Diversity in the Media at SOAS

Launch of the book; "Diversity in the Media"
at SOAS in February 2008
Courtesy of Meridian ITV

* CDAGM 2007

ITV Meridian interviews members of Cultural Diversity Advisory Group to the Media and the representatives of the media in Hampshire, March 2007
Courtesy of Meridian

Diversity in the Media by Anver Jeevanjee

Anver Jeevanjee

Diversity in the Media, book launch, Southampton 3rd July 2008

Madam Chair, Colleagues and friends - Good afternoon.
I welcome you on behalf of CDAGM to the launch of our ‘Diversity in the Media’. Thank you all for attending.
My very special thanks go to our great regional team, Honorine, Parvaneh and Don for hosting it through the good offices of Southampton Solent University.
You will read more about us in the book, outlining our historical struggle in an attempt to make our media diverse within the mainstream. I believe with a greater sense of pride that we are a unique, diverse, wholly independent, voluntary, self help group who have shunned any public funding - a bit old fashioned in today’s climate and culture yet we are still here after 16 years and enjoy a lot of support from individuals within the media both regionally and nationally. We are still talking with them regularly behind the scenes as we believe in “jaw jaw “rather than “war war”.
The book took a long time to write and collate together. Hence I have almost forgotten what is in it. It was originally over 400 pages but my editor and publisher trimmed it down to less than half its size. I am not sure which half was excised. I must read it sometime.
However, all I need to say about the book is simply this: that it is in line with what Lenny Henry, Samir Shah, Trevor Macdonald, Riz Khan, Henry Bonsu, Shiroma Silva, Moira Stewart, Meera Sayal, Barney Chaudry, Navdip Dhariwal and a very many other well established visible minority role models either working within the British media or externally are saying both privately and publicly. We shall soon hear from Pauline Brandt perhaps of her experiences at BBC South. She has been kind enough to write a foreward to the book and has been wholly supportive, thank you Pauline.
Our institutions of the media in 2008 still continue to remain in-bred by cultural cloning of the existing old boy network.
Not only is there no relative change in past 16 years of our existence but according to those who work within the system, like Lenny, Samir etc., tell us 32 years have gone by without them noticing much.
Andy Burnham, Minister at DCMS told me last week that he is absolutely appalled at the output and portrayal of our regional media and he is determined to change this. But than we have heard this rhetoric before from various former ministers including Chris Smith under whom Andy worked. I reminded him of what Chris Smith the former Minister of DCMS said to us: that he wanted fair portrayal in the front, back and side of the cameras. That still remains a far cry.
In order to address this Andy has now offered to meet my London group every 4 months to assess progress rather than the usual lip service we have endured so far, particularly from the public service media.
I am sorry to be so cynical but I see this as yet another effort at political expediency as I do Harriett Harmon’s proposed bill on equality for women and minorities, as tokenistic and lacking any teeth to enforce it.
As our role models say we are not talking about cleaners, security guys, scene shifters, or anyone wearing a uniform – we are talking about decision makers, producers, directors, and commissioners in the current global context whereby, a black man of Kenyan origin might become the leader of the free world. – therefore, why not a Director General of the BBC. This region in the words of Greg Dyke still remains “hideously white” even for low profile jobs, not to mention portrayal in the mainstream. They have not even bothered to review or acknowledge our book, born out of our local initiative, yet each week we hear white authors receive positive treatment on our public service radio, print or TV.
Despite 30 years of trying, the upper reaches of the media industry, the positions of real creative power, are still controlled by a metropolitan, largely liberal, white, middle class, cultural elite – and, until recently, largely male and of the Oxbridge clan.
I’m also focussing my attention on a specific power-elite or profit orientated individuals who determine what we see and hear on our screens, the print media and our radios.
The so called equal opportunity policies we have followed so assiduously over the last 3 decades simply have not worked. They have produced a forest of initiatives, away days, schemes and action plans and have not resulted in real change.
Our race awareness and now diversity policies carry the excessive baggage of our brutal colonial apartheid heritage. This should have changed now but it has not, except for tick boxing.
It’s not just the visible minorities we should be concerned about. The power-elite in broadcasting excludes not just them but, Irish, Northerners from working class backgrounds, middle England conservatives, people of later years like me, the disabled and many “invisible” minorities like the Europeans seem equally disqualified.
Talented people from here are moving to join the world’s large film and media industries of middle-east, India, China, Africa, USA etc. The European heads of Pepsi and Cocacola are from visible minorities. The financial controller of the BBC is a lady, from my hometown in Kenya, Ms. Zarina Patel and so is the head of IT, but that is where it ends. The vast majority of minorities are in lowly paid menial jobs. The world’s largest steel producer Mital is an Indian and one can go on. Suffice it to say that there is ample talent as regularly demonstrated at the EMMA awards ceremonies, if only media bosses have the foresight to attract them genuinely.
Nevertheless, the tables are fast turning and it may not be long before Beijing and Mumbai bid for our broadcasting / media networks and control them as has happened in many other industries.
Portrayal on our terrestrial channels for which we pay our licence fees will soon become insignificant as most people, particularly our younger generation can already access what they require online or digitally.
I am also rather sceptical of Mark Thompson’s recent offer of technical help to rebroadcast some BBC programmes to its commercial rivals, purely in his quest for avoiding top slicing licence fee income in their favour.
In desperation some sections of the media are suggesting, as I understand it, impose ethnic quotas for the intake of each minority group. This has been tried elsewhere and can only have a negative effect and a back lash just as the government’s current political correctness has – it will not work – it is highly patronising if not illegal. As a group we are not in favour of divisive targeting of programs or recruitment for each of our separate communities. We seek full participation in the mainstream.
Finally, I have some reservations over Lenny’s comical title, “Road to Diversity is closed – seek alternative route”.
I say that we have absolutely no alternative but to strive to make diversity a priority. We have the potential of an existing fine broadcasting service both in the public and private sector that requires a will to go forward, whether that is forced upon us by our own government or external economic power blocks.
Let’s do it now as we have said for many years.
Revitalise or rejuvenate our media leadership and move forward.
Thank you all for listening.

