The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Exclusive report: Are the media racist?

NS survey shows ethnic minorities are still largely absent from opinion pages, senior roles and staff.

By Alice Gribbin Published 11 January 2012 17:27

NS survey shows ethnic minorities are still largely absent from opinion pages, senior roles and staff jobs in UK press.

In the wake of the Stephen Lawrence verdict and Diane Abbott's tweet, racism is at the top of the political agenda.

To coincide with a special report on race in the British media for this week's New Statesman magazine, we have compiled shocking statistics which show ethnic minorities are still largely absent from opinion pages, senior executive roles and staff jobs in the media.

For context: figures published by the Office of National Statistics for 2009 showed the non-white population of England and Wales stood at 16.7 per cent - or one in six people.

In numbers: Race in the media

2 of the 99 named witnesses at the Leveson inquiry into the press are from ethnic minorities
1 of the Guardian's 2011 guide to the 100 most important people in the media was not white
0 national newspaper editors are not white
0 national newspaper political editors are not white

In numbers: The commentariat

We surveyed the main comment pages of selected newspapers in the week between Monday 5 December and Sunday 11 December to count the number of non-white writers who appeared.

3 newspapers did not have a single non-white writer on the comment pages
5 non-white writers have a regular weekly fixed column in the British broadsheet press

*Numbers include Sunday sister publications

[An important point on methodology: the numbers above refer to those columnists who occupy, specifically, the prime real estate that is a newspaper's "comment and opinion" pages. They do not count the non-white writers who write columns in other sections of a newspaper. For example, Baz Bamigboye, the Daily Mail's black showbiz columnist, is not included in the statistics. Nor is the Guardian G2's Aditya Chakrabortty, who writes on ideas and economics.]

As Mehdi Hasan writes in an essay for the special report:

What have the following five individuals got in common: Gary Younge, Hugh Muir, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Amol Rajan and India Knight? They are part of a small group of non-white newspaper columnists who appear regularly on the comment pages of our national newspapers. Well, OK, not quite. They are the small group of non-white newspaper columnists who appear on those comment pages. That's it. There's just five of them - the Guardian's Younge and Muir (both black), the Independent/i's Alibhai-Brown and Rajan (both Asian) and the Sunday Times's Knight (mixed race).

It is a deeply depressing state of affairs.

Elsewhere in this special report -- in the new NS issue, out tomorrow -- Rafael Behr writes about the "monochrome majority" in the lobby and leading editors and journalists speak out the lack of diversity in the UK press.

Special Offer: Get 12 issues of New Statesman magazine for just £12

Tags: Race and the media

More from Alice Gribbin

View the discussion thread.

35 comments

Thu, 2012-01-12 12:08 — Des Demona (not verified)

It's a bit like asking 'are TFL mysoginistic because 50% of tube drivers aren't women?'

Statistics in themselves can be a lazy way to make assumtions.

Thu, 2012-01-12 12:11 — Simone (not verified)

This is one of the main reasons why the media is so awfully racist, as is the whole country, because non-whites hold hardly ANY positions of power and influence, and this is contrived for the reason of racism.

Thu, 2012-01-12 12:18 — Des Demona (not verified)

@Simone

Are you Diane Abbott? I thought you might have learned the qualifier 'some' by now.

Thu, 2012-01-12 14:21 — Alex Baldwin (not verified)

"Nor will you find anyone on tv in the UK speaking in less than received pronunciation..."

That's so blatantly untrue that picking specific examples to try to convince you would only serve to minimise the scale of your error.

Regardless: I offer you both Ant AND Dec, and the current (and previous) host of The One Show.

Did you mean something more specific?

Thu, 2012-01-12 16:22 — ramesh11

I don't think media of England and U.S.are racist.I regularly commenting in media of both countries some times I harshly wrote on raciest tendency of white people they never deleted my most critical comments also.

Fri, 2012-01-13 16:58 — Galeano (not verified)

It's when the media reinforce the same one dimensional again and again of any community, which becomes slurs and stereotypes. Newstateman is good example, http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/08/bradford-british-pakistan

Wed, 2012-01-11 17:40 — David (not verified)

Is it actually a symbol of racism, or is it just a sign that there are not a lot of non-white members of staff? In order to verify the former over the latter, you would have to do some research into the publications' recruitment processes rather than research at a superficial level. Clearly the media is unrepresentative of the population as a whole, but that is not necessarily an indicator of bigotry.

Wed, 2012-01-11 18:29 — Alex Baldwin (not verified)

Not to descend into "whataboutry", but has anyone tried to do this for class? Break it down into people who did or did not go to Public School / Oxbridge? Or whether they went to university at all?

I'd be interested to see whether the split was white/non-white or whether it was "posh white people"/everyone else.

Wed, 2012-01-11 18:57 — fdfdfd

@ Alex Baldwin

It would be fascinating, but very resource-intensive; I suspect any media organisation that did it would need external funding, in the vein of the Guardian's Reading the Riots project.

Wed, 2012-01-11 19:11 — Capitalist and Proud (not verified)

A simple solution. The New Statesman asks so many horribly white journalists to resign and replace them with ethnic minorities.

Why do I think they want others to fall on there swords, the hypocrisy stinks.

