'Too many white faces on the BBC news'

[Teddy Bear]

There are times when one is not sure whether to laugh. cry, or puke. After hiring its own 'cultural wathcdog' a year ago, referred to below as 'diversity czar', she finally feels she is earning her paycheck as shown in the article below.

'Too many white faces on the BBC news'
By Hugh Davies


(Filed: 14/08/2006)

The BBC was yesterday plunged into a row over its foreign reporting after its new "diversity czar" said there were too many white journalists reporting from non-white nations, particularly in Africa.

Mary Fitzpatrick said that she was tired of repeatedly seeing programmes where the situation was "here we are in Africa, and here's a white person saying, well, look at these people".

She said it was vital that BBC news reflected the audience that it was serving, with "valid and culturally accurate voices speaking."

Better still, let them talk in their native languages, it will do far less damage in misleading the public here in the long run.

She added: "I would prefer to see somebody who understands that culture, understands what's going on and can say, 'Look with me because I am part of this'. It feels more authoritative and more involved."

I'm willing to bet coverage of the Middle East will have far more Palestinian reporters than Israeli, unless they are far left in their views.

Rajeh Omaar, the Somali-born reporter who made his reputation reporting from Baghdad, has recently left to work for al-Jazeera, saying Western news organisations were perpetrating "a fraud" on their viewers with misleading coverage of the war in Iraq.

His reputation!!!
This was the guy who wrote 'love letters' to the murdering sons of Saddam, and had to crawl out of Saddams backside before any broadcast. He was effectively put on the back burners by the BBC after his letters were discovered in one of the Saddam's palaces following the war to oust him.

In any event, I'm not really sure what point the author of this article is trying to make here. I would agree that there is misleading coverage of the war, but I'm pretty sure it's not the same way that Rajeh Omaar means it.

Miss Fitzpatrick told The Observer that the BBC's team of foreign correspondents should come from the same ethnic background as the country they were reporting from.

I've got a really bad feeling about this. This is the part in the article that puking seems to be my dominant reaction. BBC bias
being what it is, it will be set to become the national broadcaster for all the regimes that are at odds with democracy.

The BBC said last night it was "absurd" to suggest that correspondents of the calibre of Fergal Keane, John Simpson, Jeremy Bowen and Orla Guerin "lack credibility with our audiences because they are white".

This paragraph is true; suggesting the above is absurd. In fact, they lack credibility because they are biased and blinkard. Their whiteness is coincidental.

"We have a number of reporters from ethnic minorities who cover stories around the world."

So what's the problem?

[indikit]

This is inverted racism at it's most rampant. And what the flying f*** is a "diversity czar". I must have missed that one on the boards at the job center. I mean, isn't that the first post you'd create if you were setting up a TV station who's service was supposed to be ENTERTAINMENT.

Diversity being the buzzword for minority at the beeb. Czar obviously being thrown in to make the successful applicant feel like they were an emperor or something, rather than somebody with a stupid job.

[Teddy Bear]

I can't think of any reason that she should be so tired of seeing white faces.


I'd be really happy if she would have said she wanted informed and intelligent reporters regardless of colour.