WHY THE BBC GOT IT WRONG WITH ITS NEW EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

 

I was baptised a Catholic and the last time I was in Venice I attended a Catholic church service. I do not necessarily believe in the church’s views on abortion.

I have gone to Black Lives Matters events and have used the hashtag #BLM on some of my tweets. I do not necessarily believe in defunding the police.

Both things are key to forming my racial identity and religious belief, and are intrinsic parts of my identity and even recognised and protected in British law. They are qualitatively and quantitatively different from how I voted in the Brexit referendum and whether I think Boris Johnson is doing a good job as Prime Minister.

I mention this because the BBC seems to have misunderstood this fundamental point in the new editorial guidelines it announced on Thursday and the subsequent furore over whether journalists can attend Pride events, Black Lives Matter marches, or “controversial” political demonstrations.

First a little context:

The new BBC guidelines are really in response to two things:

1. Social media use in a post-Brexit / "Culture war” world.

2. The BBC recently getting it dramatically and publicly wrong on two big editorial issues; the N-word, and Naga Munchetty talking about Donald Trump.

Now, the two most prominent voices who told them they had got it wrong, and were proved right, on Naga and N-word were Afua Hirsch and me. We are both very approachable people and have done work for the BBC subsequently. It is a shame that the BBC did not consult with either of us before they published the new guidelines because if they had both of us could have told them that they have misunderstood a fundamental philosophical point.

The concept of "protected characteristics".

The Equality Act of 2010 outlines 9 protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation

The new BBC guidelines are an attempt to improve the public’s perception of the corporation’s impartiality and objectivity, especially when it comes to its journalism.

The guidelines set out whether its journalists can publicly tweet about Brexit or attend an anti-war rally (for example) and how that might affect perceptions of journalistic impartiality, and for the most part I agree with them, and they clarify some important points in the new media landscape and the role social media plays.

However what they fail to do is recognise the importance of diversity and the principle of protected characteristics as set out in law.

A gay person attending a Pride event can effectively be part of their identity (irrespective of how “controversial” some of the floats or speakers may or may not be), and is therefore fundamentally different from someone attending a Brexit rally or Animal Rights march however strongly they may feel about these issues. Sexuality is a protected characteristic - political beliefs are not.

Once you frame the debate in terms of “protected characteristics” it becomes quite straightforward and simple. Religion is a protected characteristic. It is very different for me, as a Catholic, to go to church where the bishop may tell me abortion is wrong versus me going to a non-religious anti-abortion or pro-life rally.

Similarly Black Lives Matter rallies are part of my identity as a black British man.

In many ways the BBC guidelines were not really broken before and intelligent managers interpreted them along the lines I have outlined above. They might not have intellectually articulated the distinction between public comments and events that are part of a person's protected characteristics versus ones that aren't, but they kind of knew it instinctively.

For most people who have to grapple with the role their protected characteristics play in their daily lives and at work this comes almost naturally. The problem is some BBC managers in positions of editorial control have not been acting intelligently over some of these matters, and far too few of them come from backgrounds where their protected characteristics can be a negotiation with the majority society.

Now we have a thoroughly modern term for all of this; “diversity and inclusion”.

That is why we say diversity and inclusion needs to be baked into a company's policies at the very start. You cannot just roll out (editorial) policies that are fit for heterosexual able-bodied white men and then think they can apply to all people universally.

The flaws in the new guidelines are actually symptomatic of a far wider issue at the corporation and that is the lack of diversity and inclusion at the very top of the organisation, and among the people who decide on its editorial policies and direction.

BBC, with the greatest of respect, you have made a mistake with your new editorial guidelines and how you are interpreting them. If you want to revise them again my door is still open, happy to talk any time. But, for a long-term solution diversity and inclusion at the top of the organisation needs to change.



UPDATE 16.07.2021

I have received comments asking me: If we take attending #Black Lives Matter as being part of black people's protected characteristics does that mean only black BBC journalists have the right to attend #BLM events?

