Why inclusion and representation matter

“THIS is a story about poor leadership, an institution which has not listened to its non-white staff, and a place which doesn’t reflect modern Britain because it does not have a clue that you need a diverse talent pipeline.

“It’s unforgivable that there should be such a lack of clarity and honesty in the reality of the situation.”

Those were the words of a veteran BBC journalist who contacted Eastern Eye about two months ago, writes Barnie Choudhury.

The reason why the proper level of ethnic staff is important is because BBC local radio and regional television are supposed to represent their communities.

Majority white or allwhite newsrooms often lack real understanding of why a story is important to a particular ethnic racial group or social class.

“How can they, when they do not have the experience of being attacked because of the colour of your skin or you have to make the choice between feeding your children or heating the house?” they told Eastern Eye.

“We all pay the licence fee, but the brown and black pounds are not equivalent to the white pound when you consider programming and portrayal.”

And for Aaqil Ahmed, the former head of religion for the BBC who was giving his personal opinion, this may become an issue.

“Birmingham is a 51-percentage minority, and if Birmingham’s newsroom doesn’t reflect that in any shape or form, then that’s going to be a problem in terms of representation, right?” he said.

“Then the next layer down becomes why should people pay a licence fee?

“People will start to think there should be no taxation without representation, as the saying goes.”

All too often, racial representation in stories is an afterthought, and even then, the lack of diversity leads to embarrassing problems, sources told this newspaper.

Take, for example, the report which contained the ‘N-word’ on the regional news programme, Points West, in 2020.

The story was aired twice, and the next day on the BBC’s news channel.

The BBC initially defended the show, but the then director-general, Tony Hall, was forced to apologise after a public outcry, a black Radio 1Xtra DJ resigning in disgust, and 18,000 complaints from listeners.

The regulator Ofcom called the use of the word “unjustified”.

One recurring complaint among those I spoke to was that the BBC recruited in its own image and made it difficult for non-white staff.

“We all know the jobs are stitched up, and mates get their mates in,” said one Asian staffer.

“We have to work so much harder. We’ve got to prove ourselves more, and yet we’ll be passed over time and again.”

This is backed up by academic research.

“I looked at the recruitment processes in my research, and that was particularly difficult when it came to the progression of people of colour in the structures within the BBC,” explained former BBC journalist and now academic, Nina Robinson.

“One white senior leader, who had been on many hiring panels, said to me that the hiring managers naturally have their prejudices.

“For example, some would design a task in order to weed out other candidates in favour of their preferred candidate.

“These kinds of activities are taking place, and that white senior leader concluded the process was completely skewed,” she went on.

“The BBC knows this through its latest staff surveys, which have been going on for many years, showing a very high level of dissatisfaction for the lack of transparency and fairness in the interview board system within the BBC.

“I looked at the survey for 2021 and 66 per cent of BBC staff expressed dissatisfaction with the current system.”

Eastern Eye asked the BBC a series of questions and put to it a series of claims being made by current BBC staff.

We did not get answers to the crucial questions regarding the ethnicity figures for staff in local radio and regional television.

The gist of what the corporation said is that the BBC is unable to confirm or deny anything Eastern Eye says because it would identify individual people.

This response suggests the numbers of non-white BBC staff in newsrooms are either non-existent or embarrassingly small.

But sources have told

Eastern Eye all-white newsrooms exist, and that “the BBC is hiding behind definitions and data protection not to reveal the appalling way it represents the communities it serves”.

Eastern Eye understands that Birmingham, where 51 per cent said they were nonwhite in the census, has an all-white newsroom.

In fact, even if we were to take the transmission survey area – the places it is supposed to serve – at 40 per cent non-white, the station would be lacking when it came to staff representing the communities they serve.

The BBC refused to respond to a question about the station manager’s ethnicity or whether the newsroom was all-white.

Therefore, Eastern Eye is unable to confirm whether there are one or two BBC local radio managers who describe themselves as an ethnic minority.

When I joined the BBC in 1986, more than 35 years ago, the corporation was having the same conversations about the lack of racial diversity among staff.

Then entire stations and regional television newsrooms were white.

Things have improved, but there remains the problem with leadership, which is more Berlin Wall than glass ceiling.

Speaking purely personally, Ahmed also wanted senior leaders to drill down into the racial and religious diversity city by city and region by region.

“We have to now go to the next level down, which is to say, which are the particular groups who were the biggest groups within the diversity of this region? How are they being represented?” he said.

“Are you achieving something close to what is the ethnic make-up of this country?

“If you’ve got in programming from a lot of people from a particular ethnic minority background, but they are not the largest one, then that’s not working because you are super-serving a community.

“Let’s drill down beyond that and say, socio-economic backgrounds, regional backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, religious backgrounds, let’s have that data for all your diverse people.”

Those who have spoken to me are truly loyal to the BBC. Some have been emotional because of the way they have been treated, and they said their bosses think the BBC is doing a wonderful job when it comes to racial diversity.

The reality, said Robinson, is very different.

“Since Greg Dyke made his ‘hideously white’ comment, there has been real rhetoric from senior leaders, the director-general and his team, that they’re working so hard on diversity.

“They have almost given the impression that they have made leaps and bounds and great strides, which is extremely different from the reality within the data that has been shown.

“For me, it is really unforgivable that there should be such a lack of clarity and honesty about the reality of the situation.”