Thatcher and Black Britain (A forgotten legacy)

As a black person my memory and experience of Margaret Thatcher will be quite different from a white person’s memory of her. Times like this serve to highlight just how important diversity in the media is.

Black people are not the only people who have their own unique perspective on Margaret Thatcher and her legacy.

Two nights ago BBC Scotland broadcast the film “Thatcher and The Scots” it was a repeat of a film I had first executive produced in 2009. The film examined Margaret Thatcher’s legacy in Scotland, how she had changed the country and how Scottish people now feel about her.

Scotland’s relationship to Thatcher is very different to the rest of the UK’s relationship with her. The majority of Scots never voted for her but in many ways her policies were thought by many Scots to disproportionately affect them negatively. (The demise of heavy industry, the weakening of the trade union movement and centralisation of power in the south east).

While Scottish viewers were obviously able to relate to the other films and news coverage which has been broadcast since her death I would like to think that “Thatcher & The Scots” was the only film that really spoke to their own personal experience and how it was different from the majority of the UK.

Margaret Thatcher’s death and the film “Thatcher & The Scots” points to a universal truth that we must never forget when we discuss diversity in the media; Large events effect everyone, but how you are effected differs depending on who you are. When making television programmes we must remember this truth when reporting on large events and issues such as Thatcher’s legacy.

Like Scottish people the majority of black people did not vote for Thatcher. During the her time as Prime Minster seminal events in the black British community occurred with many being either directly or indirectly caused by her policies (or more accurately – reactions to them) including the Brixton riots, Britain’s first black MP’s and the Right to Buy enabling large sections of the black community to become home owners, and some would argue have led to the gentrification of historically black communities including Brixton and Notting Hill.

Diversity in the media is about recognising the realities and experiences of as wide cross section of the population as possible and then reflecting that in our output. I feel that we succeeded in doing that in Scotland with films like “Thatcher & The Scots” but I’m still waiting to see the film “Thatcher & Black Britain”.

Old, Black and Washed Up

I used to be cool. In the words of Aretha Franklin I used to be “young, gifted and black”.

OK I was never that cool but as a young black man I used to at least be part of a cool group. A group that seemed to matter to advertisers, the fashion industry, the music industry and most importantly broadcasters. I used to organise a charity basketball tournament with my brother and we would have to virtually fight off sponsors as they were so eager to appeal to the young black people who came to our event.

 

Now at the age of 41 I feel as if I’m past it. To be honest when it comes to mainstream media I feel I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since I past 30. Let me explain in a bit more detail:

Many broadcasters actively target certain demographic groups. For example at one radio station I once visited a couple of years ago I saw two pictures placed directly in front of the DJ’s eye-line; one of a white middle aged man in his fifties, the other of a white woman in her forties. When I asked the radio presenter who the pictures were of I was told they were of their “ideal listeners”. The presenters were meant to pretend that these were the people they were broadcasting to and tailor their broadcasting accordingly. I’m told it is a practice that many commercial radio stations do.

My problem is that as a 41 year old university educated professional black man I get the sense my picture (or someone like me) is not hanging up in radio stations. I do not feel targeted by any mainstream broadcasters. As a young black person I felt my picture could have hung up at Choice FM and there was a time when 1Xtra seemed to target my demographic.

And it’s not just as an audience member I sense this problem, you get the sense that the same issue applies for older black people working in television and radio as well. We are cool and funky and can give a production a little street cred as researchers and even presenters in our twenties but you see our numbers thin out as we get older.

It is an issue that older women have complained about for some time, and following the ground-breaking legal case of Miriam O’Reilly, one the BBC is actively trying to address.

The twin evils of racism and sexism, both direct and indirect, have long been recognised as holding back many talented women and people from BME backgrounds in broadcasting. However as we now look at more than just getting our foot in the door but actually staying in the industry and building our careers we need to start turning our attention to ageism.

Ageism clearly affects different groups in different ways. The Miriam O’Reilly case clearly shows that while ageism affects men it can hit women harder and earlier. My concern is when it comes to black people ageism can start as early as in our twenties.

We don’t seem to go from “young, gifted and black” to “mature, competent and black”. Instead for all too many of us our careers just come to an abrupt end.

Diversity: A TV Exec's Secret Weapon

Television executives are always obsessed with giving audiences what they really want rather than just what we think they want, and when it comes to journalism we want to identify the issues that really affect people’s lives. Increasing diversity in the production team might be the simplest way of achieving these aims and last week’s Panorama programme might be the perfect example of this.

