You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry

In one of my first jobs in television I worked in an open plan office with the boss working in a glass panelled office. When the boss was annoyed with someone they would call them into their glass office and tell them to close the door and then start shouting. When the boss was really angry they would ask the "victim" to leave the door open so the whole team would hear the full extent of their wrath and we could witness our hapless colleague’s humiliation. 

Years later I remember once going to a Current Affairs party with a non-TV friend and when she saw the reporter John Sweeney she didn’t know his name but turned to me and whispered “that’s the angry one”. To be fair if you look up “John Sweeney” on YouTube the first three clips are all him losing his temper on the Panorama programme “Scientology & Me”.

While the behaviour of my old boss was a bit extreme and John Sweeney’s rant has now gone down in television history, unfortunately in the media industry displays of anger are all too common; possibly due to a combination of creativity and high pressure.

Anger however is not just a television issue, it is very much a diversity issue.

It seems that some people are allowed to get angry while other people are meant to bite their tongues. Victoria Brescoll an academic at Yale University in America wanted to test the theory that men are positively rewarded when they get angry while women on the other hand are punished for getting angry in the work place.

She conducted a series of tests; in one of them she got men and women to watch different videos of actors playing out job interviews. In one video a man being ‘interviewed’ described being angry because he’d lost an account, in another the man described being sad because he’d lost the account. There was also another set of videos with women being angry and sad. The people watching the videos were then asked how much money they thought the men should get paid and how much the women should be paid. Roughly speaking the sad men and women were awarded the same salary of approximately $30,000. But when it came to anger the answers were quite different. On average the people watching the videos assigned the angry man a salary of $38,000 and the angry woman was given $23,500. People watching the videos thought angry men displayed authority and deserved more senior pay while anger in a woman displayed a lose of control and so deserved less pay.

So according to the experiment anger paid men $8,000 while it cost women $6,500. Or to put it another way angry men got paid $14,500 more than an angry woman.

As far as I am aware relative tests have not been conducted concerning anger and race, but when I have spoken to black colleagues (especially men) they have often expressed that they feel they are unable to express anger in the work place. They fear that any display of anger will stereoptype them as “angry black people” and they will not be taken seriously. They don’t just fear being paid less they fear losing their jobs.

If people from diverse backgrounds are to break the glass ceilings in the media industry and be paid what they deserve we need to project power and authority. The paradox is that some of the very tools that some people can use to display these qualities actually hinder us.

I deplore  anger in the work place – I feel it is often just one very close step away from bullying – but it is unrealistic to think that in a work environment, where we often spend more time with our colleagues than even our family, emotions are not going to occasionally come to the surface. If we are interested in addressing issues of diversity then when those emotions do bubble up to the surface we need to make sure that everyone is treated equally. Rather than rewarding some and punishing others.

Finally I consciously didn’t reveal the gender of my boss at the beginning of this blog post. How many of you thought my angry boss was a woman and how many of you thought my boss was a man? Whatever you thought let’s make sure our own stereotypes don’t influence  how we treat our colleagues.

RACISM IN FOOTBALL ONLY SCRATCHES THE SURFACE

Six years ago I used to be the series producer of “Whistleblower” a BBC investigative series where we used to go undercover to expose serious wrong doing. Our different reporters went undercover in high profile estate agents, high street banks, supermarkets, and airports. They would often be undercover for months on end secretly filming whenever they saw something that needed to be exposed.

Anyone who has ever done secret filming will tell you that it is less of a science and more of an art, you can often miss the very crucial thing you are trying to film; you end up turning on the secret camera too late, or you are pointing it in the wrong direction, or the camera’s battery runs out at the most crucial time. The fact of the matter is that any number of things can go wrong.

However when it goes right there is nothing better than secret filming: The confession caught on tape, the bad meat being put through the mincer so it can be resold to an unsuspecting public, the estate agent faking documents. It was capturing these incidents on film that gave the series its power and ensured the people secretly filmed were “caught red handed”. It even led to us having a phrase printed on the office wall: “If it didn’t happen on film it doesn’t exist”. We knew capturing wrong doing on film meant everything.

I was reminded of “Whistleblower” and the power of capturing wrong doing on film as the Euro 2012 football tournament starts today already embroiled in rows over racism.

