The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Gracie launches fair pay salvo at BBC hierarchy
News presenter turned down offer of £45,000 pay rise to highlight inequality
Top BBC salaries have been criticised as “unacceptably high” by journalist Carrie Gracie, who revealed she turned down a £45,000 rise in the fight for equal pay.
Gracie said she told the corporation she wanted equality rather than more money, and was determined not to help the organisation “perpetuate a failing pay structure by discriminating against women”.
The long-time journalist, who said she had been “moved” by public support since announcing her resignation as BBC China editor, said accepting the wage boost would have meant colluding in “unlawful pay discrimination”.
Gracie presented BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as normal yesterday, though the corporation’s editorial guidelines meant freelance journalist Jane Martinson had to be drafted in to interview her on the station’s Woman’s Hour rather than Today co-host John Humphries, the BBC’s highest-paid news presenter with a salary of between £600,000 and £649,999.
Telling Martinson the BBC had offered to raise her salary to £180,000, she said: “I was interested in equality and I kept saying to my managers that I didn’t need more money, I just needed to be made equal and that can be done in a variety of ways.”
Gracie, who has been with the BBC for 30 years and has led its China coverage since 2004, described the pay offer as a “divide-and-rule, botched solution”.
Explaining her decision to resign, she said: “I could not go back to China and collude knowingly in what I consider to be unlawful pay discrimination.
“I could not do it, nor could I stay silent and watch the BBC perpetuate a failing pay structure by discriminating against women.”
In a letter published earlier, addressed to the BBC audience, she said she would be returning to her former post in the TV newsroom “where I expect to be paid equally”.
Gracie said she learned last year that of the four international editors in the past four years at the corporation, two men had earned more than their female counterparts.
In the pay disclosure last year, North America editor Jon Sopel was listed as having a salary of between £200,000 and £249,999, while Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen earned between £150,000 and £199,999.
On the issue of whether pay should be slashed, Gracie told Martinson: “I do think salaries at the top are unacceptably high, both for presenters and stars of various kinds, and also for managers, actually.”
A BBC spokesman said: “Fairness in pay is vital. A significant number of organisations have now published their gender pay figures showing that we are performing considerably better than many and are well below the national average.”
I could not go back to China and collude knowingly in what I consider to be unlawful pay discrimination