Reporting of Covid-19 exposes the problem with the term BAME

The Covid-19 outbreak has exposed the shortcomings of the term “BAME” (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) and why it is important to look at inter-group diversity. 

A very good family friend, who I have known since I was six-years-old, works in international public health. She specialises in public health matters in Africa and Asia. I remember as a teenager asking her what the maternal mortality rate in Africa was and whether it has got better or worse. (I know, I was a strange and slightly morbid teenager). 

Not only did she not answer me but the question seemed to annoy her. 

“The big number means nothing” came her response. “If you are a woman giving birth in Zimbabwe it is irrelevant if the mortality rate has got better in Egypt or Ghana. If you are giving birth in the countryside hundreds of miles from a hospital who cares what the rate is in the urban areas? All the big number does is give a useless average for politicians to use for a nice headline but doesn’t help anyone” 

Her irritated, slightly angry, reply has stayed with me for over thirty years. 

I was reminded of this conversation as two things recently came together: 

First is the global news story that is impossible to ignore - the Covid-19 outbreak. 

Second is a new report by the actors' union Equity that I was given a sneak preview of looking at East Asian representation in UK television. 

The full Equity report will be released at the (online) launch of the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity on Wednesday 25th March but the headlines are that onscreen representation of east Asians is negligible. Across almost a year of monitoring the report found the main broadcasters on several weeks often only had two east Asian people on-screen of any description between them! 

While the report specifically looked at on-screen representation, talking to members of BEATS.org (which represents British East Asians in Theatre and Screen) they think the numbers are just as low, if not even worse, for representation behind the camera and in positions of editorial responsibility. 

So what has this got to do with Covid-19 and the term “BAME”? 

For people, like myself, living in east Asia or with a personal connection to east Asia the UK’s reporting on the Covid-19 outbreak seemed to be woefully slow and failed to grasp the full magnitude of the problem for a long time. A senior UK journalist thought I was being "alarmist" on Twitter in February when I said the mortality rate was between 4 - 5% based on statistics coming out of Wuhan. For the record it currently stands at 8% in Italy. (Although the Twitter exchange in itself illustrates the problems of using a single number when they can differ so much from country to country and region to region - I should have remembered my family friend's advice at that point)

But the difference between east Asian reporting and UK reporting is not just about numbers but tone. I have seen UK current affairs phone-ins advertise their programmes by saying they will be able to “allay people’s fears”. I did not know a single person of east Asian descent or living in east Asia, who has been following the outbreak since January, who thinks we are in a place where reasonable fears should be allayed - and unfortunately there are reasonable fears. 

So if people connected to east Asia in Britain have known this since January why was this not properly reflected in our news output? The answer I suspect is connected to the Equity survey and my conversation with BEATS.org. There simply aren't enough east Asians deciding the news agenda in UK newsrooms. 

Which brings me to my main point - how Covid-19 has exposed the inadequacy of the term BAME. 

BAME stands for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic - it is basically a catchall term meaning “non-white”. Broadcasters and media organisations often publish their diversity figures using this term and mark their progress when it comes to ethnic diversity (or lack of) depending on whether their BAME number goes up or down. 

But using this catchall term means BAME numbers can increase while missing the fact that there might be almost zero east Asian representation. 

Newsrooms across the UK could meet their diversity targets and still not employ a single person from east Asia. 

It is not just east Asians who feel that the term can disadvantage them. I know several prominent black people who work in TV and the media who have effectively given up on the term BAME as they feel it does not reflect their reality. Also I know south Asians who feel suitably disadvantaged by the term - especially when it comes to specific issues around on-screen diversity. And there are those that feel that the term is simply to make white people feel more comfortable by not using the term "non-white" as this ensures we do not draw attention to white people's ethnicity.

Personally, I do not believe we should stop measuring ethnic diversity looking at white representation versus non-white representation, and as long as we do that we will need a name for this group and for me BAME is as good as any - although some people prefer People of Colour (PoC) - and I do not like the term non-white as I bristle at the idea of being identified by a negative. 

However reporting these overall figures without context and without reporting the figures that go into making the headline BAME number can not only be misleading but do serious harm, as we think we have made more progress than we really have. If we wanted better Covid-19 reporting from January, increasing the BAME number in newsrooms would've been of little help if the east Asian figures still hovered around zero. 

As my family friend would say, if you are about to give birth in Chad it is of little comfort if a woman in Egypt is more than 30 times less likely to die than you.


(This piece has been edited after a brief Twitter exchange with a senior UK journalist over my use of the 4 - 5% mortality rate for Covid-19 in Wuhan in February)