A BBC Panorama programme recently revealed the racism of some football supporters in Poland and Ukraine, where the tournament is being held. The investigation filmed fans making Nazi salutes, singing racist chants and even beating up Asian fans. Racism in the football stadiums is a major concern for England (and other European countries playing in the competition) who’s number of non-white players and fans have grown substantially over the last twenty years.

And England is not free of its own home grown racism issues that it brings to Euro 2012; black player Rio Ferdinand hasn’t been selected for the England squad and the suspicion is that he was dropped due to the inclusion of the white player John Terry.  John Terry is currently charged of racially abusing Rio’s brother and the case will go to trial after the tournament.

All of these alleged racist incidents were brought to light because they were caught on film (John Terry’s alleged racist incident was caught by television cameras covering the match). Television is very good at capturing and exposing these types of racial issues; overt and crude. The weakness of television however is sometimes it is less good at capturing subtleties.

While “Whistleblower” went undercover in high street banks filming the mis-selling of financial products by clerks we weren’t able to capture the far bigger problems that led to the banking crash that would happen just a year after broadcast. While we filmed in Tesco and Sainsbury’s exposing employees breaking their own “sell by date” rules and tricking customers we were unable to cover the controversial, and most would say more important, issue of whether large supermarkets are contributing to the demise of Britain’s high streets.

So it is with issues regarding racism in football and wider society in general. Capturing the football fan making Nazi salutes makes for dramatic television but how do we capture the fact that there is clearly a glass ceiling when it comes to black people entering management position for football teams in the English Premiership League? How do we capture the glass ceiling in most large TV companies and broadcasters?

Secret filming can capture the ignorant, stupid and obvious but the challenge for all of us working in television interested in addressing issues of diversity is how we take our skills and capture the real issues that affect our lives. The issues that result in people with a disability, black people, Asians and other ethnic minorities being seriously under-represented working in TV and the media generally. And these things happen without a single racist word being uttered and definitely no one making any Nazi salutes.

The fact is six years on the printed words on the “Whistleblower” production office’s walls now haunt me; “If it didn’t happen on film it doesn’t exist”.

The problem is some of the biggest issues that affect people from diverse backgrounds will never happen on film but that definitely doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

A Week In The Life Of A TV Executive

MONDAY
Week really starts on Sunday when I received the call that convicted Lockerbie Bomber Megrahi might be about to die. He’s been “about to die” ever since he was released on compassionate grounds in 2009. The Lockerbie bombing was the largest single terrorist act over British soil so it casts a large shadow over Scottish current affairs. The Sunday phone call hijacks most of my Monday morning as I make sure our Lockerbie current affairs output is up to date. Although talking to the team one thing is certain we are NOT preparing an obituary! We don't do obits for convicted mass murderers - I feel I could pre-write the letters of complaint now if we did. We have to get a film ready that will cover all the issues relating to Lockerbie and Megrahi when he dies. A film that will mark a convicted terrorist’s death that isn't an obit’. It's not easy (did I mention some people think he’s innocent?)

TUESDAY
Meeting Head of Scheduling at BBC Scotland (wish I had her job). At school I used to play chess at the National Championships and scheduling is the closest I get to exercise that strategic part of my brain. I've got a big investigation into Rangers football club and we've got to decide where to place it in the schedules. I've been in Scotland five years and I'm only just getting to grips with the place Rangers and Celtic play in the Scottish psyche. It’s nothing like any Premiership clubs in England, it's more like Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain representing specific histories, politics, and unfortunately in the case of Scotland often religions. Being English I tread carefully when covering these Scottish icons. I still find it strange to describe myself as "English" something I'd never done before coming up to Scotland. Five years ago I was "black British", a “Londoner”, a “Brixtonian” but not “English”, Scotland quickly knocked that view out of me. Nothing like being in a minority to make you aware of your identity.

WEDNESDAY
TV history is being made with cameras being allowed to film the sentencing in an Edinburgh Court of David Gilroy for murdering his lover Suzanne Pilley. I've got a special into her murder going out that night; only interview with the family, exclusive access to police investigation etc etc. Network news is going big on it as well. It definitely feels as if Scotland is ahead of the curve when it comes to filming in court. But we were ahead with the smoking ban and minimum pricing of alcohol – wow, can’t believe I’m saying “we”!

