Ageism Debate

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Selina stokes a diversity debate that needs addressing

It will come as a surprise to few but a delight to many that Selina Scott is suing Five over ageism in its refusal to hire her for a maternity cover role and choice of younger presenters instead. It is a delight not because Five is worse than anyone else in this respect, but because it stokes a debate which urgently needs to be taken more seriously. Casual sexism, ageism and racism are the collective dirty secret of the vast majority of media institutions, and they represent as much of an industrial challenge as they do a moral one.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's Report on Sex and Power, published last week, drew a depressing picture for women in the workplace. In general the progression of women at the highest level in the workplace is pitiful and the media are no exception: only 13.6% of national newspaper editors (including the Herald and Western Mail) are women; only 10% of media FTSE's 350 companies have women at the helm; and at the BBC, which has often been held as an exemplar of diversity, women make up less than 30% of most senior management positions. It puts into context Jeremy Paxman's deranged rant about the white male in television. Ethnic minority representation is even worse.

A couple of weeks ago Pat Younge, former BBC head of sports programmes and planning who left to work for Discovery in the US, caused a stir at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival by saying that diversity targets should be like financial targets - you don't hit them, you get fired. I have to say that as board champion for diversity at Guardian News and Media I would currently be firing myself and most of the board for some missed targets. But Younge is right - because diversity targets are not just a feelgood add-on, they are vital to the health of any media business. The temptation to hire in one's own image for most managers is as irresistible as it is subliminal - which is why there are a lot of opinionated women working in digital management at the Guardian, and why we all need targets to remind us to look beyond the mirror.

On screen, any number of unconventional-looking ageing blokes (Jeremy Clarkson, Jonathan Ross,Chris Moyles, Alan Sugar, Adrian Chiles, Jeremy Paxman, Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan) are paid at a top rate for the talent they possess beyond their appearance. For women it is an altogether different story - appearance and age are clearly factors in choosing female presenters in a way that they aren't for men.

The media should be deeply concerned about this un-diversity - not because it represents moral turpitude on our part, but because it represents bloody awful business sense. What is happening to the UK population at the moment? It is ethnically diversifying, and it is ageing. It is also the case that it is, as of the 2001 Census, marginally more female than it is male. And we live longer - so older women, and non-white potential audiences are on the rise. In London, the major urban conurbation and key market for so many media brands, the population is around 37% ethnically diverse, yet this is nowhere near reflected in the management structures of media companies. Or indeed in their on-screen or in-paper representation.

How though, can you hope to address audiences for which you have no instinctive feel, and towards which you show casual discrimination? We are all in danger of becoming irrelevant to the changing demographics of our target audience at a time when holding any kind of audience is key to survival. If white men are so good at solving business problems - and given that they represent well over 80% of FTSE 100 directors we can speculate that this is a skill they must possess in measure - then I'm surprised they haven't grasped this one already.

MEST 4 Coursework Details - CI & LP Titles (Final Edition)

...Critical Investigation...

An investigation into ethnic minority representations in broadcasting. Do they challenge or reinforce stereotypes and are they responsible for creating moral panics?

...Linked Production...

A current affairs magazine front cover and features article(s) discussing ways in which black people are represented in contemporary media.

Media Guardian: Critical Investigation Related Article #1

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Black and Asian people targeted in stop and search surge

Number of black people stopped by police rose 322% after failed 2007 London bomb attack

Alan Travis

Media Guardian, Thursday 3 April 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/30/black-asian-stop-search-police-terrorism

Black and Asian people were disproportionately targeted by police in a surge in the use of stop and search under counterterrorism laws in the wake of the failed 2007 London bomb attack, according to official figures published today.

The Justice Ministry statistics showed that the number of black people being stopped and searched under counterterrorism laws rose by 322%, compared with 277% for Asian people and 185% for white people.

