Diversity Vs. Difference

When I am not working in television or blogging there is a fair chance I will be running. Anyone that knows me will be able to vouch that I am a little bit of a running junkie  - I completed 4 marathons last year and I’ve got my eye on two more this year. So when the Boston Marathon bombing happened I remember exactly where I was when I first heard about it. From every comment on twitter to the Runner's World magazine special edition I have followed every twist and turn of the story. My obsession with the story has not only surprised me but has taught me an important lesson when it comes to how we cover diversity in the media.

Although the marathon bombing was terrible it is far from the worst terrorist attack in recent history. More deadly bombings occur in Afghanistan and Iraq regularly. 

So why the obsession with the Boston Marathon?

The answer to that question highlights the lesson the Boston Marathon has taught me.

Similarity breeds sympathy.

The Boston Marathon bombing targeted runners and I am a runner. I feel an affinity to runners. When running in the park I often greet (or at least nod at) fellow runners - I don't greet all the dog walkers I pass. I look at the Boston bombing and I see the victims and wonder if that could have been me. I read the articles about the injured runners and my heart bleeds.

What my interest in the Boston marathon demonstrate is that the more points of similarity one can see with other people the more sympathy one feels. 

But what does this mean for people trying to increase diversity in the media? If similarity breeds sympathy does that mean difference literally begets indifference?

And in TV language “indifference” translates as smaller audiences! 

Luckily I am not the first person who has worried if people care less about people who are different from themselves:

In 2005 Prof. Mark Levine devised an experiment where a jogger pretends to fall and needs help. He conducted the experiments in Manchester. Half the time he put the runner in a Manchester United football shirt and the other half of the time he put the runner in a Liverpool football top. The results were striking. When the runner was wearing the "local" shirt he was helped 80% of the time, while pretending to be a Liverpool supporter he was helped only 40% per cent of the time.

Now I could be depressed about this and think this is a strong argument against championing on screen diversity. But there is a very large silver-lining from the grey cloud that we feel more sympathy for people who we think are more similar to ourselves.

The silver-lining is it doesn't seem to take a lot to feel a sense of similarity with someone. And once we feel that connection all the differences don't seem to matter. 

The other part of Prof. Levine's experiment was to see if the runner was helped if they were wearing just a plain white "neutral" shirt. In the experiments they were helped marginally more than when he was wearing the rival Liverpool shirt. So the Manchester United shirt was all it took for bystanders to feel a connection. Just a shirt! 

I feel a real connection to other people if they are fellow runners but the great thing is I then feel connected to them regardless of any other differences we might have. I have sympathy with the victims of the Boston bombings regardless of their race, nationality or any other characteristic that we sometimes categorise people by.

The challenge for those of us producing television programmes who want more diversity on-screen is to actually find the similarities that our viewers’ can connect with. In other words the viewer wont care less about a person if they are of a different race, gender, disability etc if we can find that metaphorical “Manchester United Shirt”  

The paradox is that often when promoting diversity we concentrate on the differences, what Prof. Levine’s experiment might teach us is maybe the less we look at the differences the more on-screen diversity we can achieve.

(The original version of this blog appears on my running blog http://thesoundofrunning.blogspot.co.uk . I told you at the start that I am a running junkie)

What Should We Call Immigrants?

Last year the conviction rate for rape prosecutions that went to court in England reached an all time high. In 2007/8 58% of cases that went to court ended with a guilty verdict last year the rate was 63%. The conviction rates for domestic violence also increased, in 2005/6 it stood at 60% and last year it had jumped to 74%.

That still means that last year 38% of the people who go to court claiming they were raped saw the person they were accusing walk free. And for people who claimed they were victims of domestic violence a quarter of them saw the person they thought had subjected them to domestic violence found not guilty.

I have a special term for those people who unsuccessfully accuse people of rape; “Fake Sex Victims”, my name for unsuccessful domestic abuse claimants; “Cry-Wolf Partners”.

OF COURSE MY LAST SENTENCE IS COMPLETE NONSENSE.

Labelling unsuccessful accusers as “Fakers” or “Cry-Wolf’ers” would be offensive and objectionable. But what it illustrates is how we label people (or don’t label them) is important. We wouldn't dream of emotively naming possible rape victims because they had an unsuccessful legal experience. But are we as sensitive or as aware when it comes to other groups of people who are unable to convince a court of their story? 

