Credit: Lauren Hurley / PA Wire/Press Association ImagesI want to talk about the media’s role in meeting the challenge of diversity. It’s a topic on everyone’s lips. And despite the news from the Oscars, we shouldn’t be too gloomy. We haven’t been completely hopeless. For example, Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics in 2012 was utterly transformational. Those two weeks marked a step change in the image of disabled people in this country.
Idris Elba recently drew attention to the paucity of roles for leading black actors in British film and TV. He’s right, but he’s helping to fix it by brilliant performances in Luther, in Beasts of No Nation; and by appearing every night puffing Sky – after all sometimes what we see between the programmes is as important as what we see in them.
We have yet to trust many women with authority roles in current affairs; but we should raise a small cheer for the first female double act to host a prime time entertainment show – Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman. And let me just recite some names of people who might in the past have been ruled out of key roles: Sue Perkins, Grayson Perry, Mishal Hussain, Frank Gardner, Graham Norton, Katy Piper. I could go on.