* Diversity in the Media by Barnie Chaudry

Barnie Chaudry
Diversity in the Media, book launch, SOAS, 25th February 2008

Ladies, gentlemen, academics, guests. Thank you so much for coming to the launch of Anver Jeevanji’s book: Diversity in the Media. When Professor Werner Menski asked me to say a few words I was flattered and my ego immensely satisfied. I’ve known Werner for more than a decade. He’s done so many helpful things for me in the past, that it would’ve been awfully bad form to turn him down.

But as you know, I work for the BBC. And sometimes, like people who write about their underpants, what you say can come back to haunt you. So let me make my position clear: I speak purely as an individual today and my words are my own and these are simply my opinions and observations.
Also it’d be hypocritical of me not to praise my company. After all, I’ve been in the BBC for almost twenty-two years. And you don’t stay in an organisation that long if it’s not good to you.
I’ve read Anver’s book. I agree with some bits and disagree with some bits. But the main thing: thank you for writing it. It is: honest, frank, insightful, incisive, uncomfortable.
Anver writes from a position of frustration born of years of waiting, reflecting the views of many of my colleagues. These are his perceptions and his perceptions to him are a reality. At times, reading this book, I felt as if I were intruding on private grief – two parents about to get divorced. They want to achieve the same thing but are poles apart in the way it should be done. But I need to let Anver know how he and his Cultural Diversity Advisory Group have made a real difference. His group took the industry to task. And one of his main supporters was Andy Griffee. Andy, for those who don’t know, is the man who runs the BBC’s English regions – that’s all local radio stations and regional television stations in the whole of England.
The good news is that – thanks to your persistence, Andy and his team have met their diversity targets. His senior management team has TEN percent ethnic minorities – picked on merit. In the entire English regions diversity is at NINE percent. Two years ago this stood at SIX percent. At BBC London the figure is now a creditable TWENTY-SEVEN percent. But he knows this is only part of the journey – and Anver will know that from past conversations with Andy – that he regards diversity not as a set of targets but something that makes real sense. So when Don John asks in Anver’s book: “What have we achieved?” I can in all honesty say, quite a lot compared to when I first started – but we still have a long way to go before we cross the finishing line.
So what’s been my journey? Well, I’m a working class, immigrant, from West Bengal in India, whose father brought him to Coventry. Being sent to Coventry was wonderful because I grew up in a multi-racial city.
I always knew I wanted to join the BBC. And I got in on the first time of asking, as a prestigious trainee. I wondered what the big problem was – until I heard stories of how some black and Asians applied six times before being accepted. Six times. How many other groups would knock on the door and never give up?
But I’ve been very lucky. I have, on the whole, been shown nothing but respect from my white colleagues. Sure I’ve felt frustrated at times. Sure I wondered why I didn’t get a job. I could so easily have blamed it on racist managers who didn’t give me a chance. But there are few slight problems. A couple of times other Asian reporters got the job and on the last but one occasion I really was beaten by someone who’d done it, been there and bought the tee-shirt. And here, I have to make a confession. Since 1998 I haven’t got a BBC job as a result of an interview. I’ve been asked by white managers to do it. My current job is weekend business correspondent. I didn’t apply, I was asked. And boy, has it been a learning curve. I assure you that it’s only a coincidence that there’s been an economic slow down since I took over the brief. And you’ll be relieved to know I give up the brief at the end of March.
So what advice would I give to those who feel they’ve been blocked or snubbed? Well a white mentor told me early on about a saying Confucius said: “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” In other words – there are many ways to skin a cat.
Now, twenty-two years on, I feel I’ve achieved everything I want to, within an organisation which has done pretty well by me. I have a fantastically high national profile. I appear on your television screens most weekends. I get to rub shoulders with top leaders. I’m made to feel important. But that’s nothing to now. I get to meet the people who really pay my wages – YOU. And that is why people like Anver, and his group, are so important. They keep me on the straight and narrow. They are my honesty anchor and integrity compass. If I fail to do my best, be my best, show of my best, then I have let down, not only Anver and his group, but the thirty million licence fee payers. Lest we forget whom we really serve.
