Notes from a Reporter's Casebook

A look back at our reporter's notes and survey findings, published earlier as "What Colour is the News?", confirms the need for media changes. Increased diversity in the media workforce and a fair deal for the black public must be the measure of the media's goodwill efforts. The reasons why are detailed under three crucial points:

1. Professionals question lack of minorities in the media.
2. Facts and issues on minority employment in broadcasting.
3. Positive actions by concerned media professionals.

Join the discussion by sending an e-mail to: editor@thechronicle.demon.co.uk

1. Professionals question lack of minorities in the media

Look out over the office, and see for yourself

"Newspaper editors do not need surveys to tell them that ethnic minorities are under-represented: they can look out across the office every morning and see it in the faces of their staff...."

Newspaper Chattering, but No Action

"But surely it is time to examine racism in the newspaper business. These smooth-talking members of the chattering classes must prove that they are as liberal as they claim."

The (few) Numbers Game

Trevor Phillips

"....on the executive floors - where real decisions about scheduling, programme style and tone, are taken there are virtually no black faces. I do not know how many tv programme executives in the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 or BskyB who are not white - as usual there are no reliable numbers, but I would buy a magnum of champagne for the first person who can name more than six at head of department level or above."

No Black Presence if you take away the cleaners

"Take away the cleaning and catering staff and the executive floors of the BBC, ITV, BskyB and Channel 5 are a virtual exclusion zone for non-whites."

Minorities have problem reaching top

"A BBC spokesperson said a recent racial equality audit showed that the corporation had achieved a reasonable level of balance in low to medium-grade jobs, but .... It will be a short time before a significant number of ethnic minorities reaches middle to top management."

Delivering Diversity through Monitoring

"Under the CRE Codes of Practice for employers backed by parliament in 1984 all employers are expected to seek to deliver race equality outcomes in their employment practices.

This clearly requires in the very first place the establishment of monitoring systems to see what degree of inequality there might be between, say, job applicants from different ethnic groups.

Once the results from monitoring are available then managements should analyse them and seek to discover where there may be weaknesses either in their practices or in the outcomes they are achieving."

Jim Pines

Yes, but "They keep on moving the goalposts"

Many of the statistics used by Jim Pines in the study were taken from BBC annual reports and the ITC's annual performance reviews. But the study was hampered by annual reports moving the goalposts: the 1996-7 BBC report gave a breakdown of the London-based directorates' ethnic minority staffing levels, while this year it provides just two London figures. The BBC say this is because the continual restructuring has made it impossible to provide anything else.

In the ITC's 1995 ITV performance review it did not disclose the number of ethnic minorities employed in programme making or management roles; in 1996 it did disclose them but then in 1997 the programme-making category was inexplicably dropped. Following pressure from BECTU, the ITC has agreed to reinstate this category provided there are not too many other requests for information.

However, while the ITC publishes some ethnic minority employment statistics, it refuses to divulge its own figures. To reflect the standards they set others, the ITC should divulge its own figures so that the industry can see whether it really is 'whiter than white'.

(Excerpt from "Ethnic minority employment in broadcasting: A national disgrace," in Stage, Screen and Radio, the journal of BECTU, the broadcasting, entertainment, cinematographic and theatre union 6 October 1998).

2. Facts and issues on minority employment in broadcasting

The Chronicle's report What Colour is the News? called for "vigorous leadership to achieve diversity goals". Here are some relevant issues established by new facts.

The BBC and minority employment
In response to the challenge of increasing race diversity in the field of broadcasting, the BBC has set a figure of 8 per cent as a reasonable target for black and ethnic minority employment by the year 2000, out of some of 22,000 staff. What this minority target means in practice is one important area of debate. Another is the relevance of the 8 per cent minority employee target for areas of large minority concentration like London and regional cities. These and related points need to be further examined. Jim Pines, in his UK research study tells us why.

First, here are some figures showing the present situation and proposed figures for minority employment in the BBC and independent television companies.

