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Where are the black, female and working class people at the government press conferences?

Those most affected by the COVID-19 crisis have been woefully under-represented at the daily briefings, and it's contributed to the government's failure to address the needs of BAME people, women and the working class.

By Holly Beattie
Where are the black, female and working class people at the government press conferences?
Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance at the daily briefing on 1 July 2020 | Simon Dawson/PA Wire/PA Image
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Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals are up to three times as likely as their white counterparts to die from COVID-19 yet were the most unrepresented in the media and government during the daily coronavirus briefings.

BAME journalists represented just 4.8% of those given the opportunity to ask a question at the COVID-19 briefings, a new detailed analysis of the daily briefings for openDemocracy has found. Of the 30 BAME journalists, only three journalists present over the past three months have been Black males, the group most at risk of dying from COVID-19.

The Public Health England report Understanding the impact on BAME communities found that the disproportionate impact on ethnic minority groups ranges between 10% and 50%. Despite these findings, concerns about which were raised within the first month of the coronavirus pandemic, only 30 questions have been asked at the daily briefings by BAME journalists compared with 595 by White journalists.

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