So I may have nothing left to prove to anyone – except me. Yet our industry still has a long way to go. Better minds than mine have commented on this recently. Lenny Henry, that Don of Comedians, gave a Royal Television Society speech recently. If you haven’t read it – go to the RTS website and read it. It’s simply brilliant. Humour helps the medicine go down, medicine go done, medicine go down.
He explained his main regret over not insisting on having black or Asian script writers on the hit show “Three of a kind”. He told his audience: “I met some fantastic writers. Even though there were over 200 writers in the room, not one of them was from an ethnic minority. All of those guys were on the starting blocks of their careers, and quite a few of them have ended up working on some of the top shows in TV. Perhaps if we’d been bolder, and included some black and brown faces in that room, they too could have had a career in this business - but they weren’t given a chance. I’m saying – that when I started, I was surrounded by a predominantly white work force. 32 years later… not a lot has changed. I think that’s a great shame.”
Well, here’s the thing Lenny. I talk to a lot of black, Asian and white workers in and out of the BBC. The one thing I’ve found is how united the white folk are. They don’t slag off the competition. They stick together. But black and Asian folk – well, they’re in a class of their own when it comes to dissing their brothers and sisters. I just wish some of us could learn the thing white folk have known for years – strength in unity. If only ethnic minorities would form their own club – and be united in their message – they’d learn how to progress. It’s about networking. We recruit in our own image.
Now a couple of weeks ago Samir Shah, a non-executive BBC director, picked up on Lenny’s theme. Only 4.38% of senior managers are ethnic minority. He told our in-house magazine: “Some years ago the BBC had three hundred diversity schemes, but it’s the outcome that matters.” So I need to ask: what are our diversity units and so called diversity champions doing? Why do they become so defensive, defending an indefensible position?
Now some white colleagues tell me about the unfairness of diversity and black and Asian colleagues complain about – you’ve guessed it – the unfairness of diversity.
I want to complain about diversity too: I just wish I knew what ‘diversity’ meant? How do we measure success?
The dictionary definition of diversity is: to be different and varied. So having a black presenter should have nothing to do with diversity. Employ them because they’re the best candidate. I know how naïve I sound. But does the brilliant Frank Gardiner, the BBC’s Security Correspondent, stop being brilliant just because he’s now in a wheel chair? No, of course not. Do I have insights into certain communities because I know, understand and live among them? Of course I do. In our ways we possess qualities that someone is looking for. So why can’t we employ people for what invaluable skills we possess or am I being too naïve?
Now the BBC is to practise ‘positive action’. This is different from ‘positive discrimination’, Daily Mail readers. The first is legal. The second is not. The BBC’s taken a look at the Senior Management roles and realised it hasn’t enough black, Asian or disabled senior managers. So it’s starting a scheme in the next couple of days to try to address this. Samir, this is scheme three hundred and one. But I’m not going to carp about it. I’m going to apply. And I’d urge all my ethnic colleagues to do the same if they want make a real difference. If you don’t take part, then don’t blame the BBC ever again. Blame yourselves.
I’m often asked by black and Asian audiences I speak to whether the BBC is “institutionally racist”. “No,” I reply “it’s institutionally insensitive.” What do I mean by that? Simple. McPherson defines institutional racism as “unwitting racism”. We, the industry are “unwittingly insensitive”. We just don’t get it. Black, white, it doesn’t matter. If it doesn’t fit our stereotypes or our news agenda or our news angle that particular day – it ain’t going to get on. It is the same with hiring and firing staff. I’ve found that you’re popular for a while and then the love just goes. It’s all too often business not personal. It’s all too often cock up not conspiracy.
Last year Jimmy McGovern called the BBC “one of the most racist institutions in England”. Racism is such a toxic word. It sends people diving for cover. But we should never be afraid to tackle this accusation head on. We need to stop being defensive. I’ve covered numerous Employment Tribunals where companies have been found guilty of racism. No right minded think person wants to be known as a racist. The accusation should be the final bullet in our chamber, not our first. If the industry is racist – institutionally or otherwise – please can we have a litany of cases and show it is racist once and for all? I’m a journalist. Show me the proof.
