Diversity Talk Is Cheap

The last year has been a rollercoaster of a ride when it comes to the issue of diversity. Everybody from heads of Britain’s largest broadcasting organisations to government ministers have been publically declaring their commitment to diversity. Frankly, I’ve never seen so many people saying they are committed to improving diversity in the television industry.

This is all great. But what is increasingly worrying me is the possibility that all the strong words supporting diversity might actually have the opposite effect. Here’s why.

The two best examples of how important the issue of TV diversity has become were at the Edinburgh Television Festival during the summer and more recently at a debate at the House of Commons between ministers and their opposition counterparts. At both events some of the most important people in British broadcasting – such as Ed Vaizey and Peter Fincham – were fighting to prove why their commitment to diversity was greater than the person sitting next to them.

With all these strong words coming from channel controllers, television executives and politicians part of me wants to pat people like Lenny Henry and others who have been making proposals to address diversity recently and say “job well done”. The temptation is to  sit back, relax and wait for the media industry to become a more diverse and inclusive industry.

But perversely, a number of psychology experiments suggest now is not the time to relax. In fact, with all the fine words, these experiments suggest now is the time for those of us interested in increasing diversity to be even more vigilint.

In 2009 a psychologist – Professor Peter Gollowitzer from NYU – published a paper that tried to show the gap between people’s public declarations and their actual behaviour.

Prof. Gollowitzer looked at charitable giving and discovered that people who went public with their intentions to give to charity - (in this case signing a “kindness pledge”) - were significantly less likely to give to charity than people who kept their intentions private. According to Gollowitzer it’s all about how you view your own identity.  

When people made their plans public (or their identity public) by signing a “kindness pledge” that effectively stated: “I am the type of person who gives to charity”, they were able to claim the identity without actually following through on the behaviour. By contrast those who did not sign the pledge let their actions do the talking and in the end donated more to charity.

In another experiment at Northwestern University psychologists randomly asked a group of people to write about themselves. Half were asked to use “positive” terms like caring, generous and kind, and the other half “neutral” terms. The psychologists then distracted them for a while, then asked the whole group whether they wanted to donate to a charity. I’m sure you can now guess the result. Yes - those who described themselves in neutral terms donated an average of two and a half times more to charity than those who said they were kind!

According to psychologists – whether it’s signing a pledge or describing yourself as a charitable – such public acts seem to give people a psychological licence to actually give less.

The lessons for TV diversity are obvious. Could the public commitments to diversity actually have a negative result?

I think it would be churlish to criticise the politicians and television executives for making public commitments to creating a more diverse work force. We should welcome the change in tone surrounding the debate on TV diversity in the last year. But what experimental psychology tells us is that when we hear everyone committing themselves to diversity initiatives, rather than relaxing, we should redouble our efforts to make sure the strong words translate into real concrete results.

Lastly this could also explain why the decline in the number of Black and Asian people working in television seems to have directly correlated with the Creative Diversity Network Pledge. (The pledge was a public declaration made by nearly every major broadcaster in the UK and a lot of the major production companies to increase diversity in their workforce).  

 

The Politics of Diversity

Everybody wants TV to become more diverse – but is there the political will to act on it?

There is a scene in the HBO comedy series Flight of The Conchords in which Murray, the hapless manager of the titular band, warns the group against singing an “anti-AIDS” song as it might alienate all the people who are “pro-AIDS”. When the band members tell him that’s ridiculous, he tries to find someone, anyone, who is “pro-AIDS”. Obviously, he fails.

Talking about diversity in the television industry can feel like this, but in reverse. It’s almost impossible to find anyone who does not want a more diverse workforce both in front and behind the camera – and for good reason.

Between 2009 and 2012, more than 2,000 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people have left the creative industries. At the same time, the industry has grown by 4,000.That effectively means that for every BAME person who left their job in this three year period, more than two white people have been employed.

Against this backdrop, the BBC is currently negotiating its charter renewal with UK politicians. The charter outlines the six official purposes of the BBC, the fourth of which (or purpose ‘d’ to be precise) is focused on diversity. The BBC, it says, should be ‘representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities’.

The last charter renewal clearly set out guidelines on how the BBC should represent the first three of these. To represent the UK, there should be a clear number of primetime hours of news and current affairs television. For the nations (Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland), there should be a set number of programmes produced in each nation, and similarly it set out criteria for the regions (or outside of London at least). The specific details of these guidelines are determined by the BBC Trust.

But on the fourth group, ‘communities’, the charter is strangely silent. The question is whether the next charter renewal will tackle this issue, specifically for BAME communities?

