SHAME OF BBC ‘ALL-WHITE’ NEWSROOMS
‘Broadcaster completely out of touch with communities it serves’
THE BBC should be ashamed that it has radio and TV stations where newsrooms are entirely white and not representing the communities they serve, current staff and former employees have told Eastern Eye.
They said they had warned the BBC it would not meet its racial diversity targets a decade ago, and neither would the corporation reflect the cities and regions to which it broadcasts.
Eastern Eye has seen an email from the acting director of BBC Local, Jason Horton, which revealed that none of the new “senior news editors” appointed so far was of colour.
The message to staff also revealed that one Asian local radio manager decided not to apply for a job to lead two stations.
“I love working for the BBC, and when I joined, it was the proudest day of my life,” said one ethnic minority staff employee before breaking down in tears.
“I’ve given years of my life to the BBC, and I haven’t been promoted despite working harder than my white colleagues.
“I’m so ashamed when I see they are paying lip service and don’t really care about representing their listeners and viewers.”
Those unhappy with the BBC blame poor leadership and managers “burying their heads in the sand and paying lip service to diversity figures” for its poor racial inclusion record.
“When we brought our concerns to bosses, their usual response was to talk about all their great hires,” one former senior staffer told Eastern Eye. “This has been going on for years.
“Even today I’ve been told they still gaslight people of colour or they promise them jam tomorrow by saying things will get better, trust them.
“The point is those who have been there for any significant time leave because they’ve lost trust in the BBC as they never deliver on their promises.”
Naz Shah, the Labour MP for Bradford West and shadow home office minister, told Eastern Eye she would be writing to the BBC to ask what it was doing to address the lack of racial diversity.
“I am shocked to learn about this. I think it’s incumbent on the BBC to have a workplace reflective of the communities it serves.
“We know when we have diverse workforces, they are much better at engaging with communities,
and that trust and confidence have to be there from the communities we serve.
“It’s a big concern and very worrying for me, especially given the make-up of my constituency.”
Several current Asian staffers told Eastern Eye they are concerned the budget cuts will only make matters worse, and the BBC will never reach the 20 per cent target at every level of the organisation.
One senior south Asian staff journalist said, “I warned bosses that newsrooms didn’t represent the local or regional communities they served.
“I was told things had changed, and the BBC was committed to hitting the 20 per cent targets.
“I was also told I was overreacting, and that the BBC was committed to diversity.
“So, how do you explain that in 2022 we have some newsrooms in local radio and regional television where we don’t have one single employee, not those who are freelance or on temporary contracts, who are of colour?
“How do you explain that after the current restructuring, all the senior leaders in nations and regions are white, all the television super-editors are white, and only two of the 40-odd local radio station managers are of colour?”
The BBC’s latest annual report for ethnicity reveals that just 6.3 per cent of staff in ‘nations’, the department for local and regional programmes, describe themselves as non-white.
The 2021 census reveals that 18 per cent of people in England and Wales describe themselves as non-white. Although this an increase of 0.4 per cent since March 2020, it is only a third of ethnic minorities in the two nations.
Analysis by Eastern Eye suggests that at this rate, it will take a further 35 years before the BBC hits its self-imposed 20 per cent target.
“The BBC promises a lot when it comes to diversity, but it never delivers,” said one insider. “Remember when Greg [Dyke, former director-general] described us as hideously white?
“Well, looks great on screen and on air, but behind the scenes it’s just as bad as it was in Greg’s day.”
The BBC wants a fifth of its staff to be an ethnic minority at all levels by 2026. The corporation has set ambitious targets in the past, but it has never reached them.
Nina Robinson, an experienced former BBC radio journalist, carried out a three-month study for Birmingham City University.
She used the Freedom of Information Act and the BBC’s annual reports to get the data.
She found that of the 118 assistant editors, editors, heads of radio news and directors of regions, only six per cent who worked in news were non-white in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
“It’s no surprise that white newsrooms exist, which is shocking when you consider the latest census data that there are now cities which are majority minority communities,” said Robinson.
“The audiences are diverse and increasingly so, and they’re not being served by local radio, which is something that’s enshrined in the BBC royal charter.”
