Post by Teddy Bear on Apr 30, 2014 16:37:09 GMT
I read the article yesterday about the BBC putting various heads of departments through a course to deal with their 'unconscious bias' in hiring people in order to make the BBC more diverse. I was so sickened by this PC bullshit I couldn't bring myself to dwell on it too much so didn't post about it then.
But today James Delingpole has written a brilliant article that really puts this BBC behaviour into perspective.
But today James Delingpole has written a brilliant article that really puts this BBC behaviour into perspective.
Courses on bias at the Beeb? That’ll be a hoot
The BBC’s scheme to fine-tune staffers’ their metropolitan, tofu-eating prejudices will be an exercise in box-ticking
By James Delingpole
Have you noticed how remarkably few morris dancers, bricklayers or retired colonels there are on the Today programme? There’s a Scotsman; a Welshman; a woman of Pakistani heritage (though rather posh: Mishal Husain’s grandfather was private military secretary to Field Marshal Auchinleck); and a man whom some suspect of being a closet Tory. But I think we can all agree that Radio 4’s flagship news programme has a long way to go before it truly represents the richness and diversity of its audience.
Happily, I was relieved to read in The Telegraph yesterday that the BBC is on the case. Senior staff from its News and Current Affairs team have been sent on a course designed to shake them out of their “unconscious bias” and stop them always recruiting employees “in their own image”.
Precise details of the course are a mystery, but knowing how scrupulously the BBC spends the £145.50 licence fee, I have no doubt whatsoever that its methods are both rigorous and effective. Very likely the course will have included aversion therapy on the lines of A Clockwork Orange. I expect that electrodes were attached and that a series of titillating videos – say, a tasty dish of polenta in a north London restaurant; or a banker being heckled by a bunch of Occupy protesters – were shown. Every time the executives got excited about the delicious right-on-ness, they would have been given a nasty shock.
Well, we can but dream. The truth, as we are all wearily aware, is that the course in question will have done the exact opposite. Far from encouraging BBC bosses to confront their metropolitan, tofu-eating prejudices, it will only have confirmed them. They will have come away more convinced than ever that the corporation’s primary function is not to make great programmes, but to tick all the right boxes.
This is, in all likelihood, just the first in a series of courses designed to fine-tune staffers’ bien-pensant sensibilities. The following departments are expected to derive particular benefit:
BBC Wildlife. For too long, intrusive, disrespectful camera crews have pried into the most intimate activities of our brother- and sister-creatures, and dwelt ghoulishly on some of the most painful moments of their brief lives (eg the bit where they’re eaten by crocodiles). This course will encourage wildlife crews to show more respect by first seeking to learn to communicate with the baboons/polar bears/meerkats, and then politely asking their subjects for permission to film them.
BBC Sport. With the honourable exceptions of the England football team and our pre-Andy Murray Wimbledon hopefuls, this department has for too long focused almost exclusively on winners – and male winners, at that. There is an urgent need to rebalance sports coverage so that, for example, football commentators find more time to notice what the defence and goalie are up to while the strikers are preening themselves up front. This course will also remind executives that women’s sport is at least as important and exciting as men’s, if not more so, because sportswomen have to overcome a much greater challenge in order to be seen as remotely interesting.
BBC Economics. For too long, this coverage has been woefully biased towards the Right, as shown by its appointment of Duncan Weldon (ex-TUC and former adviser to Harriet Harman) to replace former Trotskyite Paul Mason on Newsnight. This should be corrected by the appointment of less contentious, more politically neutral figures, such as Ken Livingstone.
CBBC. For too long, children’s telly has pandered to the heteronormative prejudice that the nuclear family, early learning and “watching with mother” are the healthiest way for a child to grow up. This course will workshop a range of original and challenging new series including Can’t Spell, Won’t Spell and All Shall Have Prizes – a question-free quiz in which all the junior contestants get an iPad for just turning up and keeping fairly quiet (or not, as the case may be).
BBC Arts. For too long, this has been playing to dwindling audiences thanks to its antediluvian bias towards discredited dead, white, European males such as Shakespeare, Mozart and Balzac. This course will aim to bolster ratings figures by encouraging coverage more relevant and exciting to modern audiences, such as a 24-hour Ibo poetry marathon from Nigeria, or The Plight of the Greenland Ice Cap – an expressive piece of dance performance-art, live from the Arctic Circle, in which comedian Marcus Brigstocke will hum in harmony with the singing of as many humpback whales as can be captured for the occasion.
