Is Diverse Talent Hiding in Plain Sight?

I became a series producer in 2002 due to the intervention of a Black woman, while being literally passed over by White executives.

I was sitting in the open plan office of BBC’s Documentary department when unbeknown to me management had a problem. An executive producer had tentatively pitched an observational documentary series for BBC One and had quite unexpectedly been successful.

After they had popped the Cava to celebrate (we are talking the BBC here) they realised they had a problem. They did not have a series producer available to make the series. And so they were arguing whether they should try and and ask for a delay in the transmission date which might mean they lose the commission completely, or whether to try and bring in a freelancer which could worsen an already difficult relationship with the trade unions as they were in the middle of negotiating a round of redundancies.

I sat literally meters away from the glass panel office where the argument was unfolding, and most importantly I was in full view of the execs and members of the management team trying to decide the best course of action.

Luckily for me one of the people in the glass panel office was a Black production manager and she came up with the idea of making me the series producer. She argued that I was already a successful producer and had co-series produced my last series albeit with a more experienced producer.

After her advocacy I was called into the office and the rest, as they say, is history… :)

This one experience has shaped a lot of my views on how staffing and promotions occur in the media industry and how increases in diversity can happen.

I was not an unknown to the executives - I spoke with them every day .

I was literally in full view of them as they were looking for a series producer.

It was the intervention of a third party advocating for me that made all the difference.

I write about this because recently both Ofcom and the BBC have posited the idea that one should create a “diversity databases” to enable executives, talent managers, and series producers to find diverse talent when staffing up productions.

There is no question that fully functioning employment data bases are needed for the media industry to function properly but if my personal experience is anything to go by it is not a lack of knowledge of diverse personnel by hiring managers that hinders diversity.

It is the lack of willingness by hiring managers to hire diverse talent they already know that hinders diversity.

The argument for diversity databases almost seems to be predicated on the idea that diverse talent is literally hiding from hiring managers. It seems to run contrary to the facts that diverse talent needs to apply to more jobs to be hired and once hired their retention rates are lower than their non-diverse counterparts.

I suspect it is the reason Angela Chan, the former Head of Creative Diversity at Channel 4, tweeted on the idea of a new pan-industry database:

“It won’t solve it at all. Databases are only as good as the people who use & manage them. Too often a repository for good intentions. @marcusryder and @LennyHenry are correct. Build networks of affinity between gatekeepers and diverse talent & then make them the gatekeepers.”

Or to put it another way - let’s make sure more people like the Black production manager who advocated for me are in the room when the hiring happens.

One final point - I always advise against people basing policy on personal experience and in many ways this is exactly what I might be guilty of now. But that is precisely why I helped to establish the Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity to make sure there is academic rigour to any policy decisions made by UK broadcasters and major stakeholders. To date there is very little academic work that has been done in this area which is why I welcome the recent report by Dr Peter Block but more work definitely needs to be done.