Extending the religious argument I made at the start of the piece that I have the right to attend church as a Christian, it is similarly recognised that I should be allowed to attend Mosque or Synagogue - even if I am not Muslim or Jewish - it is basic human right. And so similarly, BBC journalists of every race should be able to attend Black Lives Matter events.

However, I think the argument has moved on since I wrote the blog piece nine months ago. With the England football team taking the knee before matches at the EUROs it is now broadly recognised that taking the knee, and other symbols associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, are simply symbols of anti-racism and are not advocating any specific Party political cause. Once this is accepted, attending Black Lives Matter events or taking the knee falls under the basic rights set out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights under Article 2 which states; "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race" and Article 7 "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law."

Or to put it more simply: If it is good enough for the England football team, I think it is good enough for the BBC's journalists.

Reporting Racism: Will The BBC Be Up To The Task Of Reporting On The US Election Results?

 

As the US presidential election draws close we are possibly entering the most contentious racially sensitive time in political reporting. The question is: Is the BBC up to the task and has it learnt from its previous mistakes when reporting racism? 

A year ago the BBC admitted it made a mistake. 

The BBC director general at the time, Tony Hall, unilaterally reversed the decision to partially uphold a complaint against Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty for supposedly breaching BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality. 

Munchety had commented on a tweet by President Donald Trump telling four female politicians of colour to "go back" to "places from which they came", saying in her experience “every time I have been told, as a woman of colour, to go back to where I came from, that was embedded in racism.”

Tony Hall not only over-ruled the findings of the BBC’s executive complaints unit (ECU), and the conclusion of the BBC’s own editorial policy unit, but he also over-ruled an open email by the BBC’s executive committee supporting the ECU's decision . 

Everybody at the highest level of the BBC had come to the wrong conclusion with regards to an editorial decision around racism and it took people like myself and other independent figures to air our concerns publicly for the director general to reverse that decision.

I raise this not to chastise the BBC for making a mistake. All organisations, big and small, make mistakes and to have the humility to recognise a mistake is important. I raise the episode because I fear the BBC has not learnt from the mistake and could repeat it again.

Learning From Our Mistakes

The media regulator, Ofcom, looked at the BBC’s original decision and the decision of the director general to over-rule the decision. They expressed “‘serious concerns around the transparency of the BBC’s complaints process”.

In short, the concerns was the BBC had only reversed its decision due to political expediency facing a backlash by almost every major Black and Asian media figure in the television industry and over 40 MPs.

This concern is exemplified by the fact that the BBC publicly went out of its way - before Tony Hall reversed the decision - to explain why an open letter penned by myself, Afua Hirsch and others, and signed by major industry figures including Sir Lenny Henry, was wrong. But after the decision was over-ruled the BBC did not publicly explain the editorial reasoning for its new position. This was an example of the corporation's lack of transparency. 

This goes to the root of why editorial decisions, and governance around journalism organisations is different from governance around other types of organisations. 

Editorial decisions, and the guiding principles that form them, are the DNA of a news organisation. A director general over-ruling an editorial decision is not like a CEO simply overruling a marketing strategy at a soft drinks company of whether to roll out a new flavour. 

Over-ruling an editorial decision brings into question the guiding values that a news organisation operates under and how its journalists do their jobs. No one, not even the director general, should be able to over-rule an editorial decision without explaining the theoretical underpinnings of their decision - this is precisely why the BBC has codified its editorial principles in a set of guidelines. 

Why is this important?

The BBC's  editorial guidelines enable its journalists and content creators to know how to make difficult editorial decisions. Importantly the BBC’s editorial guidelines are publicly available so members of the public can judge the BBC’s editorial decisions against them. 

Coming to the wrong decision over Naga Munchetty means either the BBC’s editorial guidelines were wrong or they were interpreted incorrectly. 