Or at least can we call for a parliamentary select committee inquiry? The police service has gone through it. The NHS had a ‘festering wound of racism’. I genuinely want to know – what is the extent of racism in my industry. Am I blinkered? Have I been lucky? Or have I simply sold out to my white masters? I want to know.
So let’s stop the speculation, let’s have a real open, honest to goodness debate. I want all sides to engage and give me proof of racism. The BBC is a public service. Under race relations laws we need to make every conceivable effort to prove we’re not racially biased. I’d like to think my bosses know about the dangers of their staff paying lip service to hide a deeper, pervasive problem. That can only be bad for our industry – for they will be found out and will pay the consequences.
So today I want the companies to stop being defensive and engage in this, no matter how painful. For without an honest conversation we can’t lance the racism-accusation-boil. I’m just sick and tired of having to defend our industry to the black and Asian people I meet on the streets. And we need to do this ourselves because if we don’t then such an inquiry will be foisted on us by Trevor Phillips.
I can hear my colleagues now. Choudhury’s bonkers. He’s exaggerating a non-existent problem. I wish I were. I live outside the M25 and Westminster bubbles. And I still listen to people who haven’t been seduced by the trappings of artificial importance. They tell me we – the industry – have lost touch. Please don’t shoot the messenger. Trevor Phillips has the power to unleash a fury of litigation that will make our heads spin. It is not a safety net that I want to use.
Nigel Kay, a former BBC colleague, summed it up, Anver, in an e-mail to you: “Our meetings were sometimes uncomfortable affairs and certainly my colleagues often resented giving up their afternoons to have their ears bent!”
So we need to tell them in a quiet tone that is not hectoring and non-threatening. We need to make them understand the need to over reach their targets; the need to reach out to communities outside their comfort zones; the need to get them young and when they’re impressionable; the need for action and not words; the need to mentor; the need to question what we’re doing to be diverse at every opportunity. I’m not convinced we’ve won hearts and minds yet.
That’s the industry’s responsibility. So what’s ours, as people of colour? Recently I heard recently from one Asian friend how he was made to feel so unwelcome at one BBC station he joined fifteen years ago, that black and Asians walked through a side entrance because they didn’t feel able to use the front. That should never, ever be allowed to happen in twenty-first century Britain. Fortunately, he had enough about him to realise that he was just as good as his white colleagues – in most cases better.
They had probably learned something at Oxbridge he didn’t. Fake it till you make it. But he did not allow himself to be a victim. Now he produces top correspondents and makes his own reports for national television – and he knows his worth. He is an inspiring role model to anyone – and would be an ideal candidate for a Senior Manager’s position.
So what should we, people of colour, do? Here’s where I get into trouble with my black and Asian brothers and sisters. In one phrase: take responsibility and never allow yourself to become a victim. Go out and make it happen for yourselves. Don’t rely on others. If you do, you’ll be waiting a long time. Put your strategies in place. Dream about being the best. Envisage reaching the finish line first. But dreaming and envisaging don’t do it. Put teams in place. Seek champions. Learn from them. Take their advice. And remember the words of Labbi Safri: “the higher you build those barriers, the taller we become.”
If you box clever, be clever, think clever, nothing but nothing will stop you. But fight clever. We are now into our fourth and fifth generations as black or Asian born immigrants. We are part of this country and it is our right to take part and lead. We don’t need anyone’s permission. We don’t need anyone to say we have attitude. We can give orders and expect them to be followed. Equality is our right.
And what if we fail within our chosen industry? Simple. Don’t waste your time becoming a dissident or threatening to leave. Just leave. Go. Set up by yourself. Prove yourself. They will welcome you back with open arms and double your salary – if you’re good enough. And what’s more you’ll have done it on your own terms.
Anver re-prints a number of e-mails in his book. Among them one from Eve Turner, a former head of the South region: “…confrontation is less likely to make long term progress.” But sometimes confrontation is needed.
Yet the lesson is this: it’s how we confront, that’ll single us out. My best friend and first mentor, the late Reg Yeoman, tried to tell a sixteen year old boy: “Son, you get more from honey than vinegar.” Reg, if you’re looking below – I now know what you meant.
Thank you for listening.