Minority Employment in the Independent Companies
The employment figures in the private company stations is very different. This is despite the fact that the regulatory body, the ITC, which is responsible for the allocation of licenses, specifically demands equal opportunities for ethnic minorities in section 38 of the Broadcasting Act 1990.

Now, what's the meaning and implications of these targets?
It is clear that when targets are set and there is some political will, greater results will be obtained. ITV employs only half the proportion of ethnic minorities than the BBC, for example.

But what targets? The UK study questions those set by the BBC because, taken together, they will never achieve 8% ethnic minority employees nationally: while they reduce targets down to as little as 2% in geographical areas with few ethnic minorities, they do not correspondingly raise targets high enough in places such as London which have larger black populations. (See table below)

Nearly 30% of inner London and 23 per cent of Greater London people are ethnic minorities, but one London directorate has a target of 7% and most have an 8% target.

Similarly, though Channel 4's staffing levels (9.5%) look good compared with the national ethnic minority population level, they look woefully inadequate given that the company is based in central London.

All the broadcasters are significant employers in their local areas. Adopting 8% as a target for ethnic minorities when double or triple that number are in the catchment area is effectively a form of discrimination in itself. The study argues that while the national figure should be a minimum aim, local populations should be factored into future targets.

This conclusion, that national targets should be seen as the minimum, but local targets are the ideal, must be accepted as a basic principle for increasing black and ethnic minority representation in radio and television broadcasting.

The Commission for Racial Equality has clearly indicated in a press office statement what the implications are of this principle.

"Since 1991 clear data has been available from the Census offering baseline figures for comparison giving for instance the percentages in a particular region broken down by age and sex and ethnic origin.

An employer can then quickly see whether the proportions they have in their employment from different ethnic groups are in line with those in the relevant 'travel to work areas' or 'recruitment pools' that is the geographical spread from within which people might be expected to come or be chosen for the given jobs on offer. The ultimate aim would be for a reasonable correspondence between percentages in the relevant population and those in the given employment. A sign of problems might be over representation of ethnic minorities in lower grades as against higher grades or it might be serious under representation in any one grade or in the employment group as a whole compared to the proportion in the local population.

Improved outcomes
Management analysis should be directed toward under standing why those differences exist and what can be done to change the situation. Targets are a useful approach to defining the kind of improved outcomes that should be sought and ensuring that constant attention is given to the problems which lie behind under achievement. They should therefore be set in a realistic way that is achievable and challenging.

There might therefore be an overall ultimate target for an organisation tuned according to the age of the type of people who could be expected to take up that type of work and to the recruitment pool from which they might be drawn. Below that there would be staged targets, taking an organisation from where it is now to where it should be, with these targets varying from grade to grade or type of work to type of work depending on the particular nature of the population within the relevant recruitment pool and the availability of.the relevant skills within the under represented ethnic minority population.

Whatever targets are set all recruitment, and promotion decisions would be taken strictly on the basis of individual merit."

(Communication from the Press Office, Commission for Racial Equality)

The implications of this analysis by Jim Pines and the CRE are quite clear. Broadcasting organisations, particularly the BBC, are major local employers per se. Media managers and the license-holding public should expect higher levels of minority employment than presently exists.

Black talent
Introducing Black talent is an important area of debate. We know however that establishing aims alone doesn't necessarily lead to results. In September 1997 the BBC's Broadcasting Racial Equality Review committed the Corporation to identifying five Major Areas for Attention:

• How do we identify, nurture and use ethnic talent?
• How do we ensure that we consider Black and Asian personalities as presenters and communicators?
• How do we ensure that panels for current affairs and entertainment programmes are selected to be representative of the nation?
• How can we ensure less stereotyping in portrayal of ethnic minorities?

• How could we design an annual "spot check" system to monitor portrayal?

To this date, however, the BBC has not published their findings and proposals for implementation of the results.

3. Positive actions by concerned media professionals

Apart from goodwill, targeted training programs are needed.