Naga Munchetty has personally stated that she think "lessons have been learned" from the experience but a year on the BBC has neither rewritten its guidelines nor issued public guidance on how its guidelines should be interpreted differently when it comes to issues of racism and impartiality. Which means a journalist joining the corporation today will be none the wiser how the rules governing their journalism is different today than it was before the Naga Munchetty episode.

There is clearly a B.N. (“Before-Naga-Munchetty-Decision”) interpretation of what constitutes impartiality when it comes to racism, and A.N. (After-Naga-Munchetty-Decision). At best  BBC executive producers and journalists are having to figure that out for themselves, at worst they are being told secretly what it means, which goes against the entire principle of transparency when it comes to the BBC’s editorial guidelines. 

How To Make Great Journalism 

The US presidential election is now just days away and irrespective of the outcome it is highly likely that the issue of race will play an important role in any reporting around the results. How BBC journalists will be able to report on it and what they can and cannot say will be heavily determined on how they interpret the BBC’s editorial guidelines.

The fear is not that BBC journalists breach the corporation’s editorial guideline, but in many ways the exact opposite. That not knowing how the BBC has changed its editorial position post A.N. they play it safe. The journalists will fear to challenge and call out racism and racist actions when they see them and they will effectively not hold power to account.

BBC’s editorial guidelines give the corporation's journalists confidence in how far to push boundaries and how to interpret difficult concepts like objectivity and impartiality.

In failing to explain WHY it got its editorial decision around Naga Munchetty wrong I believe it has made the work of many of its journalists in the coming weeks and months in reporting the presidential election a lot harder.  

UPDATE: A day after publishing this blog post the BBC published new editorial guidelines. Although they did not mention Naga Munchetty by name in any of the supporting material that accompanied its release it is clear to most observers that it sought to address some of the issues raised by the Naga Munchetty affair and impartiality when reporting racism. 

Unfortunately by not directly addressing the Naga Munchetty issue they have still not clearly explained how their editorial position has changed and it seems that far from clarifying the issue they have simply reinforced their original  position and raised more issues, as journalists now appear to be banned from attending Gay Pride events without prior consent of their managers. 

Why We Need To Know The Diversity Of The Individual Programmes We Watch

This week the BBC’s new Director General, Tim Davie, weighed-in on one of the most contentious issues in UK media diversity, although I am not sure he realised it 

The issue at hand is how should the industry report its media diversity statistics?

So what did Davie say and why is this so controversial (and why should I care)?

All will be revealed...

Speaking at an Ofcom sponsored event the Director General trumpeted the BBC’s renewed energy to address underrepresentation and diversity of the people who make the BBC’s programmes. "Now, if you’re making a production for the BBC, we expect a diverse production crew. We all looked at some of those (crew) wrap shots. You just look at it and you go, that is not acceptable. So, you just intervene. You have to intervene. And that is where we can act." 

The pictures he was referring to are well known throughout the industry and their “infamy” are almost exclusively due to the hard work of former Royal Television Society CEO Simon Albury.

Simon Albury regularly collects and posts end of production photographs (wrap shots) where the entire crew of a production comes together to document their time as a team working together. What the pictures invariably reveal is the lack of ethnic diversity and people with visible disabilities working on productions. Albury posts these pictures on social media under the hashtag #DiversityFail.

So what is the controversy that Davie has (possibly) inadvertently walked into? He has seen pictures evidencing the lack of diversity behind the camera and is acting to address the problem. That does not seem too controversial, that just seems like responsible leadership. 

However, the pictures are controversial because they show what diversity looks like on actual programme productions - in the industry jargon this is called “programme level” data - and it is because of seeing “programme level” diversity that the Director General says he was moved to act - not because of broader industry wide data.

At this point I can almost hear half the people reading this blog post who work in UK TV diversity shouting “Yes! That is what I am talking about!!”, while the other half (if they are still reading) have all let out a collective groan.

Whether to publish granular programme level data or to publish data in broad industry wide categories is a highly polarised debate in the UK television industry and it is mainly down to a reporting mechanism called “Project Diamond” overseen by the Creative Diversity Network (CDN).

