and people of colour pay a heavy price for promoting diversity .

A group of researchers studied 300 executives both male and female. They found that when men promoted diversity they received slightly higher performance ratings . They were perceived as ‘good guys’ creating a better workplace. However when female executives promoted diversity , they were perceived as nepotistic - trying to ‘advantage their own group’ and their own performance was then rated negatively.

In another study, two years ago, they found ‘women and non-white executives who advocated for diversity were rated much worse by their bosses’

I don’t want to bring you down with science but I have one more study for you, that might be even more depressing than the first two.

This study found that non-white people who had previously demonstrated a tendency to advocate for diversity  are less likely to be promoted or get a new job. In this study, the researchers sent out CVs  to prospective employers and found that  CV’s that included experiences related to their ethnicity were more likely to be passed over for jobs – even at companies that had publicly stated that they valued diversity .

That is why talking about diversity is scary.

NAGA MUNCHETTY

Just look at what happened to Naga Munchetty just now – for those of you who don’t know the story – because you’ve been living under a rock or in a cave or have BT Broadband - let me give you a little background.

On Wednesday 25th of September , the BBC’s executive complaints unit , officially found that BBC Breakfast’s presenter of colour Naga Munchetty had breached the corporations guidelines by offering a personal opinion of President Donald Trump’s comment that 4 congresswomen of colour who are American Citizens should ‘Go Back ‘ to the places from which they came ‘ 

Naga said the tweet was racist . This is true.

Naga said, “every time I have been told as a woman of colour to go back to where I came from , that was embedded in racism. This is true.

And when asked  how it made her feel she said “Furious. Absolutely furious and I can imagine lots of people in this country will be feeling absolutely furious a man in that position thinks its ok to skirt the lines by using language like that.” Again that is  true.

For speaking her truth as a woman of colour ,the BBC’s complaint unit found she had broken their editorial guidelines.

Now, I do know this: a woman of colour calling a racist tweet racist and telling the world how she has experienced racism should be applauded not chastised. 

Imagine a person in a wheel chair being criticised for talking about their experiences of disability or a trans person for talking about discrimination around their gender or Piers Morgan being attacked for saying how upset he gets whenever he sees a vegan sausage roll

Fortunately the BBC has now seen the error of its ways and reversed their ruling as of Monday - a good start in resolving the crisis - but all the same, let’s give Naga, and every journalist of colour who has stood up to racism a round of applause.

That feels good – applauding a win like that. 

But we still live in scary times when it comes to diversity, inclusion, representation. There’s a long way to go.

Because – I gave speech at Cambridge recently and I smelt complacency in the room. I sensed an element of , “ Yawn: haven’t we  been here before?” and 

“Surely we solved diversity in the TV and Film industry last  year? More Champagne Tarquin’’ 

That frightened me to death - to reiterate: representation behind the scenes, behind the camera in our industry, indeed in many industries has not been solved. 

WE ARE OUR BEST ALLIES

I’ve never spoken about this before.

But I know if I find it scary, there must be millions of other people out there who feel the same way. People, not just in TV and Film but on campuses, in schools, in office buildings and factories all over the country – issues of representation and identity affect us all.

Now as far as I know I don’t have any TV execs in the audience today who I’m trying to persuade to implement new policies. But every time I speak I do want to create change..

First of all we need allies.

If you’re a black man support your female co-worker when she’s calling out sexism

If you’re a white woman, support your black co-worker when they are advocating policies to combat ethnicity pay gaps.

And white men - well white men - just support everyone.

Ladies and Gentleman – human beings – however you identify. We must all take a stand if we want a more diverse society

Because fighting for a more inclusive, diverse better society is scary and we must support each other.

We’re all activists now - and together – we can make a better world.

Thank you.


(Printed by kind permission of Sir Lenny Henry)