Put another way: do the politicians negotiating the next charter with the BBC need to step in and legislate, in the same way they previously legislated on how the BBC should represent the UK, nations and regions? Everybody wants diversity – but will the politicians have the political will to act?

On 17 November, the Royal Television Society will be holding the first ever political hustings on TV diversity. Ed Vaizey, minister of media and culture, will be going head-to-head with his Labour and LibDem counterparts Helen Goodman MP and John Leech MP. All of them will be stating their case for how they would increase diversity in the television industry – and why if you want to increase diversity you should vote for them at the General Election in May 2015.

Charter renewal is unlikely to decide the hue of the next government but the details of the negotiation will make a difference. Knowing what the possible ministers think of diversity might affect the future on BAME people in television for the next twenty years.

I would be surprised if any of the politicians take a stance equivalent to the “pro-AIDS” line. They will all be for diversity, but to get the diversity vote, they might just need to go further and set out exactly how their approach to achieving diversity will deliver.

(This article originally appeared in Broadcast on 14th November)

Can Super Heroes Rescue TV Diversity?

A few days ago Marvel comics announced that Captain America would become an African American. They also announced that Thor the Norse god of thunder (another super-hero) would become a woman.

Cue receiving a flurry of emails and texts that this was a great day for diversity: Today a black Capt. America, tomorrow a gay James Bond and who knows what next year will bring?!

I must confess I was a little less excited by the prospect.

First of all I think the idea of broadening out backgrounds of comic book superheroes is a great idea. Why shouldn’t Spiderman be Asian? And as this is a blog about TV Diversity why should so many major TV characters be white from Dr Who to Sherlock Holmes? Coincidentally in the recent American adaptation of Sherlock Holmes - “Elementary” - Dr Watson is an Asian woman.

But I believe this is window dressing that fails to understand the real issues of diversity.

Although the debate about TV diversity on screen is often centered around arguments about the number of black or disabled actors the problem isn’t this simple or shallow.

Diversity is about people seeing their reality reflected in the programmes they watch.

That is why I’ve seen Lenny Henry getting the biggest round of applause when he asks an audience; “Where are Luther’s black friends?” (referring to the character played by Idris Elba). Luther may be black but it would be wrong to think that viewers’ appetite for more diversity on television is satisfied by one of the actors having more melanin than usual.

This is one of the reasons why for some TV executives diversity can seem like a thankless task. The number of BAME faces on our screens can increase and yet viewers still seem unhappy. I have been to presentations where senior producers have been able to roll out the increase in on-screen diversity to disbelieving audiences (truth been told I have been one of those producers).

We have neat graphs and pie charts to show how well we are doing but it doesn’t match the perceived reality of our audiences. And that is because the programmes and the characters do not match the actual reality of our audiences.

I think this is a reflection of the fact that irrespective of how many people you have in front of the camera it’s not until the people behind the camera start to look more like the diversity of the audience that the programmes will more accurately reflect the reality of the audience. And unfortunately the number of people from diverse backgrounds behind the camera is still far too low.

Or to put it another way: A black Captain America and female Thor might be able to come to diversity’s rescue but only when the writers of comic books are 50% women and 36% non-white American (and we haven’t even started talking about disability and sexuality).

Jay Mukoro

Jay Mukoro is an incredibly talented television producer who has worked on some of the most important landmark current affairs and documentaries on British television in the last ten years from “Mixed Britannia” to the Bafta award winning series “History of Modern Britain”. His work serves as an inspiration for many BAME people working in television.

 

On Wednesday 23rd April several of his friends and colleagues received an email from Jay’s wife Olivia who wanted as many of Jay’s friends and colleagues to know about her husband’s current situation and not hear about it through gossip and rumour.

 

Our prayers and hopes are with Jay, Olivia and their families.

 

 

 

Dear Jay's friends,

 

 

As I think most of you know, I'm writing with terrible news - on Sunday around 2pm in Barbados Jay went into the sea just in front of our loungers (and in front of the life-guard hut). I saw him walking into fairly busy water to just above knee height. I think he must have got into serious trouble in the water because when I looked up I couldn't see him. I raised the alarm with the lifeguards and we searched all day with the lifeguards, coast guard team and police but he wasn't found all that day. Since then they have been looking every day, searching by boat and driving in the water, checking the hospital etc but nothing. Since he had nothing with him and he had just gone for a short swim and I was on the beach all day looking til dark, with no sign of him getting out (by anyone on a very busy beach), I can only fear the worst. Jay isn't a strong swimmer and though he is careful and cautious but the waves and current on the beach arestrong.Over the past few days they have continued searching the sea for a body and nothing has been found but they will continue looking.