A quiet battle has been raging in America in the last few months over the labelling of some immigrants. The big question is what do you call someone who has immigrated to America but does not have the legal right to be there?

In April Associated Press decided to stop their journalists from using the term “illegal immigrant”. They told everyone writing for them to “use ‘illegal’ only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant.” I think the thinking behind this is that it is hard to report objectively and dispassionately on someone if the first word you use about them is the emotive word “illegal”. Almost by definition an “illegal” anything is a bad thing. Soon after Associated Press updated its style guidance the L.A. Times did the same.

In a memo to its newsroom they said:

Immigration is one of the most contentious and compelling subjects of our time. In our coverage, we aim to report with authority and balance — to be fair, nuanced and precise. We know that language matters and that our word choices must likewise be fair, nuanced and precise… "Illegal immigrants" is overly broad and does not accurately apply in every situation. The alternative suggested by the 1995 guidelines, "undocumented immigrants," similarly falls short of our goal of precision. It is also untrue in many cases, as with immigrants who possess passports or other documentation but lack valid visas.

A few weeks later and the New York Times also sent out a new directive to their journalists. They didn’t go as far as AP and the L.A. Times in banning the term “illegal immigrant” but they discouraged it and said careful consideration should be exercised when using the term.

Words have power and how we describe people from marginalised and minority communities is extremely important. For anyone interested in issues of diversity in television how we cover immigration and immigrants must be of importance. In Britain immigrants are one of the most marginalised groups in our society and one only has to look at UKIP’s recent poll ratings to realise immigration is easily one of the most politically charged issues right now.

Before the recent actions by certain sections of the American media I had never even thought about the use of the phrase “illegal immigrant”. American culture and politics are different from British culture and politics and so I am not arguing that we should necessarily follow in the footsteps of our cousins across the pond. But we should be very careful when reporting on people from diverse backgrounds that might not have the same access to the media as other people. And we must recognise that labels are powerful.

Now where’s that headline about “Bogus Asylum Seekers”?

UPDATE: Since writing this blog post my friends on twitter have pointed out that the debate surrounding illegal immigration is not confined to the States. Cecelia Malmstrom the European Commissioner for Home Affairs feels that all official EU documents should follow Associated Press' lead and drop the term "illegal immigrant". So far I have not found any major UK newspaper or broadcaster seriously considering re-labelling "illegal immigrants" but I trust my readers and twitter friends will let me know if they have any examples.

UPDATE 2: The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford published a study on 8th August 2013 showing that the UK press are most likely to use the word "illegal" when describing immigrants. The report is a fascinating read for anyone interested in this subject http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/reports/migration-news 

Why Black People Need To Smile More

I have been working in television now for over twenty years and if there is one thing I have learnt is that we are a competitive bunch. We might try and hide it and in typically middle-class fashion conversations between my TV colleagues are sprinkled with self-deprecation but the competitive edge is never far away. We all know who has won which award, we know the ratings of our programmes and we know who is hot and who is not.

I’ve recently been thinking if there is a way to turn that natural competitiveness to our advantage when it comes to increasing diversity in the media?

I think we could increase diversity in front and behind the camera with something as simple as a smile.

Four years ago the Sacramento Municipal  Utility District in America had a problem. They wanted people to reduce their energy consumption. They had been trying for years trying all different tactics but nothing had worked and people’s energy consumption had slowly kept creeping up.

But it turns out TV people are not the only naturally competitive people. Residents in Sacramento want to keep up with the Joneses - or in this case quite literally keep up with their neighbours.

To tap into this competitive nature the Municipal Utility began sending out statements to customers rating them on their energy use compared with that of neighbours in 100 homes of similar size that used the same heating fuel. The customers were also compared with the 20 neighbours who were especially efficient in saving energy.

Customers who scored high earned two smiley faces on their statements. “Good” conservation got a single smiley face. While customers whose energy use put him in the “below average” category, got frowns.

The results were amazing. Not only did the customers who received a frown reduced their energy to try and earn a smiley face, the customers with smiley faces reduced their energy even further. They clearly enjoyed the feeling “being in the lead”.

Right now most broadcasters keep records of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) employment of their in-house production departments and of the larger independent companies. Some of the broadcasters also keep figures for on-screen representation.

Despite these figures being kept, as an editor of a department I have very little empirical evidence of how well I am doing compared to other departments within the BBC and with indies. I have anecdotal evidence by just walking around other productions but to be honest it is more guess work.

