Is the British press racist?

Hi everyone

It's been a heavy couple of weeks since the last newsletter. I hope you're all holding up ok.

During an interview with Oprah earlier this month, Meghan Markel and Prince Harry made their views of the media pretty clear, telling viewers that the press were “so attacking and incited so much racism”.

This sparked quite the debate, with media industry body the Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray arguing that Meghan’s claims that parts of the media were racist were “not acceptable”. Following this more than 160 journalists and editors from the likes of the Guardian, the Financial Times and HuffPost wrote a letter objecting to the statement.

I'm in agreement with the journalists who put their names to the letter. Unfortunately there is an undeniable issue with the British press when it comes to both the reporting of ethnic minorities and diversity in the newsroom.

The letter signposted clear evidence such as a study by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance which accused two English newspapers of ‘fuelling prejudice’ in a report on rising racist violence and hate speech in the UK (check out page 18), and research from the MCB in 2018 which highlighted startling facts such as over a third of all articles misrepresented or generalised about Muslims.

“There have been numerous examples of complaints upheld against newspapers for inaccurate reporting against Muslims, often including false accusations of extremism,” the letter said.

Since then, Murray has resigned and a further statement from the Society of Editors said its initial comments "did not reflect what we all know: that there is a lot of work to be done in the media to improve diversity and inclusion".

The press needs to be challenged on the way it covers news about ethnic minorities. Like many women, I have been deeply upset by the murder of Sarah Everard. I don't want to take away from the fact a young woman has been killed but we need to assess why there is extensive media coverage when it involves white, middle class women or girls. I was at the Sisters Uncut protests at Scotland Yard and Parliament Square on Sunday and heard from speakers from Black Lives Matter UK, Jewish Solidarity Action, and All Black Lives UK. I stood there and listened as one woman questioned why there had been millions spent on the Madeleine McCann case, when there are missing or murdered black or brown people, and they receive little press attention in comparison? Blessing Olusegun, 21, was found dead on a Bexhill beach on September 18 2020. Her death failed to garner anywhere near as much media coverage despite the suspicious circumstances - she text her boyfriend and friend to stay on the phone. I only heard about Blessing last week. Where is her justice? Here's a petition to for a proper investigation into Blessing's death.

Unfortunately the media industry won't change overnight but we can make a move to ensure that the voices of ethnic minorities are heard in the press. More than ever it's important we all use our privilege to challenge injustices even when they don't impact us.

Thanks for reading.

Susie

Journalism has a diversity issue

Photo by Joan Villalon on Unsplash

The brutal killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police has sparked widespread outrage across the globe, with thousands of people from Bristol to Rio de Janeiro protesting at the treatment of black people and expressing the need for systematic change.

During the past couple of weeks we've seen brands show solidarity by uploading a single black square with the hashtag #BlackoutTuesday across their social media platforms and aligning themselves with the #blacklives movement.

While it's fantastic to see brands utilising their platforms in such a positive way, outsiders are skeptical about companies jumping on the bandwagon and posting content that's hypocritical - showcasing a black grid after themselves falling short of stamping out racism in their own companies or failing to move away using from all-white models in their campaigns or not having a diverse board, can be seen as laughable.

But you only need to look at the presenters on TV or quickly scan the faces of columnists in the UK papers to see there's a diversity problem in journalism too. Visit a newspaper newsroom and you'll be confronted by a sea of white, middle class, and often privately educated journalists.

Around 94% of journalists are white – higher than the proportion of the UK workforce as a whole, according to the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). Further figures are eye opening: black journalism students are less likely to be working as a journalist than white journalism students (8% compared with 26%).

The NCTJ puts the lack of diversity in the media down to several reasons - employers are mainly taking on a graduate-only workforce, therefore choosing a subset who are less diverse; students from minority groups not wanting to enter journalism and employers have selective bias.

There's various diversity schemes and funds in place such as the NCTJ Diversity Fund but more needs to be done to publicise journalism as an attractive career across all parts of society. And I say this as someone who is working class and seen more people from my school year go to prison than work in the media.

There's more that we can all do, myself included. Personally when I'm writing articles I look for a diverse range of case studies and specify this when I'm pushing out requests on ResponseSource or speaking to press officers and PRs. Having a representative bank of case studies is something I mention in my talks. Is there someone else in the organisation that you can put forward to speak to the press? 

Also, ask if you/your company are best placed to put out a particular view. Is it really time to push out an email asking if a journalist wants to speak to a white HR director at a company with an all-white board to express their views about how companies can be more representative?

Lots to consider and work on.

Have a great week,
Susie