Mon, 2012-01-16 00:38 — Tom (not verified)

This reminds me of a famous black French journalist when she tried to get a network TV job. More than once she was told, sorry. We already have one of those.

Since we're talking about race, go a step further:

The reaosn there aren't more people of color on TV is because media consultants say it doesn't test well?

How many dark skinned black journalists do you see on network TV?

Switch to the States. How come the top threee network anchors are all white? How come most reporters of color are on cable news shows, morning chat or weekends? Is it because management says you're not ready for prime time?

Or, is it because only ratings matter? If the numbers are low for a presenter of color, does this mean that the audience is racist?

A big part of the problem is that corporate media refuses to take this seriously UNLESS there's ratings or profit in it. Most of the black commentators Stateside are (a) not journalists. This means they're "personalities". This also means that can only go so far in their comments without being sacked.

If Medhi Hasan told the complete truth about race in the U.K., would New Statesman management sack him?

Thu, 2012-01-12 19:13 — john woods (not verified)

Alex and Paddy mcginty: you are spot on. One wonders how Alice Gribbin got to pontificiate for the NS. I feel reasonably sure that she didnt come from a council estate in the East End. The Rusbridgers and Toynbees and Milliblands and Monbiots and Redgraves are there on nepotism, no other reason. As for Penny Laurie...well, don't get me started there.

As for the Afro-Carribean under representation in journalism (or any other white collar or professional job) Read the "Bell Curve."

Thu, 2012-01-12 19:36 — Alex Baldwin (not verified)

@john woods

"With friends like these..."

Have you ever read about the scientific response to The Bell Curve?

Thu, 2012-01-12 19:40 — john woods (not verified)

Why has my previous comment been removed?

Thu, 2012-01-12 19:42 — andyg (not verified)

Are the media racist?
I don't know but I read this article in the hope of finding out. Instead I find that the word "racist" now means skin colour. Surely racism is about race whether it be Nigerian, Italian, Swiss etc. Wouldn't it have been much easier if you requested the equality and diversity data from these companies?

Thu, 2012-01-12 19:47 — john woods (not verified)

@Alex Baldwin

"Have you ever read about the scientific response to The Bell Curve?"

Some of it, yes. Have you ever read the book itself? All of it? I have.

Would also recommend: "Race, Evolution and Behaviour" by Prof Phillipe Rushton of the University of Ontario, "Dysgenics" by Prof Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster, "Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure Of race Relations in the United States" by Jared Taylor, "Into The Cannibal's Pot" by a South African Jewish lady whose name eludes me, or any of the other voluminous work on race and IQ which has been carried out by Richard Lynn, Chris Brand, Hans Eysenck, Cyril Burt, Jensen, Lynda Gottfredson, or the nobel winning chap wot invented the transistor.

Wed, 2012-01-11 20:17 — p j wall (not verified)

I`d find it hard to believe that the Daily Heil, The Express, and the Torygraph, have anything but love, affection, and togetherness, towards immigrants and ethnic minorities!!!.

Wed, 2012-01-11 20:29 — jankaas (not verified)

"A simple solution. The New Statesman asks so many horribly white journalists to resign and replace them with ethnic minorities."

damn, weird to find me typing this, but I agree with you Capitalist....

that is indeed exactly what is always lacking in this type of over simplistic reporting; a simple yet elegant solution.

i'm sure the NS staff will not mind at all to relinquish their positions for a year or so and hand the reigns over to minorities only.

i as an ethnic minority of only 40.000 UK residents (Dutch) volunteer, if the remuneration is not too shabby...

Wed, 2012-01-11 21:33 — Capitalist and Proud (not verified)

@jankass

Remember the moto: KISS.

Wed, 2012-01-11 23:05 — Joe (not verified)

Away from newspapers, the BBC and Channel 4 have a fair amount of non-white anchors, particularly of Asian origin. Is that because it's TV, and racial bias is more visible so they had to hire people based on their skin colour? Also many of the guys who've 'made it' in print like Aditya Chakrabortty (and Mr Hasan) are only in their 30s, and are still working their way up. Give it 20 years and the demographics of newspapers will have changed somewhat.

Aside from that, the class thing is a far more interesting angle. A huge amount of commentors/editors are Oxbridge, on the left and the right.

Thu, 2012-01-12 00:52 — Eoin (not verified)

The proportion of whites is 89%, British whites are 83%.

Not that there are many poles, or white proles in the newspaper either.

Anybody check up on the middle class credentials of these minorities - Knight is the son of a former Economist editor, for instance ( she is good, but there must be some nepotism, at least in the first job).

All that said, the stats are appalling when you consider that the average London office would be 40% non-British white, that is what I experience in most London offices, where relations are hardly strained.

And these jobs are all in London. But dont blame "we as a society". I am non-British white myself, and dont imagine I will be working for the New Statesman any time soon.

Sun, 2012-01-15 09:08 — Captain Sensible (not verified)

Top elite and devisive socialist whiteys organising a multi cultural chaos is the political ideal. Why not upgrade our own blacks into flying aircraft, traffic control at Heathrow and looking after the budget! The Lawrence/Leveson debacle is one sign.