Let me start by giving you a quick task - put this list of issues in order of importance to your daily life:

·         Your career

·         Being called a name

·         Your health

Now, think about whether the order you originally came up with would change significantly if a) you had/didn’t have a disability; b) you were a different gender; c) you were/were not from a BME background.

I think for most of us, whatever diverse background we have, as a concern on a daily basis, “name calling” would probably be at the bottom of the list by a long way.

In the last five years since moving up to Scotland, I have been on the receiving end of overt racist abuse two and a half times. The first time, a kid threw a biscuit at me from a moving car yelling N*****. The second time was another case of a drive-by abuse by some young guys, and the half was when a drunk guy yelled something to do with Michael Jackson at me when I was jogging in the park – and frankly I’m still not sure if he was insulting my running style or my race... Nevertheless, on all three occasions it was more a sense of bemusement and a new anecdote to tell my friends than anything more.

The reason I bring this up is because I think people working in TV often think name calling is a really dramatic issue and the one our viewers want to watch. Yet, the conundrum is that it is at the bottom of our daily life concerns.  It puzzles me why this mistake is so common.

I recently executive produced a Panorama programme on disability unemployment called “The Great Disability Scam” which took a completely different approach. 

While disability abuse, just as racist abuse or overt sexist abuse, might seem appealing to a TV executive, I worked hard with one of the producers - Kate Ansell – who has a disability – to avoid that kind of focus. Both of us were determined to properly reflect people’s real concerns.   And we did.  Instead of a programme focused on disability abuse, we created a programme about an issue that directly affects half of all people with a disability in Britain every day and indirectly affects even more – the government’s attempts to try and address disability unemployment.  

The response was overwhelming. We got an audience of over four million and the social media reaction was enormous.  By directly focusing on the career aspirations of people with disabilities, and how government policies can affect those aspirations or otherwise, our programme resonated with more people.  It brought disability and diversity to life, rather than putting it in a box.

I found it much easier to take this perspective because I had Kate in our team. Having people from diverse communities working on these programmes makes it much easier to tease out issues that really affect peoples’ daily lives, and make their struggles much more relevant to everyone else in the UK. It helps bring out similarities rather than create schisms.  And, in the end, it also helps create better programmes, which is, of course, top of every TV exec’s list of concerns.

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How A Diversity Scheme Almost Made Me Leave TV

When I was 23 I applied for a trainee Assistant Producer job. I had to go through a rigorous application process followed by probably the  toughest interview I’ve ever had. I still have stress related dreams in which this interview features, in the same way people have dreams about being back at school or taking final university exams. Nevertheless, with hard work, resilience and a bit of luck I got the trainee AP job, and I actually think it was a turning point in my career.

Years later I sat down with one of the people who was on the that fateful interview panel, and as we talked it slowly dawned on me that I nearly didn’t get the job because of my colour.

I know what you’re thinking but it’s not that simple. None of the people who interviewed were racist. The surprising and confusing fact is they didn’t want to give a black man the job because they were trying to increase diversity! Let me explain:

The trainee AP job I applied for had two positions and was free for anyone to apply to. Unbeknownst to me the BBC department running the trainee scheme was – at the same time – applying for funding from a central BBC fund to run a trainee AP post specifically targeted at BME staff. They actively wanted to increase diversity in the team.

But this is where what I would call the unintended consequences of the department’s actions came in.

When they interviewed me, my panellists were worried  that if they gave one of the two  shall we call them “mainstream” jobs to a person of colour, then the justification for having a separate AP trainee post specifically targeted at BME staff would be diminished. So, the argument went, if they give the job to me, they would only have two AP posts funded. But, if they gave both the “mainstream” trainee jobs to two white applicants then they could re-interview me again under the targeted BME scheme. I would still be a trainee AP and they would get three posts funded instead of two. Everyone would be  a winner!

I was obviously not in the room when this discussion took place and I have no idea how serious it was, or whether it lasted 2 minutes or an hour. All I know is that in the end common sense prevailed, the interviewees stuck to the BBC guidelines on fair interview procedures and I was duly appointed. In any case, it just so happens that soon after my appointment the BBC stopped targeted trainee posts for BME staff and so if they had waited to put me on the BME trainee scheme I’d still be waiting. In all honesty if I hadn’t got my break at that point I may well have left TV.