Aaqil Ahmed was previously the BBC’s head of religion and is currently a nonexecutive director for the broadcast regulator, Ofcom. Speaking in a personal capacity, he described the figures and current lack of diversity in nations and regions as “disappointing”.
“These are things which have needed a shake up for a long time,” he said.
“I was talking about these demographic changes 10 years ago, after the 2011 census, and I did a paper that never went anywhere. We had time to sort this out.
“So yes, I know, it’s difficult thing to do, but here’s the reality – in certain geographical pockets of the UK, it would suggest the BBC is completely out of touch with the communities they serve.
“The likes of Birmingham and Leicester are now – for the first time – minority majority cities. Can you justify not having people in senior positions who come from those communities?
“If we had listened to conversations a decade or so ago, then we wouldn’t be in this position that we’re in now.”
Ahmed said the problem was that no one was held to account for failing to hit diversity targets.
“The big question is this, how will they be held to account and who will be held to account?
“The BBC, basically marking their own work, will say that we tried, but because of Covid, because of this, because of that, because of cutbacks, we didn’t hit the targets. They will blame everything else other than the fact that historically, they have never met their targets.
“If you can mark your own homework, where’s the fear?
The BBC classifies “leaders” as being from Band E [assistant editors] to SL [senior leaders]. But it will not reveal the numbers in individual departments, so there is no public record of how many socalled leaders there are in local and regional newsrooms.
What Eastern Eye does know is the television newsroom which serves the East Midlands, based in Nottingham, does not represent the communities it serves.
“We lost three ethnic minorities one after another,” said one former East Midlands Today journalist.
“One took voluntary redundancy, another joined ITV as an editor after years of getting nowhere here and getting really frustrated, and another got a job at a different network. It’s a case of apathy meeting couldn’t care less.
“Then you look at ITV Central, and four out of 10 of their senior editorial team are Asian, including our colleague who wasn’t good enough, or so the grown-ups thought. Their newsroom is so racially diverse and is representative of the whole of the Midlands, off and on-screen. So, what are they doing right that we aren’t?”
Eastern Eye understands that East Midlands Today has just one staff journalist of colour working for it.
One senior editor told Eastern Eye it was not true there were all-white newsrooms. They argued everyone in local radio stations was part of “the newsroom”.
But several current staff who spoke to Eastern Eye on the condition of anonymity said that was not the case, and the “newsroom-production-staff-divide still existed, despite what managers want to make you believe.”
“How can you have social cohesion and understanding between communities if the news is not representative,” asked Robinson.
“There’s evidence that has shown the lack of a diverse newsroom leads to stereotypes, or seeing people of colour in certain positions, rather seeing the whole variety of human life and walks of life.
“That’s the whole point of having a public service broadcaster – to increase understanding between communities, especially at a time when we are having a rise in the far right, and social media and internet are putting all of us more into echo chambers.”
In a statement, a BBC spokesperson said, “We hold ourselves to the highest standards when it comes to representation of all backgrounds, and diversity is a priority for us.”
As part of the cutting of station budgets, so-called specialist community programmes targeted at minority communities are under review.
One staff member who works for community programming told Eastern Eye, “The mood is really bad.
“Most of us have a producer for three hours, and we’re expected to set up two hours of quality programming with guests which reflect our communities.
“We’ve always been the Cinderellas of local radio, and now the talk is that we’re all going to be axed.”
Last Thursday (1), Horton and his boss, the director of nations, Rhodri Talfan
Davies, appeared before the media select committee to defend the cuts to local radio.
When questioned by Dr Rupa Huq, the independent MP for Ealing Central and Acton, Horton “refuted and denied” plans the BBC intended to merge all the community programmes and put it on BBC Sounds.
“What would be the benefit for the BBC in doing that?” he asked. “I can’t understand quite how that rumour developed, because how could you begin to merge all of those programmes into a single podcast?
“I’m not saying there won’t be podcasts on demand content into the future, but we have to recognise that we uniquely are already connecting with audiences those other broadcasters don’t. We want to maintain that.
“I think what we’re saying is, can we think about how we do that in a more effective way, given the fact that we’re in the 21st century, people have more access to technology yet still maintain that really core linear base?”
But other BBC staffers told Eastern Eye the census showed that ethnic minorities are majorities in Birmingham, Leicester, Slough and Luton. Yet, they say, the output does not reflect their communities.