Corinna Ferguson, a barrister at human rights charity Liberty, said: "A threefold increase in anti-terror stop and search is the clearest signal that these powers are being misused. Only six in 10,000 people stopped were arrested for terrorism, let alone charged or convicted.

"And the disproportionate impact on ethic minorities is even greater than in previous years. This is why Liberty has been challenging these powers since 2003, and is taking the fight on to the court of human rights."

The Metropolitan police were responsible for most of the increase in the use of counterterrorism stop and search powers, which nationally rose from 37,197 in 2006/2007 to 117, 278 in 2007/08.

The Justice Ministry said the large rise in street searches under the terrorism laws was directly attributable to "the robust response by the Metropolitan police to the threat of terror-related networks in London since the Haymarket bomb in 2007".

The figures also disclosed a 19% increase in the use of what is called "section 60 powers", which give the police the right to stop and search anybody for 24 hours in a designated area where serious violence may take place. The power allows police to carry out the searches without having to have grounds to suspect that the person is carrying a knife or a weapon. The figures showed that there were 53,000 section 60 searches in 2007/08 with most of them in London, Birmingham and Liverpool.

There was a 64% increase in the number of black people searched under this section 60 power compared with a 41% increase for white people. In London over half of those stopped were black.

The rise in the use of counterterror powers fuelled an 8% increase in the general use of stop and search by the police in England and Wales with a total of 1,035,438 incidents recorded in 2007/08 – the highest level for 9 years. The main reason for conducting most stop and searches was for drugs.

The figures published today showed that 10 years after the official Macpherson inquiry report into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence black people are still eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. This is actually an increase over the previous year – 2006/07 – when black people were seven times more likely to be stopped.

The number of racially motivated incidents has risen, according to the British Crime Survey, from 184,000 in 2006/07 to 207,000 in 2007/08, but the number recorded by the police fell by 7% over the same period.

The Justice Ministry figures on the representation of black and ethnic minority people in the criminal justice system showed that little progress had been made in the past year in reducing the ethnic bias in outcomes within the police, courts and prison and probation services.

Black people are still four times more likely to be arrested and less likely to get a caution than a white person. They are more likely to be imprisoned on conviction, and black and minority ethnic groups now account for 27% of the 83,000 prison population in England and Wales.

The Justice Ministry said that, however, the police and prison services had increased the proportion of minority ethnic staff they employed, with 7% of all police officers from a minority ethnic group.

Media Guardian: Critical Investigation Related Article #2

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The real threat of immigration

This is not just a 'tabloid issue'. We must tackle immigration's effect on our population, or risk leaving the field to extremists

Andrew Green

MediaGuardian, Friday 23 October 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/23/immigration-population-uk-politics

Tim Finch is worried that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) population projections published on 21 October will, as he put it, play into tabloid hands. He is right to point out these projections are not forecasts. But what they do show very clearly is that, unless there are major changes in economic circumstances or government policy, the population of the UK will hit 70 million in 20 years' time. Nearly 70% of that increase will be due to future immigration.

It is important to realise that these projections are not just a continuation of past trends. Net immigration quadrupled between 1997 and 2007. Continuing that trend would result in astronomical figures. Instead, the ONS has assumed 25% drop from the 237,000 per year experienced in 2007 to 180,000. It has assumed that this level will continue into the future. This assumption already takes account of the expected fall in net immigration in 2008 due to a large number of east Europeans returning home. Indeed, the projections further assume that net immigration from eastern Europe will decline to zero over the next five years. As for the effect of recession, Migrationwatch research has shown that, in the last three recessions, there was only a temporary fall in immigration followed by a resumed upward trend.

It is fair to say that the ONS makes a serious and detailed effort to reach the most plausible assumptions possible, as explained in a further Migrationwatch paper. In 2007 the ONS published a study of the accuracy of its population projections over the past 50 years. At the 20-year range the average margin of error was about 2.5%.