*Diversity in the Media by Don John

Don John
Diversity in the Media, book launch, Southampton 3rd July 2008

The quality of our work can only be measured by how much we have improved and if we find ourselves standing still, it means that we are going backwards. Despite some progress there are places where we are standing still and some places where we have given it up almost completely. The market place and to a lesser extent the moral imperative has compelled the media to come to the table of diversity, primarily because it is good business.

Should we be judging the moral quality of our press and TV by the fact that we do not have raging neo-nazi propaganda masquerading as day time television and we do not have black children running around the home shrieking "mummy mummy there's a black man on television" as we did in the 50s and saw as a mark of progress.

Have we made progress...yes we have made some and there are many committed individuals in the media who are making strenuous efforts and some against all odds to change the complexion of the media in its composition and its portrayal... but many argue that its a bit like football, there are fewer bananas on the pitch...which is commendable, but the boardrooms are still essentially "white".

So what do we do now, responsibilities lie in 2 places:

The Media
During the life of CDAGM we have moved some way from the crude racist stereotyping we accepted as the norm many years ago and the days when the ink used in our papers could not deal with black features. , but sometimes we are shamefully surprised and having seen some examples of that work in other parts of the country our record in the South is decidedly better.

The Communities
As for our own BME communities we have much work to do also. We need to organise ourselves in a manner in which we cannot be ignored. Making our perspective on news issues more competitive is an art and sometimes it is not about the fact that we think it is important, we have to sell it and we need to use every guile, opportunity, contacts and what I call the "bother" factor to get our voices heard. I am not sure whether as communities we consider the profile of our communities sufficiently important for us to invest in.....that must changeAnver's record of this struggle ....and yes it is a struggle helps us to mark where we have come from to help us to consider further where we are going. and we should remember thatSome say the future is orange...........the likelihood is that it is somewhere between black and white

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