‘I was muzzled on Moral Maze for BBC attack’
AN EQUALITY campaigner says he was ‘shut down’ on a live episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze when he tried to criticise the Corporation’s record on diversity.
Simon Albury, of the Campaign for Broadcasting Equality, appeared as a ‘witness’ on the programme last week, which featured a discussion on ‘the morality of diversity’.
But he clashed with presenter Michael Buerk when he tried to discuss diversity failings highlighted in an internal BBC report last month.
‘There’s nobody from the BBC to answer your specific queries… I certainly don’t want to go there,’ Mr Buerk told him. But Mr Albury continued to try to make his point, saying: ‘Black and Multi-Ethnic (BAME) figures in the Nations and Regions [part of the BBC] are very low even though many BBC locations are in cities and towns with high BAME populations.’ Then, when Mr Albury offered an example of BBC discrimination, he was silenced by Mr Buerk, who has presented the show since its launch in 1990. Mr Albury later tweeted: ‘Why did the BBC invite me to discuss diversity and then refuse to let me give an example of BBC ignoring BAME merit or quote from BBC board member Tim Davie’s diversity report?’ The former chief executive of the Royal Television Society told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The whole tilt of the programme was that there isn’t a problem at the BBC and when I tried to express that there was a problem, I was shut down.’ The BBC said it ‘regularly’ reported on itself, adding: ‘Michael Buerk routinely interjects to keep discussion on topic as he did on this occasion due to the absence of someone to respond to Mr Albury’s points.’