Without getting into all the statistical weeds CDN collects data on who is working on TV productions and then publishes that data (there are issues around the robustness of the data it collects and you can read about that in a previous post) but a big controversy is how it should publish that data. On one side all the UK entertainment trade unions say they should publish programme level data while on the other side CDN and the British broadcasters, who financially support CDN, say that they either cannot and/or should not publish programme level data and instead should publish broad industry wide data looking at more general trends.

The controversy and arguments has become so entrenched that the unions now advise their members not to fill out the Diamond diversity reporting forms.

So, who is right, the trade unions or CDN?

Despite working in media diversity it is a question I have so far avoided answering.

But it now seems that Tim Davie has answered the question for me. If we want real change we need some degree of programme level data. It is the visual representation of programme level data that has moved him to action.

I am still going to sidestep whether CDN and Diamond should be the method by which this programme level data is collected and published. But what Tim Davie has proved is there is now no question of the merits of policy makers and media executives being able to see programme level data and for that to be in the public domain. General industry wide level data even if it is broken down into sub-categories and genres  doesn’t seem to have the same impact. 

One last point, I have a lot of respect and admiration for Simon Albury and the work he does, but our industry cannot rely on one man posting wrap pictures on his social media account to improve media representation.

Retention! Retention! Retention! - How UK’s Media Can Solve Its Diversity Problems

Retention! Retention! Retention!

The only three words anyone wanting to increase diversity and representation in the media need to know. 

Last week David “Sideman” Whitely, a DJ and presenter on BBC1’s Radio 1Xtra resigned from the corporation citing the broadcaster’s use and, possibly more importantly, defence of the use of the N-word.

His resignation made both national and international news being reported in almost every major British news publication as well as in the New York Times and across Africa. Within 24 hours of his resignation the BBC dramatically reversed its decision and admitted it had made a mistake and instituted a new editorial process. 

There has been a lot of discussion around the rights and wrongs of the BBC’s use of the N-word and what prompted the BBC to reverse its initial decision. These discussions are important however I want to focus on an aspect of recent events that might seem more mundane at first but I believe is more important if we really want to increase racial representation in the UK media in general and the BBC specifically.

Black People Keep Leaving The BBC

David “Sideman” Whitely is not the first Black person to resign from the BBC.

Other Black people may have not resigned in such dramatic fashion and their departure might not have made global news but every year Black people leave the BBC in greater numbers than their White counterparts. If one looks at the statistics the BBC has hemorrhaged Black and Asian talent. 

In 2016 the situation became so bad that The Times ran a piece headlined, “Black and Asian executives quit ‘snowy white peak’ BBC” describing “an exodus of ethnic minority executives and staff” (I was part of that infamous cohort of departing execs).

Unlike Sideman’s resignation, there is rarely one event that Black people can point to for the reason they leave. Angela Ferriera, another Black senior executive who left the BBC, described the reasons Black people leave, not just the BBC but the whole industry, recently in a webinar comment to Kevin Lygo, the head of ITV Studios, “..people were either worn out, sidelined, glass ceilinged, patronised, had a nervous breakdown, or all of these and left the industry”.

Has There Been Progress?

Most of us working in the industry know on an intellectual level that the BBC, and media industry, has a retention problem but sometimes the scale of the problem is difficult to fully grasp on an emotional level.

This was brought home to me when the organisation “We Are Black Journos”, decided to do a Tweet thread highlighting and celebrating the Black people currently working at the BBC. It is a great thread and I recommend that people should click through the link and follow everyone of the people featured. 

But it also made me realise that twenty years ago, before social media, we could have made an equally impressive list of Black people working at the BBC and so I started to post my own list of Black people who were working at the corporation twenty years ago. Other people saw what I was doing and started sending me more names. I tried to keep the criteria of the list quite tight - so they had to be working at the corporation for a sizable amount of time and have been employed on or around twenty years ago.