I think most editors find themselves in a similar situation. We actually don't know how well we are doing - let alone whether we need to improve or not.

Therefore could TV take a leaf out of Sacramento's book with one small simple change potentially having massive consequences:

When a programme is green lit by a broadcaster the production company could receive a simple note with a smiley face or a frown indicating how well they have been doing for the last twelve months in their diversity employment and representation in front of and behind the camera.

The smiley rating should come at the green lighting stage as this is the point that productions then begin to staff up.

I believe that most people in television want to do the “right thing”. We want to be seen as good employers. With our natural competitiveness we also don’t receiving a bad grade or 'frowny' face for anything - especially when we know it’s in comparison to our colleagues.

In theory a smiley face or frown should not change how grown people behave. But if it works for electricity bills I think it is worth a shot when it comes to increasing diversity in the media.

So let's all smile a bit more and avoid those frowns :-)

Lenny Henry and the Woolwich Terrorist Attack

In the last month two seemingly unrelated events occurred:

1.       Lenny Henry went to the Sony Radio Academy awards.

2.       A horrendous terrorist act took place in Woolwich.

At first sight the two events could not be more different from one another. The first is an incredibly high-class black tie affair. The second highlights some of the worse aspects of human nature. However there is a thread that links the two.

At the Sony Radio Awards Lenny Henry commented on the Bafta award ceremony that had taken place only a few days previously. “There weren’t any black people at the Baftas; there was no black talent,” Lenny told the Daily Telegraph. “In 200 years’ time, our children are going to look back to now and say: ‘Remember that really weird period when there weren’t any black people in any programmes?’ It’s unthinkable, but now we’re having to live through it.”

Lenny Henry was pointing out what every black person working in TV already knows, although it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it: Despite advances in some areas when it comes to high profile, prime time programmes television is still very white.  

The Friday following Lenny’s comments just reinforced his point. On BBC1 was The One Show (two white presenters), followed by A Question of Sport (white presenter and six white panellists), Would I Lie to You? (white presenter and six white panellists), Have I Got News for You (white presenter and four white panellists) and The Graham Norton Show (white host and four white guests). On BBC2 it was Gardeners’ World (two white presenters) and QI (white presenter and four white comedians), followed by Newsnight (white presenter).

Now you may well ask how on earth is this related to the terrorist attack in Woolwich?

The News Statesman magazine, writing before the Woolwich attack, had this to say about Lenny Henry’s Bafta comments and the lack of black people on primetime TV and in high profile media positions:

“The most serious example is in news and current affairs. All the presenters on Newsnight and the three main Radio 4 news programmes, nearly all the TV newsreaders and nearly all of the editors and main reporters are white."

"Why does this matter? First, how can the experiences and realities of non-white viewers be represented properly when nearly every major personality in television is white? The situation is especially worrying when all the figures of cultural authority – newsreaders, current affairs presenters, people who run all the TV and radio networks – are white.”

The Woolwich terrorist attack was carried out in multicultural Britain. It occurred in a multicultural part of London with a large black British community. The soldier who died was white, the witnesses came from a variety of different backgrounds and the people arrested were black.

The day after the terrorist attack I happened to speak to two black friends who work for rival news broadcasters. They were both bemoaning the fact that despite this attack having such an obvious multicultural dimension all the people making the important editorial decisions as to how to cover the story were white.

Now I was not involved in covering the story in any way and from a viewer’s perspective it appeared as if BBC, ITN and SKY covered it well. But when you are watching a news story you are witnessing the editorial leads that have been followed, what you don’t see are the editorial leads that have been dropped. These editorial decisions are shaped by editors’ and journalists’ values, experience and background.

The issue is we have no idea what the News would have looked like and how the story may have been covered differently if we had had a more diverse group of people making those editorial decisions, and the problem is we never will.

Lenny Henry is right that we need more people of colour at the Baftas. The only criticism I have is that it clearly doesn’t stop at the Baftas.

Is "Racism" A Dirty Word In TV?

Broadcasters have to be very careful with some of the language we use in our programmes. Just last week the BBC Radio4 programme “Thinking Allowed” was heavily reprimanded for running an item on Cambridge University rowers losing their cox. The presenter playfully described them as “cox-sackers”. A listener complained and the BBC Trust judged it to be “a grossly offensive play on words”, which was broadcast at 4pm, “when children might be listening”.

