BBC news editor resigns to protest gender pay gap
The BBC’s China editor has resigned her position in Beijing in protest over what she called a failure to sufficiently address a gap in compensation between men and women at the public broadcaster.
Carrie Gracie’s departure is the latest aftershock from the BBC’s forced publication last year of pay levels for its top earners that showed twothirds of those in the top bracket were men.
Presenting the corporation’s flagship “Today” program on Monday alongside John Humphrys, the BBC’s highestpaid news broadcaster, Gracie said the support she’d received for her decision had been “very moving” and showed the degree of frustration among many over the issue of equal pay.
“I think the scale of feeling, not just among BBC women but also just more widely across the country and also internationally, the support that I’ve had in the last few hours over this, I think it does speak to the depth of hunger for an equal, fair and transparent pay system,” she said.
A 30-year veteran of the BBC who speaks fluent Chinese, Gracie said in a statement on her website addressed to BBC viewers that she could no longer perform her job at a high level while battling with bosses over pay equality.
Gracie said she learned that two of the BBC’s four international editors — both men — made at least 50 percent more than their two female counterparts. She said she was not seeking more money for herself, but only demanding that the BBC observe British law requiring equal pay for equal work.
Gracie said she would stay with the BBC and “return to my former post in the TV newsroom where I expect to be paid equally.”
A BBC spokeswoman reaffirmed its commitment to equal pay and saying a separate report on pay for on-air staff would be issued in the “not too distant future.”