 

My family (Mum, Dad, Helly and Pose) have flown out and are being amazing as you can imagine. We've been told there's nothing we can really do - but so that we've exhausted every avenue we're putting posters around and doing interviews with the local papers (thereare already tv / radio and newspaper announcements but they're very brief so we'll try to raise the profile as much as possible).

 

I am so sorry to bring such devastating news to you of someone who I know you all held very dearly.

 

Love to you all,

 

Olivia xx

Change Is In The Air

Something exciting is happening in the world of TV Diversity it is almost tangible. 

First Lenny Henry called the Bafta award ceremony "all white". It was picked up by nearly all the papers as a major event. To be honest I didn't think too much of it. I'd heard similar comments before and they rarely amount to anything other than The Guardian readers and Daily Mail readers taking opposite views and trotting out their usual comments.  

Then Lenny along with Kwame Kwei-Armah and a few others took part in an RTS panel discussion on the " Flight of the Black Actor" asking why there weren't more opportunities for BAME actors in the UK, and whether actors feel forced to go abroad. I'm sure most of the people attending didn't notice it but both Kwame and Lenny mused about taking the same approach to BAME diversity as the TV industry has taken to Regional diversity. They were throw away comments during the question and answer session but with hindsight were the start of a snowball. 

Taken together the Bafta comment and the RTS event caused a big enough stir in the press for the Minister for Culture, Media & Sport - Ed Vaizey - to call an industry wide "summit" of the great and the good to see how we could address the declining number of BAME people in the creative industries. 

It was at that summit, midst all the usual platitudes of "needing to do more" and the usual suggestions of "more mentoring" and "training", that Lenny presented the "Henry Paper" outlining that the TV industry should follow the Regional diversity model for increasing diversity. It was still a little rough and consisted of less than two sides of A4. I was at that summit and the overall consensus of the paper was; "best of intentions" and "commend the idea" but "how would it work practically?". And "Maybe Lenny should stick to comedy?"

Then Bafta, the very people who's award ceremony Lenny had criticised, invited him to give their annual keynote speech. Again I was there and I can tell you the speech - "I have a dream screen" - was electric. Lenny put flesh on the bones of the "Henry Paper" explaining exactly how adopting the Regional model would work in practice. It was almost like going to church there were so many 'converts'. You could feel people being converted to an idea that had seemed fanciful previously. 

Then Trevor McDonald came out with the statement that things were getting so bad that we were living in a "media apartheid". This was quickly followed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy saying that we needed to look at radical solutions for increasing diversity in TV and hinted at quotas and ring-fenced money. He didn't mention Lenny Henry but then again he didn't need to. 

Then this week Lenny Henry took part in a televised interview for the TVCollective. What followed might have been a turning point in the debate on TV diversity. Samir Shah, the Ex-head of BBC Current Affairs and Political programmes came out in support of Lenny Henry's proposals. No longer the "well meaning person who should stick to comedy" (as I heard whispered before), but now "the only person with a coherent plan". 

All this has taken place in less than nine months. I have no idea if Lenny Henry's plan will be taken on board by the TV industry - but then again I would have never predicted the events that followed Lenny's comments about the Bafta awards.

What I do know is it feels as if change is in the air and for someone who has been following the issue of diversity for more years than I care to remember it feels exciting. 

Diversity vs. Stereotypes

I haven’t got any gay friends. 

They seem to be everywhere nowadays; getting married, becoming Members of Parliament even becoming priests. So I think I want to rectify my lack of gay friends. But I don’t want any old gay friends I want a really gay person. Not someone like Will from “Will & Grace” you would hardly know he was gay. Someone more like Jack. Someone who snaps their fingers almost like an African American woman and says “girlfriend” a lot. You know the type?

If you didn’t realise the last paragraph was a joke or find it highly offensive I suggest you are on the wrong website. 

However my concern is that when we try and address under-representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people (BAME) in the media we almost take a similar approach. 

With the best intentions broadcasters and large media organisations regularly role out different initiatives to try and help BAME people into the media. But all too often they target a specific type of BAME person. 

The schemes go to the poorest black neighborhoods, with the highest unemployment, with the highest crime rates. They find people who invariably left school with few if any qualifications from the most dysfunctional backgrounds. It is almost as if they are purposely trying to identify the “real black people”, like the “real gay people” in my example above.