I have worked in broadcasting for over twenty years including the BBC and commercial radio and I am acutely aware of the strong opinions viewers and listeners have about language; Whether the ‘N’ word should be beeped out of rap records, when you can use the word ‘F---‘ and if it is ever acceptable to use the word ‘C---‘ in any circumstances.   

Over the last twenty years I think broadcasting in general and the BBC specifically have become more relaxed about language and words that may have been cut from drama scripts previously or beeped in documentaries increasingly find their way to our screens and radios. But recently a new word seems to have become forbidden: “Racism”

Last week Panorama broadcast a programme with Sol Campbell investigating the fact that the unemployment rate for young black men is almost 50% (more than double that of their white counterparts). It is a shocking statistic and I think it is critical that flagship current affairs programmes like Panorama explore these issues.

The programme wanted to find out the reason for this shocking statistic. What I found interesting was that throughout the programme they never once mentioned the word ‘racism’. At the very start of the film Sol Campbell asked “Is it the bosses fault that they don’t understand the young black male or is it the young black males who has to sharpen up how they conduct themselves?” Never once did anyone say that young black men might be the victims of ‘good old fashioned’ racism.

The fact that racism might be a problem hung awkwardly in the air but was never addressed. Like a bad swear word it was the ‘R’ word that dare not speak its name.

But this isn’t a problem just for Panorama. “Racism” has almost become a dirty word in polite society. The word has been banished to the preserve of describing ignorant east European football fans or UKIP candidates making Nazi salutes. But “racism” is rarely or ever used to describe “ordinary” employers who fail to employ young black men.

I experience the same problem on the raft of committees and panels I sit on to try and increase diversity in the media. Black and BAME people are under-represented in the media generally and we virtually become an “endangered species” the higher up the career ladder we climb. Invariably media organisations discuss how we can address this issue; we talk about championing best practice, mentor schemes and entry level bursaries. Many of these initiatives are great and they play a useful role in addressing under-representation of diverse communities in the media.

However I think we do black people, and people from diverse communities, a disservice if we do not acknowledge that many of us are victims of prejudice and have overcome prejudice to achieve what we have achieved.

We will never be able to solve the problems facing black people (whether they are unemployed young black men or black people hitting glass ceilings in the media) unless we can actually identify all the issues involved. Using the “R” word would be a good start.  

Do We Need Positive Discrimination?

Is it time to consider positive discrimination to tackle the problems of under-representation of diverse communities in the media industry?

I know most of us interested in increasing diversity in the media recoil at the word “discrimination” (whatever word we may put in front of it). And we spend the majority of our time fighting against it discrimination. “Positive discrimination” seems like an oxymoron along the lines of “positive evil” or “helpful prejudice”. 

I for one have always felt that to increase diversity in television we must increase the equality of opportunities, challenge prejudice when we see it, and enable people from BME backgrounds, people with disabilities, LGBT’s and women to reach the top on their own merits. And I still think that.

However recently I’ve been looking back at my life and re-analysing some of the important turning points in my career. As a result I’m wondering whether my view on “positive discrimination” is slightly hypocritical. Maybe, without even realising it, I have been the beneficiary of “positive discrimination”.

I received my big break in television after I graduated from university and was taken on as a junior researcher for the BBC consumer programme Watchdog. At the time Watchdog was restructuring its team and how it took in viewers’ phone calls and correspondence. They needed two new junior researchers which they advertised for. I was told after I got that job that over 800 people applied for just these two positions. Key to me getting the junior research job was the fact that I had done a summer’s internship at a film collective based in north London called Ceddo.

Now for all intents and purposes Ceddo was a “black” film collective. It made art house feature films including “Omega Rising” (a film about the history of Rasta women), “Burning An Illusion” (about the love life of a black woman in 1970’s Britain) and “We Are The Elephant” (looking at the student uprisings in apartheid South Africa).  Denis Davis, the director of “Omega Rising”, had met me as a fresh faced enthusiastic teenager at a video course and invited me to do work experience at the film collective.

I didn’t think about it at the time but over the summer I was there I don’t think I saw any none black people working at Ceddo. And looking back on it I doubt I would have been invited to work there if I wasn’t black. The purpose of Ceddo was not only to make films from a black British perspective but to identify black talent, encourage it and bring it on. In that respect when Denis Davis told me that I could work at Ceddo there was an element of “positive discrimination”. Looking back at my career path I wonder if I would be working in TV now if Ceddo hadn’t taken me under their wing.

