BBC employee says ‘incredible’ amounts of complaints have racial bias

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/apr/16/bbc-employee-says-incredible-amounts-of-complaints-have-racial-bias

by Tomte • 5 years ago

35 15 5 years ago

Seems a bit political to be on HN, but we'll see if it stays up.

On this article (which really says very little aside from "we claim that a lot of complaints contain racial bias, therefore the people complaining are wrong and stupid and we don't have to listen to them"), one of the linked articles in this side bar is this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/apr/09/tv-panel-shows...

I wonder why working-class white Britons might be a little upset?

andrew_• 5 years ago

Lots of money and power at stake in keeping people angry and divided.

resoluteteeth• 5 years ago

On this article (which really says very little aside from "we claim that a lot of complaints contain racial bias, therefore the people complaining are wrong and stupid and we don't have to listen to them"), one of the linked articles in this side bar is this one:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/apr/09/tv-panel-shows...
I wonder why working-class white Britons might be a little upset?

I don't really understand what your point is about the article in the sidebar; could you explain?

klyrs• 5 years ago

Did we read the same article? Because the article I read didn't call anybody stupid, and mentioned that they're getting complaints from people on the other side of the issue the issue as well. The title doesn't really fit the story, which is that the people handling BBC complaints are seeing a microcosm of the polarization gripping society at large.

pjc502• 5 years ago

why working-class Britons might be a little upset?

Is it because of the dominance of Oxbridge in BBC management, polical coverage, and even comedy?

MikeUt3• 5 years ago

That Creative Diversity Report the Guardian quotes also found that BAME (Black and Minority Ethnic) on-screen representation is at 23%, which is 164% of their share of the British population (14%). Surprisingly, the Guardian chose to omit that statistic, and focused instead on a sub-category where BAME are under-represented.

turnerc2• 5 years ago

The claims are baseless, just look at this claim:

"This case also showed that complaints are increasingly made by people who didn’t watch the programmes"

How can they substantiate this? As per usual on the guardian it's all waffling political nonsense.

nkoren• 5 years ago

Literally the next sentence provides strong (if circumstantial) substantiation for this.

pjc502• 5 years ago

Just 4% of the 24,500 complaints about the performance were made in the immediate aftermath of Britain’s Got Talent being aired. Instead, the majority followed news stories about the relatively small number of original complaints to Ofcom, which in turn prompted even more complaints, and in turn more news stories, producing a self-perpetuating media outrage cycle.

They presumably have an idea what the "normal" lag between broadcast and complaint is; if you can file complaints 24h/day through the website, and most people complain in the hours following the broadcast, then you can determine that complaints made later were news-driven.

Heck, I've done this myself once, for the broadcast of the Enoch Powell speech recently.

turnerc2• 5 years ago

I'm not disputing they are news driven but saying that such people didn't watch the programme cannot be proved.

Powell's speech was interspersed with commentary, If you didn't listen to it then your complaint should be invalidated

globular-toast• 5 years ago

It doesn't show me the comments. Don't just tell me "it's racist". Show me. I have no idea who the black presenter is but there might be legitimate reasons to complain that go beyond skin colour. I'm not just going to take the Guardian's word for it.

bellyfullofbac2• 5 years ago

A supermarket chain decided to feature a Black family in their Christmas ad last year, and some of the response on Twitter was frustrating: https://thetab.com/uk/2020/11/17/if-you-have-an-issue-with-t... (this link is an opinion piece and not a neutral observation)

If I could respond to the complainer saying "The UK is majority white, why don't your ads represent that?", I'd ask him, how many TV ads, and in particular Christmas ads have had white people, yet 1 ad feature a Black family and you're offended?

MikeUt3• 5 years ago

a Black family

Right, it's just that one Black family. It's not that the Creative Diversity Network found that BAME (Black and Minority Ethnic) on-screen representation is at 23%, which is 164% of their share of the British population (14%). Or that Queen Margaret is portrayed as Black [1], or Guinevere as Indian [2], and it's all deliberate [3]. The British should just shut up as they are cast out of their own history and myths? Not just shut up, but also pay for it with their own taxes.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/45RJ4vCmgjsDrLGt8q...

[2] https://merlin.fandom.com/wiki/Angel_Coulby

[3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/24/bbc-drama-boss-d...

bellyfullofbac2• 5 years ago

Sorry, your comment is quite pathetic and betrays your racism. (What a great way for me to persuade you to think different, huh?) One: Are those actresses not British? Oh, gotta be white, and what other properties do they need, to be British? Two, they are playing characters in fictional stories. From what I can gather from a quick search, Shakespeare based his plays on real historical characters, but with fictional stories. (Maybe since you're a person who likes his heritage, you can tell me whether that's an accurate depiction of what Shakespeare did.). Just like the Titanic is real but the story of Jack and Rose were made up, and they're probably not based on real passengers. Even if there were 2 actual passengers with their names, if the story is made up, why should someone be able to change the story but not change the race of the character?

Quoting those percentages is just sad, what, only 14% "BAME" are allowed since there's only 14% of BAME Brits? (Gotta love that people just lump the non-whites as "Others", although there are Blacks, Asians, etc, etc). If you want to use this logic, maybe there should be a massive firing of NBA stars because currently black athletes are over-represented with 74% compared to black population being 14.7% of the total US population.

I've got no problems with Scarlett Johansson playing a Japanese cyborg in the fictional story Ghost in the Shell (and surprise, I actually am allowed to have a problem with it), I find it a bit curious when people demand representation in lists like Oscar nominations or "Best books I read last year" Bill Gates likes to publish such a list every year, and one comment that irked me was a woman saying "Why are all the books in your list by white males?". My logic is, what if those were the books that he actually liked the best, and they happened to be all by white males? It would make no sense for him to have to fill a quota with a non-white-male writer. Or what if the plurality of people agree the best 5 directors/actors/etc in a particular year were all white (or they could also be all black and Asian, although then whiteys like you will moan...).

Here's a tip, if the only thing you've got to be proud of is your nationality, or your race, you're probably harboring some deep insecurities. If I said "The British did some horrible things in their colonies." you'd say "Wasn't me, those were some men who are now long dead.". In reverse, when you say "Brits conquered the world once.", those were some dead men, not you.

Find your pride in your accomplishments, not in a property like skin color or nationality.

BBC employee says ‘incredible’ amounts of complaints have racial bias

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