You can check out the current list on Twitter (which keeps on growing) here.

Interestingly, although direct comparisons between the “veterans” list and the present Black BBC employees list is difficult, what is notable is the veterans list seems to contain senior editorial positions such as Channel Executives, Department Heads and Commissioners at a far greater level. And importantly the vast majority of people on the veterans list have not reached retirement age and so all things being equal would be at the height of their powers now.

But my point is not to pitch one generation against the other. 

Retention Is Key To Solving Diversity

For me the veterans list is a graphic example of how important retention is when it comes to diversity.

If the BBC had simply been able to retain the talent in the “veterans” list, combined with the current Black employees the corporation’s “diversity problems” would be literally halved. But it is not just about numbers. As I alluded to earlier, looking at the positions Black people were at when they left, and assuming standard career progression, you could argue the BBC wouldn’t have a “diversity problem” at all, at least with regards to ethnic diversity. You would have a critical mass of senior Black people who would naturally address many of the diversity issues the BBC is currently grappling with.

Sideman’s resignation may have caused the BBC to apologise and reverse its decision on the use of the N-word, but what it should also do is focus the corporation's attention on retention.  Because Sideman’s resignation meant one less Black employee at the BBC and the truth is... they just keep on adding up. 

How the BBC can solve its N-word problem

Apologies are good - solutions that fix the problem for good are better.

Over the course of less than a week the BBC broadcast two incidents of their presenters using the N-word (see my last blog post for details).

Ofcom (the industry regulator) has confirmed that they have received almost 400 complaints for its use in the BBC news programme and the BBC has received 18,600 complaints so far and counting. There have been calls for the BBC to apologise, a petition organised, and some established Black actors have even called for the people involved in taking the editorial decision to be sacked.  

At the same time the BBC has not only refused to apologise but issued a statement explaining their editorial reasoning behind their decision to use the word in the news programme and why they stand by the decision. It should be noted that Lucy Worsley, the presenter of American History’s Biggest Fibs, who also used the N-word, did issue a public apology in a personal capacity.  

There is also the argument that the incidents illustrate the lack of non-White people at the BBC in positions of editorial responsibility making these kinds of decisions. An argument I support and continue to campaign for. But the reality is this is unlikely to change any time soon to a significant degree.   

So where does this leave us?

One side arguing for the corporation to apologise and for those responsible to be disciplined while those on the other side (mainly BBC management) standing firm by their decision and refusing to admit any fault. 

While I think the BBC should issue a formal apology I also believe this may be the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the old adage “never let a good crisis go to waste”. The phrase was popularised by the American Democratic politician Rahm Emanual, and the full quote is; “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” So what is the “thing” that needs to be done that we thought could not be done before?

The BBC needs to write formal procedures into its editorial guidelines as to how to deal with racial slurs.

Currently there are only three words which warrant mandatory referral to higher editorial consideration and must be approved by the relevant channel controller/editor before they are broadcast. These are; “c***, m*****f***** and f*** or its derivatives”. 

The guidelines state: “Any proposal to use the strongest language (c***, m*****f***** and f*** or its derivatives) must be referred to and approved by the relevant channel controller/editor, who should consider the editorial justification. Editorial Policy may also be consulted.” (my use of asterisks)

Now is the perfect opportunity to insert a new line into the guidelines to address the issue of the N-word and the explicit use of other racial slurs. 

The new updated guidelines would simply state; “Any proposal to use the strongest language (c***, m*****f***** and f*** or its derivatives) or use explicit racial slurs including n***** and p*** must be referred to and approved by the relevant channel controller/editor, who should consider the editorial justification. Editorial Policy may also be consulted.”

Ideally any such decision would also have the input of at least one person of colour.

Now you might wonder why I am focusing so much on the BBC Editorial Guidelines. The reason is that all the UK’s Public Service Broadcasters including ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 use the BBC’s guidelines as a reference for their own editorial decisions and practices. And so how the BBC decides to address this issue will affect the whole of UK broadcasting.