For example, BBC Radio Berkshire – which is supposed to serve Slough – appears to have no community programming.
A look at its schedules for the past month shows two presenters of colour who appear to fill in when necessary, as and when.
“I’m a big fan of the Beeb and will always defend it against Tory attacks, but these cuts are nothing short of butchery. I felt there was a suffocating complacency coming from the top table,” Huq told Eastern Eye.
“Basic questions were not even answered about what their commitment will look like, and they rejected being able to safeguard existing presenters and slots.
“One wonders if an equality impact assessment has been carried out to accompany these devastating proposals or they’ve just been dreamt up on the hoof as what’s seen as low-hanging fruit for cutbacks?”
A BBC spokesperson said, “We have outlined proposals for all of our weekend and afternoon schedules and are currently consulting with staff about this.
“We have a broad range of black and Asian community programmes, and we plan to safeguard this commitment as part of these proposals.”
Last week, Ahmed spoke to young people of colour to ask them whether the BBC’s programming was relevant to them.
The answer was a resounding no, and the former BBC head of religion said this response was a danger for his former employers.
“The moment has arrived,” he told Eastern Eye. “There are four million Muslims, according to census figures in this country, [they are] 6.5 per cent of the population.
“In certain geographical pockets, they are significant players. Do they constitute, nationally, having their own programmes now, like a Songs of Praise-style programme?
“Does that mean they could have local programmes if they are Hindus, or whoever are the significantly high numbers in that particular geographical area?
“Should the local programmes be geared more towards them?
“Isn’t that the sort of conversations we should be having?”
The cuts are going to make racial representation even worse, according to insiders.
The BBC asked Eastern Eye to make clear that in the restructure plan, there would be 21 “executive editors” or managers of the 39 local radio stations.
“This is classic BBC,” said one current employee. “They expect us to believe that suddenly we’ve doubled our percentage of ethnic managers by halving the number.
“The fact is they are not doing well on diversity, no matter how much they try to massage the figures.”
The leaked email from Horton suggested seven vacancies still existed for local radio managers, plus four TV editor roles are up for grabs.
The BBC has described the vacancies as a “great opportunity”, but that is not how some view it.
“When it comes to the vacancies, well, they have a problem,” said another source.
“First, people may not want to move to the places being advertised. And second, we know that they recruit in their own image, won’t take risks, will want safe pairs of hands, don’t like mavericks or people who think outside the box.
“The BBC must understand and accept it is a conservative, risk-averse institution, and I base that on years of experience as a classic outsider.”
Another problem is that there is no person of colour inside the BBC who can take up the new television,
radio and online super-editor role “because for decades managers have singularly failed to create a talent pipeline”, said several journalists who spoke to Eastern Eye.
And both Robinson and Ahmed do not believe the BBC will ever achieve its 20 per cent target at every level of local radio and nations, especially within five years.
“I looked at diversity figures between 2015 and 2019, and the BBC’s inclusion plan shows that between those years in senior leadership
ranks as across the BBC, there had only been an increase in 2.7 per cent in racial diversity,” Robinson said. “It seems the dial is not shifting.
“If you see the past, once things get more competitive, where the
money is tighter, then diversity often suffers in that kind of environment.
“That problem has been compounded in local radio over many decades, because the purse strings have been tighter, and there has been an onus on the local radio news teams to do more with less, working in smaller teams.
“Those jobs have become like gold dust. The people sitting on staff contracts realise they’re very rare.
“So, instead of looking at the bigger picture, they become a closed shop and make themselves less relevant as a result.”
Robinson went further, saying the 20 per cent target was a conservative figure which needed to be increased.
“Most people I spoke to in my report said it was extremely unlikely the 20 per cent target was going to be reached. But this is a conservative target, especially for regions.
“For example, with the new census data, Birmingham has a 51 per cent ethnic minority population. That should be a strong message to all the local radio, heads of the regions at the top of the BBC, that they must change the recruitment practices. They must ensure they face consequences for not having a pipeline in place for managers, and it should be an integral part of their job.
“If they can’t do that, do something radical.
“Move all of the hiring decisions out of the hands of programme editors and take it outside to independent HR consultancy professionals who actually understand processes that work, that create these diverse pipelines to get senior leaders into those jobs they’re qualified to do.”