BBC targets diversity in the newsroom
The BBC has launched a new recruitment drive to increase diversity in its newsrooms across the UK. Working journalists with disabilities and from different social and ethnic backgrounds will be targeted by the initiative, which aims to create a talent pool of potential recruits for the corporation. Under the scheme, members of this pool would compete against direct applicants when positions arise for broadcast journalists in the BBC’s Wales, Yorkshire and East Midlands newsrooms. The same process will also be used when recruiting broadcast journalists for 1Xtra News and the BBC’s multimedia newsroom in London. “We hope that, through their social or ethnic background, or perhaps through their insights into disability, the people who pass our assessment process will help us to reach out to our many and varied audiences,” said Paul Deal, manager of the journalism recruitment project for the BBC’s College of Journalism. Deal continued, “I’m really fired up about the need for the BBC to be able to connect with all manner of viewers, listeners and web users.” Diversity Expert, Michael Stuber, stated, “The BBC’s creative approach to increasing ethnic diversity within its pool of journalists is laudable as a first step. For following measures, providing an inclusive corporate culture through programmes such as trainings or networks and encouraging journalists to utilise their varying mindsets and experiences to report on new topics would add a new dimension to the BBC’s coverage.” Individual editors of the newsrooms involved in the scheme would be tasked with making the final decision about which candidate to employ, Deal added.
