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“All those featured are white” - what can we do about diversity at the BBC?

Fifteen years since the BBC pledged to reflect “the UK’s diversity in our programmes, our services and our workforce” little has changed. Why, and what can we do about it?

By Simon Albury
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Evan Davies Newsnight
Evan Davies Newsnight

Credit: BBC/JeffOvers. © BBC.

In October 2015 The Independent published two videos. The first about Newsnight from the Royal Television Society for young entrants into the television and media, ran for 11 minutes and featured staff on the show “from the presenter Evan Davis and editor Ian Katz” to producers, the editorial meetings, those in the production suite, the floor manager and the lighting director. The Independent reported, “All those featured are white.”

The second, a 16-minute public presentation by the controller of Radio 5 Live, Jonathan Wall, titled Where Next for Radio 5 Live? made no reference to the BAME audience and included no non-white people.   

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0