The BBC made a mistake in broadcasting the N-word. 

I believe they should apologise. 

But using this opportunity to create a system where this cannot happen again could be the silver-lining to a very ugly cloud.

I made a BBC presenter apologise for the use of the N-Word in 2014. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now

In the last week alone, the N-word has been broadcast in two separate programmes on the BBC.

The first during a news report about a racist attack against an NHS worker, in which Fiona Lamdin, a white journalist, used it in reported speech. The second time a few days later in the repeat of the programme, American History’s Biggest Fibs, in which white presenter Lucy Worsley used the word, quoting a historical figure.

The BBC was wrong on both occasions to broadcast the word.

How can I be so confident and definitive in saying so?

Because I worked at the BBC for 24 years, the last eight of them as a senior executive. I am fully aware that BBC itself says use of strong words in general are wrong in its own editorial guidelines under section 5: “Harm and Offence”.

The guidelines state: “Programmes broadcast on UK television between 5.30am and 9pm must be suitable for a general audience including children.” and goes on to say “any proposed exceptions must be referred to the channel controller/editor.”

The news report of the racist attack was aired at 10.30am, “American History’s Biggest Fibs” was aired at 8.00pm.

I do not think I am being controversial when I say that the N-word is not “suitable for a general audience including children”. One can argue that there might be times when racial slurs, just like some of the worst swear words, are editorially justified in a programme after 21.00, (personally I don’t think either of the two examples warranted it). But you need to take a pretty radical stance to justify the use of the word when it is assumed children could be watching.

So how could the BBC make such a bad mistake – twice?

Breaching their own editorial guidelines – twice?

To answer that, I want to share a little story.

Six years ago I was the editor of Scotland 2014. The programme was a nightly political programme that replaced Newsnight in Scotland during the independence referendum. One night, we had an item on racism in the country and one of the nice liberal guests used the N-word to supposedly illustrate his point of how abhorrent the word is – bear in mind this was live and after 10.30pm when children have all gone to bed. When the word was used, I was in the back of the studio gallery. I was not only the most senior editorial figure on duty but I was also the only non-white person.

I told the presenter to immediately go to the next item which was a short film. While the film was running I explained to the studio guests that they can’t use that language and when the film finished, the presenter then apologised to the viewers for any offence caused – while still acknowledging the point the guest was trying to make.

The whole affair lasted a few minutes and it is now just an anecdote I sometimes tell at dinner parties.

However, the story is incredibly rare.

It is very uncommon that the most senior editorial figure on a British television news production is black and understands the full meaning of the word on both an analytical and emotional level.

To my knowledge, there is not a single major television news bulletin on the BBC, Channel 4 or ITV where the editor-in-chief is black, Asian or from an ethnic minority. In fact, there is not a single major television current affairs programme, such as Panorama or Dispatches, where the top executive producer or editor in charge behind the scenes has been a non-white person.

But the issue goes deeper than news and current affairs.

The 2020 Bafta Television Awards were recently lauded for its range of ethnically diverse winners including “When They See Us” for best international television and The End Of The F***ing World's Naomi Ackie for best supporting actress. However, just two weeks prior, Bafta held their “Craft Awards” for the directors and writers and people who actually make the programmes. Not a single winner came from an Asian or Black background.

And so, what you have at the BBC specifically, and in British television in general, is a situation where remarkably, few of the key editorial decision-makers who rule on racially sensitive issues, from the use of the N-word to how to cover Black Lives Matter protests, are non-white.

It has created a situation where veteran news reporter Jon Snow lamented the inability of journalists to cover the issues surrounding Grenfell before it burned down due to the media’s “own lack of diversity”. An ineptitude which some would say resulted in the deaths of 72 people, the majority of whom were non-white, in so much as good journalism on a respected platform often causes issues to be addressed.

It is important for all of us to hold our national broadcaster to account when it makes mistakes. Use of the N-word is a case in point.

