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.