THURSDAY
Massive spring in my step: overnights have come in and last night's doc gets a 24% audience share – great for a current affairs programme. Have a meeting with a London indie. It seems everyone has woken up to the fact that Scotland has an independence referendum looming. It's like being the plain Jane who's had a make-over and now everyone wants to ask you out for a date.

After the indie pitch I catch a flight to London for a meeting with Doreen Lawrence about taking part in a TV event. I often feel I inhabit two worlds. Exec'ing Panoramas and Scottish commissions I firmly park my race at the front door. But I'm also acutely aware I'm one of the only non-white execs working in current affairs so I have an added responsibility (being a role model and all that stuff). To be honest I think being black has really helped me in Scotland: I’ve been having conversations about independence since I was a teenager - Martinique model (stick with the devil you know) vs. Jamaican model (independence or die). And as for feeling a minority in a larger UK I totally get that.

FRIDAY

Still in London. Chasing network commissions. The Panorama Editor Tom Giles is always looking to feed the ravenous beast that is Panorama so meeting goes well. Nothing green lit, but nothing ever is at the first pitch. As I leave White City someone asks if I'm moving to Channel 4, it seems I was spotted "lurking around Horseferry Rd". The reality is a lot more mundane as I was just popping in to see Daniel Pearl new Editor of Dispatches to discuss some academic work I'm doing for Bournemouth University. They really need to get a back entrance at Channel 4, for once I have sympathy for Murdoch visiting Downing Street. The sympathy doesn't last too long though as the following Monday the Leveson Inquiry interview both James and Rupert and the media world erupts again - but that's the start of another week.

(Edited Version First Appeared In Royal Television Society's "Television" Magazine, May Edition)

Using Science To Tackle Racism

Last week I received an email from an old friend and cameraman that I used to work with when I was a director. The email was asking for copies of a series that we had worked on together.

The programmes in question were part of a documentary series aired over ten years ago with a black focus and the majority of the production team who made it were also black. That’s when I realised that I was actually the only person from the old production team the cameraman could ask for copies of the series. All my black colleagues had either left television completely (two have become teachers) or at least left production.

The issue of retention of talented black and minority ethnic staff is one of the biggest problems when it comes to addressing problems of prejudice and under representation in television. But could we learn from other industries that also suffer from a lack of diversity.

This week Professor Lesley Yellowlees, the first female President of the Royal Society of Chemistry said the UK was 50 years behind the US when it comes to women working in science. She also has the figures to back it up. For example when the National Academy of Science (a preeminent American institution) announced their 2012 electees last week, 24 of the 84 – more than one in four – were women. Compare that to the Royal Society (The British equivalent of the N.A.S.) where the figure was 2 women out of 44. These figures were part of a study done by the Royal Society called “Tapping All Our Talents”.

What was interesting is that like my experience in television the biggest problem is not getting minorities into the science where they are under-represented but keeping them there. For example in subjects such as Biology, Maths and Chemistry women make up around 50% or more of people studying it at undergraduate level. At entry level jobs women still make up around 50% for Biology but as the years progress you find that by the time you reach professor level less than 20% of all people working in science are women. It is not that women are still working in the respective sciences but at lower levels, the evidence seems to suggest that they just leave.

In the Royal Society study motherhood is seen as possibly the largest factor contributing to the lack of women staying in science. Scientists are meant to work long unsocial hours in labs and often have to travel around the country leaving their families and children. With mothers still often the primary child care providers in a family these unfriendly family working practices are thought to hit women particularly hard and cause them to leave the industry. If they want to address the lack of women in science they need to make it easier for people to balance work and parenthood. In typically scientific fashion the Royal Society had identified a phenomenon (lack of women) analysed the data (women are there at the beginning of their careers and then leave) found a cause (unfriendly family working practices) and decided what needs to be addressed.

There is no doubt that television suffers from many of the same working practices as the sciences; long unpredictable working hours and often working all around the country. And I’ve heard these same reasons given as to why there are not more women in management positions in television News and Current Affairs.

While this may be true it fails to explain why BME staff (many of whom are men) do not manage to have long careers in television.