But if we want all of our media to stop making these kinds of mistakes, we must go to the root cause, and that is to ensure that there is better representation of people from all different backgrounds in positions of real editorial power. The consequences of failing to make that happen can be and often are a lot worse than broadcasting the N-word when children could be listening.

(This piece originally appeared in the Independent comment section.  https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bbc-n-word-lamdin-worsley-apology-racism-black-a9652876.html )

People of Colour Face Burn Out As Companies Ask Them To Work For Free to Combat Racism

On May 25th George Floyd was killed by a policeman in the US.

One of the most widespread responses by companies and organisations around the world has been to ask Black people to work for free to work out their corporate response to the tragedy, and their general policies when it comes to race.

That is right. A Black man is killed. Black people are traumatised by the episode. And the most widespread response is to get Black people to work for free. 

This phenomenon is not new and even has a name: “Cultural taxation” 

The term was first coined by Prof. Amado Padilla from Stanford University in 1994. It is a  way of describing the extra workload that is placed on people from ethnic minorities to help companies and organisations combat racism, but importantly the individuals are expected to do this extra work for free.   

“Cultural taxation” prays on non-White people’s desire to create a better world when it comes to combating racism but they are made to do it in the service of an organisation, and ultimately bring accolades and benefit to the organisation in question.

In effect non-White people are being asked to do consultancy work, demonstrating knowledge of their cultural group and specific issues, for free. 

The “taxation” is most commonly levied on employees within an organisation but can also be levied on people outside the organisation. 

Almost every non-White leading industry figure in UK I know has been approached by major British media organisation to give them advice on how to shape their corporate response and policies for free. There are a few examples that I’ve come across that do pay for this kind of work, but these are “the exceptions that prove the rule”. 

So why does this matter?

The main problem is that not only is this work unpaid but it is usually on top of a non-White person’s existing “day job”. Research published in the US showed African Americans are more likely to suffer from burnout than their White colleagues and a major part of that is due to the extra workload placed on them.

Publications like Fortune and Nature have even published articles highlighting the real risk of burning out Black and Asian employees for doing this work for free.

The dilemma facing Black and Asian people however is summed up neatly by Dr Carla Figueira de Morisson Faria at University College London; “Unfortunately, if we don’t do this work, no one will.” And anyone interested in diversity, inclusion and equality, knows how important this work is for multinational companies and major organisations to do, so not volunteering to do it often doesn’t feel like a socially responsible option.  

So what is the answer?

First of all organisations need to recognise what they are asking for - consultancy - and they rarely ask for this for free in other areas of their business.

They also need to realise that they are possibly running the risk of compounding the problem of racial bias if they are unfairly loading non-White people with this extra work without either compensating them financially for it, or reducing their workload in other areas.

However the “to do” list for British organisations to rectify embedded racialised practices is long, and so it is unrealistic to think that this will be rectified any time soon (after all the phenomenon was first identified and named 26 years ago).

So what can non-White people do who still want to be socially responsible but recognise the unfairness of doing this work for free?

For me the problem arises because there are two issues which are separate but often entangled. Combating racism is a “public good” and serves to improve society as a whole. Improving corporate policy and governance serves to improve the organisation,

Therefore when I am approached I try and distinguish between the two.

If the advice they are looking for is to improve the company’s corporate policy then that is consultancy work, and they should attach the appropriate value to it by paying the people involved whether they are internal employees or external stakeholders.

If however they are producing a piece of work that will benefit the entire industry and the whole of society can learn from the process, this is a “public good” and I am happy to do this work for free and I think most Black, Asian and people from ethnic minorities feel the same. 

Of course, part of the problem is there is not always a clear demarcation between the two types of work.

We must guard against seeing our lives through a transactional prism. We devalue the quality of our lives if we think we must be paid for everything we do. However we also devalue the importance of our work if we do not sometimes put a financial value on it.

Like most things in life it is a question of balance.

Let’s work together to make sure we get the balance right.