Another important feature of these projections is that they illustrate what must be done if we wish to moderate the increase in our population. They show, for example, that if we want to stabilise our population at 65 million we need to reduce net immigration to zero. That does not mean no immigration at all. It means that immigration should be reduced to the level of emigration, which is currently about 100,000 a year.

So what about government policy, the other big variable? Will recent changes limit the growth in our population? We have not yet had a full year of the much-vaunted points-based system, but the government's own assessment is that, had it been in operation last year, it would have reduced immigration by about 20,000. That leaves another 160,000 to go. There is no sign of policies that would achieve that, but perhaps these population projections will help generate the political will necessary to bring immigration under control.

Let us be clear. This is not just a "tabloid issue". Eighty-four per cent of the public are worried about our population reaching 70 million including, incidentally, two-thirds of the ethnic minority community. Seventy-one per cent want to see net immigration reduced to 50,000 or less. None of the three main parties allowed the word "immigration" to appear on the agenda of their recent party conferences. If they continue to duck the issue, they will leave the field wide open to extremists and have only themselves to blame.

Media Guardian: Critical Investigation Related Article #3

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Stop and search of ethnic minority 10-year-olds doubles in London

Metropolitan Police say fewer youth murders justify a tactic critics say can alienate children

Vikram Dodd

MediaGuardian, Tuesday 17 November 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/17/police-search-children-race

Police have doubled the number of Afro-Caribbean and Asian primary school children they stop and search in London in the last year, figures released today reveal.

Police say the increased use of the controversial powers is to tackle the carrying of weapons, but critics say it risks alienating ethnic minority youngsters.

Children as young as 10 were stopped 755 times from April 2008 to March 2009, an increase of 80% on the previous year.

Ethnic minority children bore the brunt of the increase. The number of 10-year-old Asian children stopped rose 130%, while there was a 100% increase for Afro-Caribbean children, compared to a 54% increase for white youngsters.

Scotland Yard said the tactics have reduced the number of children being murdered in London. There had been 29 youth homicides between January and October 2008, dropping to 11 for the same period in 2009.

After the election of the Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in May 2008, the Metropolitan Police introduced greater use of stop and search powers in an attempt to halt the increase in youth homicides. Johnson had called for tough action and the Met responded with an operation codenamed Blunt 2.

The figures released today show that the number of youngsters aged between 10 and 17 searched by police rose by 49% to 185,489 from 123,819 in 2007-8.

Ben Bowling, the professor of criminology and criminal justice at King's College, London, said: "Stop and search is a blunt tool which can do more harm than good, especially when it is targeted unfairly against children as young as 10. I'd like to see the evidence that London's black communities support the widespread searching of 10-year-olds. I think there must be a better way to keep our children safe."

Jenny Jones, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said: "Just one bad interaction can colour a young person's view of police for life. This can be self-defeating – the police may be better off putting more work into schools and multi-agency work."

Today police were hunting the attackers of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed in the stomach while waiting for a bus home from school. He was attacked at Edmonton Green bus garage, north London, after reports of a knife fight at about 4.30pm on Monday.

In a statement on the increase in stop and search, the Met said: "The use of stop and search is a powerful tool to combat youth violence and deter the carrying and use of weapons on our streets. This has been stepped up since Operation Blunt 2 and we intend to continue this activity as we believe that it prevents the loss of young lives.

"We have gone to great lengths since Operation Blunt 2 started to ensure that all our activities are led by the best possible understanding of the issues. You can therefore expect more activity in some areas impacting more on certain communities than others as a result."

David Michael, a former Met detective chief inspector who is now chair of the Lewisham police consultative group, said increased use of stop and search was very disturbing. "We are all reassured that there has been a decrease in youth murders but no one has presented the empirical evidence showing the nexus with the reduction and increased stop and search of children of tender years."

In August the Guardian reported that 2,331 children aged 15 or under were stopped by Met officers using anti-terrorism powers. This included 58 children aged nine or under.