Large media institutions who, with the best of intentions, often want to address the under-representation of their BME staff invariably devise programmes to encourage more BME people to enter the industry or to arrange mentor programmes for people already in the industry. While these initiatives are welcome what The Royal Society study teaches us is that no number of mentoring schemes or entry level programmes will help increase the number of women in science in the long run, for the sciences what needs to be done is address unfriendly family working practices.

In the same way the television industry needs to clearly identify the exact factors that stop BME staff from having long and fruitful careers. Until we do that we do not know if we are using the right tools to address the problem. Mentoring schemes and entry level programmes might end up being the best solution but the only way we’ll know for sure is if we follow the Royal Society's example and take a more “scientific approach” to analysing the problem.

What’s Wrong With Our Black Communities?

A few weeks ago BBC3 aired the powerful docu-drama “My Murder”. The drama retold the true story of the murder of Shakilus Townsend, a victim of a “honey-trap” who was lured to his killers by his ex-girlfriend.

I remember when the crime was initially reported in the newspapers and was shocked and fascinated by the story in equal measure. All the major characters in this horrific crime were of African and / or Caribbean decent; Shakilus, the girlfriend and the leader of the murdering gang. The drama (like the reality I am sure) was firmly set within a black community.  

Now I am not going to join the usual chorus of complaints that follow these kinds of programmes of “why are black people always shown in a negative light?”. This was a true story and I'm sure the ethnicity of all the people portrayed in the drama was accurate. Shakilus Townsend, his sister and family were also, in fact, all portrayed in a sympathetic light. Yes, there were bad criminal black people but the drama in no way portrayed all black people as criminals or potential murderers.

However the programme still left me feeling uneasy. It left me worried about how black communities are portrayed on TV.

Over the last twenty years there has been real progress, with most British drama writers now recognising that there should be "positive" black characters. Casting directors are now more willing to cast black actors in non-stereotypical “positive” roles. Things are far from perfect, but there is no denying that progression.  We see “positive” black characters on our screen relatively often – from actors in Dr Who to The Hustle and of course Luther. However, there’s something special about these “positive” characters..

They are often the only black character, inhabiting functioning white communities, or at the very least majority white communities. Black communities on TV on the other hand are portrayed almost exclusively as “dysfunctional”. While many of the people portrayed in the “My Murder” drama may have been likable, the community they were set in was anything but.  

The message that came across loud and clear from the docu-drama and more generally on our screens is that while there might be good black individuals, black communities are a problem. It suggests that if you are a “good” or “positive” black person you should want to leave the dysfunctional black communities as quickly as possible. While some might downplay these unspoken messages, the reality is one comes across these implicit negative views about black communities all the time.  There are often similar messages about Asians on TV: while there might be “positive” individual Asians, the community is invariably problematic, populated with forced marriages and potential terrorists.

Yet the reality is that while dysfunctional black communities certainly do exist, there are also very good positive functional communities. Recent analysis by Dr Nicola Rollock into the black middleclass offers strong examples of functional positive black communities that rarely see our TV screens. I for one am very proud to be part of a black community that includes lawyers, film makers, policemen, civil servants, charity workers – but also unemployed people.  It’s mixed, but positively so.

So why aren’t these positive, broader messages about our diverse communities coming out?

I believe that the reason we now have an increase in the portrayal of positive black individual characters on TV is less to do with political correctness than the fact that many white script writers, producers and directors  increasingly live multi-cultural lives and regularly come into contact with “good” non-white individuals in their real lives. The positive individuals trend on our screens is itself a by-product of a broader trend, rather than an intentional outcome.  But if we are going to get a similar sea change in how the black community is portrayed as a whole we need to ensure that people from these functioning communities are employed in positions of editorial responsibility, like the “positive” individuals trend, positive communities will hopefully appear on our screens just by people writing, casting and directing about what they know, rather than any intentional effort.

With an increase in the portrayal of all different diverse communities  maybe then I will be able to see "My Murder" for what it was; an horrific crime in a dysfunctional community that happened to be black, rather than yet another crime in our dysfunctional black community.

Kony2012: Lessons for every journalist

Have you seen the internet sensation film Kony2012? Seventy eight million people have already viewed it, it has taken up copious amounts of print space and governments are talking about changing their policies because of it. For that ever decreasing number of people who have not heard of the film or seen it let me briefly explain what the film is about:

The film is made by a campaign group called InvisibleChildren about the wanted war criminal Joseph Kony, his army the Lord’s Resistance Army and his use of child soldiers in Uganda. So why is the film so popular and what lessons can we learn from it as journalists?