My sister-in-law works with young people from deprived backgrounds and she can wax lyrical how these are possibly the hardest type of people to reach and find long term employment for in any kind of work - let alone in professions like the media. They are almost setting up the people they recruit to fail. 

First of all I have to make it clear that the vast majority of these initiatives are commendable and I don’t want any of them to stop. But I see them more as charitable outreach rather than trying to seriously address the problem of diversity in the media. 

Nearly all the black and Asian people I come across who work in television who have suffered discrimination, or prematurely hit a glass ceiling in their career, are university graduates (with at least one degree) and they come from well functioning backgrounds with good support structures. 

If the media industry is having serious problems addressing the concerns of these well adjusted people why do they keep focusing their efforts on an even harder constituency to place?

Diversity schemes need to recognise diversity in all it’s varied forms including gender, sexuality, class, disability and race. But they also need to recognise diversity within these groups as well - free from stereotypes. Not all black people are poor, not all people from lower socio-economic backgrounds didn’t go to university, not all gay people are camp, not all disabled people are in wheelchairs.

When it comes to increasing BAME diversity in the media I want us to help all black and Asian people and not just focus on the stereotypes. 

(Now who is going to invite me to their gay wedding?)

IF IT’S GOOD TWEET IT, IF YOU WANT CHANGE EMAIL IT

When I first became an executive producer I used to hate italics.

Let me explain:

After a programme is transmitted on the BBC a few viewers normally phone the duty log or write in saying how much they enjoyed the programme or complaining about the programme. The correspondence and a summary of each phone-call is collected and then forwarded on to the executive producer. Some of these comments are italicised.

Italics indicate that the person leaving the comment has asked for feedback. As an executive producer, that means that for the next twenty minutes (or longer) I have to draft a response explaining why I have made certain editorial decisions, or even made the programme at all.

People often think that faceless automatons answer complaints to the BBC and we just send out standardised responses. Standard responses can be sent out if we receive a number of emails, phone-calls and letters raising the same point, but the executive of the programme or a senior member of the production team originally drafts even these responses.

It's BBC policy to read and respond to comments, and we owe it to the people who pay our salaries - the license fee payers - to be as accountable as possible.

I say I used to hate italics because they meant extra time out of my working day. But over the years I’ve grown to realise that they are incredibly useful. They force me to think about my programmes in more detail and can force me to confront an issue that I may not have adequately thought about while making the programme. They can influence my editorial decisions when making future programmes.

The reason I raise this is because I was on a panel discussion recently about under-representation of African-Caribbean people in television. The discussion was lively and the audience raised concerns about black people on TV across the different broadcasters from the BBC to Sky.

As the audience voiced grievance after grievance about how television treats black people I asked them if any of them had ever written to any of the broadcaster about it. Or if they had ever called a channel after they had watched a programme they were particularly annoyed about. The answer was a resounding silence.

These were people who clearly felt strongly enough about TV Diversity to take the time out on a rainy weekday evening to leave their warm homes to discuss it. But not one of them had raised their concerns with people who actually mattered.

Some of them may have put comments on their Facebook page about “negative portrayal of black people in the media” or tweeted about “#LennyHenry and his Bafta speech”. But no one in the BBC, ITV, C4, C5 or Sky had received the equivalent of an italicised comment demanding a response. No one in the audience had made one TV exec stop and think about their editorial decisions, or possibly influenced an exec’s future editorial decisions.

In the last few days I have seen that TheTVCollective - an organisation raising concerns around diversity in television both in front of and behind the camera - has launched an email campaign for people to email the Minister of Culture Media and Sports Ed Vaizey supporting Lenny Henry’s Bafta speech calling for ring-fenced money.

Whether you support TheTVCollective’s specific campaign or not I believe the idea of emailing, phoning and simply letting the people in positions for power know what you think about TV Diversity is long overdue.

If you see a programme that covers diversity well please call and email the broadcaster about it. I know from experience that it is easier to get a re-commission if you have a stack of positive feedback behind you. If you don’t like a programme tell us, it really does make us think twice. And finally if you have thoughts about television in general let the broadcasters or people in power know. It’s doubtful your #Diversity tweet will be read by any TV execs, Director General or Culture Minister but a comment to the right email address will - especially if you ask for feedback.

Make my day and fill up my email inbox with italicised emails.

(Don’t know how to contact your ‘favourite’ TV channel? Find the website links below packed full of  useful email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers)

BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/contacting_bbc

ITV: www.itv.com/viewerservices

Channel 4 www.channel4.com/4viewers/contact-us

Channel 5 www.channel5.com/contact-us