I still work with the people who interviewed me and I think you would be hard pressed to find a nicer, more liberal bunch of colleagues working in TV. But for me this story is an extreme example of a broader phenomenon I sometimes see today working in television. I often attend meetings with senior people working in TV where we discuss how we can increase diversity in television, from more older women in front of the camera to increasing the number of BME staff at higher grades. What can happen is we get so caught in the different schemes and initiatives to increase diversity (in my case almost twenty years ago the BME targetted trainee AP scheme) that we lose sight of what we are trying to achieve - actually employing more people from diverse backgrounds.

My career, the career of a black person working in TV, was almost derailed by people actively wanting to increase diversity in television. So we have to be clever when designing any schemes and make sure our good intentions create the best results.  

I think my story is fairly unique but unintended consequences do happen all the time.  If we’re really going to safeguard diversity, we need to watch out for them and keep an eye on the big picture.

Why It's Good To Think Like A Black Man

I was recently on a panel discussion looking at the issue of black men working in TV news. We all know the kind of thing; group of young black men in the audience listening to a panel of black professionals imparting “pearls of wisdom” and being suitably “inspiring”.

One of the questions that came up is whether black people brought a unique perspective to a newsroom and if so if that is an advantage. My fellow panellists all had stories of interviews that they were able to get because of their colour that they don’t think their fellow white journalists could have got. They also had examples of communities they could access that might be shut off to their colleagues. I think I said something similar or I might have mouthed some platitudes about diversity and story ideas… I don’t actually recall. The truth is I was troubled by the very question of what a black perspective can bring to a TV production. At worst I think it might well pigeonhole our careers, and at best I think it underplays our true strengths and how valuable we really are.

Let me take the worst case scenario first.

If you accept that people from diverse backgrounds have better access to stories from their respective communities than our non-diverse colleagues it is hard to argue against the idea that middle-class white people have better access to middle-class stories.

The thing is, however, that most people working in TV, regardless of background, try and make their contacts into different groups and communities as broad as possible. It pays to do so. To try and sell yourself on the fact that you can access one group in particular is about as appealing as a journalist trying to market themselves on the fact they only have unique access into the medical profession. Great to start off with but eventually that journalist will get frustrated and want to do something other than medical stories.

That’s why this line of reasoning can limit our careers as black journalists. So often we are brought in to cover a “black story” on rioting for example, but then dropped in favour of white colleagues as the news agenda moves on.  We want to be able to work on all stories, and not be pigeon holed.

So what is the best case scenario?

The reality is I think people from diverse backgrounds do have unique perspectives that make us incredibly valuable to any broadcaster or news organisations.  But let’s be clear. My black perspective is not about whether I know how to cook rice and peas or whether there are people in Brixton or Harlesden that will chat to me (although I have worked on black specific programmes). As a series producer I have overseen films about traveller communities in which very white and very middleclass producers negotiated access and as a black producer I negotiated access into some of the country’s “whitest” most exclusive institutions.

My black perspective is not about these visible means of demonstrating my heritage. My black perspective enriches my work by giving me a different insight into the programmes I make and oversee, in a much less obvious way.

Take my move to Scotland as Head of Current Affairs. I had only been to Scotland a few times previously, but when I started the job I immediately understood the dynamics of being a minority culture in a wider British setting.  I completely understood the idea of people wanting their lives and views represented on a national stage while maintaining their minority culture and importance. And due to my knowledge of issues such as self-determination and independence in Africa and elsewhere, , I had been raised on seeing nationalism as being both a positive and negative force, which meant that I was able to see nationalism in a broader context than the BNP or far-right organisations, (often the far right is the first experience many English people have with nationalism).

I am not saying that all these issues could not have been overcome by someone from a more traditional non-diverse background, but I have no doubt that my black perspective gave me a quicker understanding of them, and ultimately made me a better Scottish news and current affairs exec.

Similarly, I have recently overseen several high profile programmes on disability issues. I am not disabled but I am sure their success is due, in part, to the fact my black perspective has given me an interest in diversity issues. A diversity of life experiences is enriching to any production team or news room.

So next time I am on a panel discussion and someone asks what a black perspective brings to a broadcaster I’m not going to talk about black stories or scoops, because every journalist worth his salt should be doing that regardless of background. Instead I will just say “It simply brings higher-quality programmes, in ways I am still discovering”.