What makes Kony2012’s success even more amazing is that it flies in the face of conventional thinking about how current affairs covers international stories in general and Africa specifically.

Traditionally foreign stories are seen as audience losers. Just to underline this point this week Panorama and Dispatches both covered international stories. Panorama covered recent events in Syria while Dispatches did an investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka. The Panorama film recorded its second lowest audience ever, since becoming a half hour format, of 1.5 million (the lowest audience was 1 million and that was when it got shifted to BBC2 due to an Andy Murray Wimbledon semi-final over-running). Dispatches meanwhile received an audience of 0.3million for its international coverage of Sri Lanka.

When it comes to Africa specifically the idea that low audiences come with the territory is even more ingrained amongst TV bigwigs. I was recently talking to a high level BBC exec who bemoaned the fact that stories on Africa are “niche” pointing to the fact that the BBC This World film onSudan received an audience of only 0.6 million (I should remind you that this was covering the birth of a new nation – possibly the biggest story to occur in sub-Saharan Africa in the last twenty years).

And so it is against this backdrop that Kony2012, a film about a civil conflict in central Africa, has become the biggest current affairs film since Martin Bashir interviewed Princess Diana on Panorama.

People have attributed various theories as to how it has done this. Some people have talked about how the film is so “slick”, others have attributed its success to Facebook and others said it is all about the immediacy of the film using the same tactics as a used car salesman’s “everymust go now” for the internet savvy age.

I don’t believe any of these properly explain its appeal. The film is no more “slicker” than a well produced Panorama, Dispatches or Frontline (on PBS). Facebook alone cannot account for its success, internet sensations like “Thumbs Up For Rock and Roll” only get 5 – 10 million views if you’re lucky, let alone explain how a half hour documentary has got close to 80 million views. And as for the used car salesman techniques, I’m not buying it, people are not that gullible.

The secret I believe is in the idea of “Journalism Of Consequence”. The current affairs films that really succeed are ones that are able to change the world around them. Change government policy, change the way big companies act, force a politician from power etc. When you are watching a strong current affairs film you are watching the world change in front of your very eyes. You are watching something important that will have real consequences in the real world. That is why current affairs programmes that cover domestic issues are invariably more popular. It is far easier for a current affairs programme to influence the actions of domestic government or company than to influence a government half way across the world which is not even accountable to the people who have watched the programme.

The challenge is how do you make programmes that cover foreign issues “journalism of consequence”? If you can crack that nut you will not only attract a large domestic audience you will also have the potential of your film going global appealing to a worldwide audience.

This is exactly what Kony2012 has been able to do. The entire film focuses on what can be done to change things. It also shows how previous efforts have forced change – with Obama supposedly changing US policy due to their campaigns. At almost every opportunity the film virtually screams; “This is journalism of consequence!”. Watch this film and not only are you watching the world change around you, you too can change the world for the better.

The fact is most current affairs programmes that cover foreign affairs are almost the exact opposite. The films offer a window into an unseen foreign world but there are no consequences to the films being made and broadcast.

Kony2012 provides valuable lessons for all journalists that are trying to cover stories not normally covered in the mainstream. It goes to the heart of what this blog is about which is trying to increase the diversity of what TV covers.

First of all it tells us that there are almost no subjects that cannot attract an audience if it is covered correctly. A small civil war in central Africa hardly sounds like a ratings winner. So the next time a commissioner or TV executive tells you the a certain subject never attracts audience remind them it is all about treatment. Remind them of Kony2012

Secondly I sometimes think that the way we write about diversity in TV, (or other non-mainstream issues), is almost like the conventional approach TV takes to foreign affairs; highlighting an important and interesting issue but ultimately with no consequences. BME, women and disabled people are still under-represented in front of and behind the camera regardless of how many articles I write or read. I get “diversity fatigue” and stop reading and this is true for numerous issues.

If we want our journalism to be taken seriously and reach as wide an audience as possible, whether that is about foreign affairs or diversity, we need to learn from Kony2012. We need to produce “Journalism Of Consequence”