Twenty years later and the role that work experience plays in people getting a job in the media is more important than ever. In a recent survey by the National Council for the Training of Journalists four out of five (83%) young journalists said they had to do some work experience before getting their first job. How people get these work experience places is vital to increasing diversity in television and across the media.

Ceddo no longer exists and I’m not aware of any significant black British film collectives in existence any more. But what organisations like Ceddo ensured was that there would always be some work experience places reserved for young enthusiastic black students like myself.  While I feel a natural aversion to “positive discrimination” we need to find a way to ensure that black people, and people from diverse backgrounds generally, get work experience places.

The black film collectives played a useful role in training and encouraging black talent. In their absence what should we do to identify talent from different backgrounds and give them as much backing as possible?

The Truth About Women, Oxbridge And The BBC

Recently there have been some big appointments at the BBC with four new appointments to the Executive Board. With a new Director General has come a new broom. So as well as Tony Hall as Director General, James Harding has been appointed Director of News & Current Affairs, James Purnell – Director of Strategy, and Danny Cohen - Director of Television.

In fact all the male Executive Directors on the BBC Executive Board are white, privately educated and went to either Oxford or Cambridge. 

 

At first sight this looks like a familiar story and it is a criticism that the BBC often faces when it comes to the issue of diversity: You have to be a white man to rise to the top, there is a glass ceiling and if you didn’t go to Oxbridge you don’t stand a chance.

However this typical criticism is only half the story and if we are going to increase diversity we need to dig a little deeper, look at the other half and figure out what lessons we can learn from it.

 

There are in fact three female Executive Directors on the BBC Executive Board and they are not all white; Helen Boaden – Director of Radio, Lucy Adams – Director of HR and Zarin Patel – Chief Financial Officer. There is even a forth if you count Fran Unsworth who is Acting Director of News and will step aside when James Harding takes his position.

 

What is interesting about the women is that when it comes to universities they are almost the exact opposite of their male counterparts. Unlike the men not one of them went to Oxford or Cambridge University.

So what does this tell us about trying to increase diversity at the BBC and the media in general?

First of all does it tell us that when it comes to people from a diverse background is it a disadvantage to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge? This I doubt very much and flies in the face of my own experience of working in the television industry for twenty years. At the Executive Producer level and above people who went to Oxbridge (men and women) are still vastly over represented, Mark Thompson when he left the BBC even commented that there were "too many" people from Oxbridge working at the BBC. Fiona Bruce, Stephanie Flanders, Jay Hunt are just three Oxbridge Alumni that spring to mind.

 

However what I believe the careers of Helen Boaden, Lucy Adams and Zarin Patel tell us is that, unlike their male counterparts' career paths, for people from diverse backgrounds our career paths are more complicated.

Often when it comes to men there is a set career path that has already been prescribed and can be followed. The career paths for people from diverse backgrounds are often far more varied and complicated. Not going to Oxbridge is often just the start of an "unconventional career path".

It is also a testimony to how amazing these women have been in breaking the glass ceilings they have broken and risen to the top. The type of character traits one needs to overcome the obstacles in one field (i.e. not coming from an Oxbridge background) are often the same traits you need to overcome obstacles in other fields (be that race or gender).

As a black man who is trying to break glass ceilings of his own in the media industry (and who didn't go to Oxbridge) it inspires me that you can rise to the top of the BBC if you didn’t go to Oxbridge. 

 

Oxford and Cambridge might be two of the best universities in Britain but when it comes to women and people from diverse backgrounds it would appear that other universities are just as good (if not better) at equipping them with the skills to rise to the top. 

And lastly, if we believe we have to be part of a special “club” (be an Oxbridge alumni) to break the glass ceiling often this can be a self-fulfilling prophecy which limits the scope of our ambition.

 

If the BBC, and the media industry generally, want to increase diversity in the work force we should concentrate less on the stories of the successful white men, and instead look at the people from diverse backgrounds who have broken the glass ceiling. We should ask which universities did they go? What skills did they develop from these institutions? What has been their career path? 

By the age of 18 at my first day at Sussex University my career path had already diverged from the most powerful white men at the BBC, but for women, disabled people and BME people there is more than one way to get to where we want to go.