Claudine Booth, executive director Black Media Institute, is devoting her attention to training black journalists and providing recruitment advice, media consultancy and programming services. Born in Jamaica, Claudine Booth has been involved in Journalism since she was 17 years old. Her first job was on the Daily Gleaner. She went to university and in 1979 set up a radio station in Grenada. She came to Britain and went to film school and became the first black graduate film director in the UK. She was employed by a section of Channel 4 called Diverse Productions and later set up her own independent production company. She found that being an independent was very hard. Whilst working at the BBC she saw that there were hardly any black people working there and the situation in radio was even worse. The lack of black executives in UK TV or radio continues, and she says the Black Media Institute will help change the situation. (Interview, Sept. 7, 1998).

IMRAX: Diversity on line.

Our attention has been drawn to a proposed website to be run by the International Media Working Group Against Racism (IMRAX), and supported by the Black Members Council of the National Union of Journalists, and the International Federation of Journalists.

Lionel Morrison

Lionel Morrison, veteran journalist and one of the proposers, says IMRAX is a "response to the problem of how stories about race and minorities get reported". It aims to provide fair and accurate coverage of stories to do with ethnicity, racism, tolerance, minority rights and refugee and asylum matters. It aims to meet the needs of the profession and to "foster a free independent and diverse media throughout Europe.

IMRAX will, says Morrison, serve journalists with background information, sources and address lists, relevant legislation, legal reports and archives of related stories. Contact: Chair, Black Members Council, National Union of Journalists, Acorn House, 314-320 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8DP, Tel: 0171-278-7916; Fax: 0171-837-8143. E-mail: acorn.house@nuj.org.uk

George Viner Fund: Financing Black Journalism Education in the UK

Dr. Beulah Ainley and associates in the Black Members Council of the National Union of Journalists have been at the forefront of minority journalism education. They are keen supporters of the NUJ George Viner Memorial fund established in 1987 to meet the needs of enrolled journalism students on industry-recognised, pre-entry courses. Up to three awards of £1000 each are made annually and to date more than 100 students have been assisted. Contact: Administrator, George Viner Fund, National Union of Journalists, Acorn House, 314-320 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8DP. Tel: 0171-278-7916; Fax: 0171-837-8143. E-mail: acorn.house@nuj.org.uk

More Colour in the Media

The study More Colour in the Media by the European Institute for the Media has shed light on ethnic minority access to jobs in the European broadcasting industry. The comparative study, funded by the European Commission program LEONARDO, explores the state and conditions of access to jobs and career progress within minority populations in Germany, Finland, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The EIM concludes:

"To summarise, factors which prevent ethnic minorities from getting jobs in the media and pursuing careers in the industry can be grouped into categories. Firstly there are the sociocultural conditions....The second group of factors is inherent to the media industry, which also remains elitist with regard to the native majority. This special employment market ignores the situation of certain groups of the population, such as ethnic minorities and more specifically it marginalises these groups, if they are available through its selection criteria and internal procedures. Personal contacts, as well as fluency in the national language, a familiarity with the cultural nuances of the majority as well as an often unconscious discrimination could all be listed as examples.

If the subject of the fair treatment of ethnic minorities in the media is to be taken seriously, then these minorities must be given the opportunity to do the work themselves and take responsibility for it. As a result, however, it is also necessary to create serious structures which will ensure the monitoring and support of equal opportunities for these groups."

(Communication from the European Institute for the Media).

The Costs of Discrimination

"Some years ago a friend who had been negotiating with a large American company told me that when the negotiations collapsed and the deal fell through, one of the Americans took him to one side to commiserate. The American then said "Of course some of it is down to the way you guys handled it." My friend said "What do you mean?"." Well," said the American 'For a start you looked a bit old fashioned." My friend, who wore Armani and had all the tv gadgets couldn't believe it. The American shifted uneasily and said "Look, here's one thing: in North America no-one would go into a negotiation like this with an all-white, all-male, team." Companies which want to be global must look global."

(Trevor Phillips, "Are there Colour Bars in a Digital Universe?", Fleming Lecture 1998, Royal Television Society).