Now, let’s hear no more of that grumbling about value for money, eh?
The BBC’s scheme to fine-tune staffers’ their metropolitan, tofu-eating prejudices will be an exercise in box-ticking
By James Delingpole
Have you noticed how remarkably few morris dancers, bricklayers or retired colonels there are on the Today programme? There’s a Scotsman; a Welshman; a woman of Pakistani heritage (though rather posh: Mishal Husain’s grandfather was private military secretary to Field Marshal Auchinleck); and a man whom some suspect of being a closet Tory. But I think we can all agree that Radio 4’s flagship news programme has a long way to go before it truly represents the richness and diversity of its audience.
Happily, I was relieved to read in The Telegraph yesterday that the BBC is on the case. Senior staff from its News and Current Affairs team have been sent on a course designed to shake them out of their “unconscious bias” and stop them always recruiting employees “in their own image”.
Precise details of the course are a mystery, but knowing how scrupulously the BBC spends the £145.50 licence fee, I have no doubt whatsoever that its methods are both rigorous and effective. Very likely the course will have included aversion therapy on the lines of A Clockwork Orange. I expect that electrodes were attached and that a series of titillating videos – say, a tasty dish of polenta in a north London restaurant; or a banker being heckled by a bunch of Occupy protesters – were shown. Every time the executives got excited about the delicious right-on-ness, they would have been given a nasty shock.
Well, we can but dream. The truth, as we are all wearily aware, is that the course in question will have done the exact opposite. Far from encouraging BBC bosses to confront their metropolitan, tofu-eating prejudices, it will only have confirmed them. They will have come away more convinced than ever that the corporation’s primary function is not to make great programmes, but to tick all the right boxes.
This is, in all likelihood, just the first in a series of courses designed to fine-tune staffers’ bien-pensant sensibilities. The following departments are expected to derive particular benefit:
BBC Wildlife. For too long, intrusive, disrespectful camera crews have pried into the most intimate activities of our brother- and sister-creatures, and dwelt ghoulishly on some of the most painful moments of their brief lives (eg the bit where they’re eaten by crocodiles). This course will encourage wildlife crews to show more respect by first seeking to learn to communicate with the baboons/polar bears/meerkats, and then politely asking their subjects for permission to film them.
BBC Sport. With the honourable exceptions of the England football team and our pre-Andy Murray Wimbledon hopefuls, this department has for too long focused almost exclusively on winners – and male winners, at that. There is an urgent need to rebalance sports coverage so that, for example, football commentators find more time to notice what the defence and goalie are up to while the strikers are preening themselves up front. This course will also remind executives that women’s sport is at least as important and exciting as men’s, if not more so, because sportswomen have to overcome a much greater challenge in order to be seen as remotely interesting.
BBC Economics. For too long, this coverage has been woefully biased towards the Right, as shown by its appointment of Duncan Weldon (ex-TUC and former adviser to Harriet Harman) to replace former Trotskyite Paul Mason on Newsnight. This should be corrected by the appointment of less contentious, more politically neutral figures, such as Ken Livingstone.
CBBC. For too long, children’s telly has pandered to the heteronormative prejudice that the nuclear family, early learning and “watching with mother” are the healthiest way for a child to grow up. This course will workshop a range of original and challenging new series including Can’t Spell, Won’t Spell and All Shall Have Prizes – a question-free quiz in which all the junior contestants get an iPad for just turning up and keeping fairly quiet (or not, as the case may be).
BBC Arts. For too long, this has been playing to dwindling audiences thanks to its antediluvian bias towards discredited dead, white, European males such as Shakespeare, Mozart and Balzac. This course will aim to bolster ratings figures by encouraging coverage more relevant and exciting to modern audiences, such as a 24-hour Ibo poetry marathon from Nigeria, or The Plight of the Greenland Ice Cap – an expressive piece of dance performance-art, live from the Arctic Circle, in which comedian Marcus Brigstocke will hum in harmony with the singing of as many humpback whales as can be captured for the occasion.
Now, let’s hear no more of that grumbling about value for money, eh?