On Monday 12JUL04, much of the BBC’s UK news featured parts of a story headlined on BBC News Online as ‘Shocking’ racism in jobs market.
Five Live’s Ian Shoesmith was interviewed on BBC1’s lightweight Breakfast programme. The story was also on BBC News Online, BBC One O’Clock News, and as a lead item on the BBC London news at lunchtime, 6.30pm and 10.30pm.
Watching and reading the various takes, it boils down to:
1) six fictitious candidates, three male, three female, two with traditional British names (Jenny Hughes and John Andrews), two with African names (Abu Olasemi and Yinka Olatunde) and two with Asian names (Fatima Khan and Nasser Hanif).
2) applications from each of the six in response to adverts for a job at each of fifty companies (“Many… well known… jobs covered a range of fields”), thirty-one of them based in London.
3) the CVs were of “the same standard of qualifications and experience but… were presented differently”.
4) of all the applications (100 for each pair of names), the traditional British named pair were offered 23 interviews, the African named pair 13 interviews and the Asian named pair 9 interviews.
5) Shoesmith followed up with five of the fifty employers, three of whom responded in an unspecified way, one of whom “disputed the findings”, claiming to have offered interviews to “one or two” of the non-traditional British named candidates, but this was disregarded because “we had to go on what we received”.
Example conclusions drawn from the above are:
– Shoesmith was “‘surprised by the sheer extent’ of religious and racial discrimination it uncovered”;
– Brendan Barber of the TUC said “Statistics as shocking as these suggest that many people recruiting for the private sector firms are harbouring inherently racist views. Public sector bodies have to prove they are doing all they can to eliminate race discrimination”;
– Professor Muhammad Anwar of Warwick University said “the survey was proof of a recent rise in anti-Muslim feeling”.
From the information provided (the above summary really is all of the detail that can be discerned), there are a number of flaws with, and omissions from, the survey, the accompanying news reports and the rentaquote conclusions drawn from it, including:
– the survey sample was very small – just fifty jobs, with six applications for each, meaning that small errors (e.g. missing post) one way or the other have a large effect on the apparent outcome;
– the success rate of all the applications is poor – it would be much more significant if, say, one pair had a 60-70% hit rate in contrast to the other groups – it doesn’t say much for the standard of the fictional applications in general;
– the CVs were of “the same standard of qualifications and experience but… were presented differently” – no examples are provided. When sifting job applications presentation is often the first consideration – poorly written, poorly spelled and poorly laid out CVs can be quickly rejected, so unless the survey applications were genuinely alike in every respect, it is likely this will have affected the outcome;
– beyond the details above, nothing is said about the nature of the jobs, the types of companies, their sizes or locations;
– we don’t know the backgrounds of the people processing the applications or the methods used to decide between one application or another. Maybe they read them. Maybe they cut the pile in two. Maybe they picked the first twenty for interview. Who knows? Certainly not the BBC with their lack of rigorous follow-ups (and why limit follow ups to just five employers anyway?);
– the BBC ascribes attributes to the three pairs of names – White, Black-African and Muslim. Leaving aside that there are many Black and Asian Britons with traditional British names, I cannot, in spite of being well read and living in Greater London, distinguish people’s religious backgrounds from their names, except in a few obvious cases (e.g. a Mohammed is almost certainly a Muslim, a Patrick O’Flaherty is most likely Catholic etc.), so it seems a big stretch to conclude that these employers rejected someone on the grounds of religion (e.g. Muslim) rather than simply ethnicity (e.g. Asian), if indeed racism played a part;
This is all very troubling. Racism does exist in the UK, in (but not throughout) all groups and communities, white, black, Asian, etc. But this ‘survey’ (some reports even called it an ‘undercover investigation’) does not merit the conclusions drawn from it. At best it suggests there is a case for a proper study of such issues, perhaps a Panorama style investigation. But not the shock, horror headlines that have been used so glibly already.
A proper investigation should include:
– a much larger sample with a wider variety of candidate names (i.e. names with obvious religious connections, names from different parts of the UK, continental names, names from different classes (e.g. how does Wayne Smith fare compared with Tarquin Fortescue for different types of jobs), etc.;
– proper follow-ups with all employers to ascertain their backgrounds, selection methods and reasoning;
– distinction between employers – to ascertain the extent of racism among white/black/Asian/Muslim/etc. employers when it comes to employing people apparently from other groups – racism isn’t limited to white people;
– analysis of the differences between the private-sector and the public-sector (given that the former are often very small businesses, the latter much larger more bureaucratic organisations, where stats would be more meaningful);
Until then it’s wrong for a small item on a small radio station to become the inspiration for a great deal of “employers are racist” headlines across a wide variety of major BBC broadcasts.
Addendum (for B-BBC scare-quote aficionados):
The first News Online version, timestamped 11.22BST, began:
A BBC survey showing applicants from ethnic minorities still face widespread discrimination in the job market has prompted calls for tougher regulation.CVs from six fictitious candidates – who were given “white”, black African or Muslim names – were sent to 50 employers in the BBC Radio Five Live survey.
White candidates were much more likely to be given an interview than similarly qualified black or Asian people.
The second version, timestamped 14:46BST, begins:
A union boss is calling for tougher regulation after a BBC survey showed ethnic minority applicants still face major discrimination in the jobs marketCVs from six fictitious candidates – who were given traditionally white, black African or Muslim names – were sent to 50 firms by Radio Five Live.
White “candidates” were far more likely to be given an interview than similarly qualified black or Asian “names”.
Note the aimless scare-quote merry-go-round and how the level of journo-spin ratchets up from cub-journo to junior-journo as the day progressed!
On the Radio 5 live phone-in, someone rang in to ask whether firms owned by those of Asian origin were amongst those targetted by the survey. The caller contended that if these had been included, it would have shown that such firms are more likely to offer jobs to those of Asian background. The PC nerds on the panel had no answer to this.
However, I should have added that sadly I think that those with an Asian name are on balance less likely to be offered an interview in a regular British firm.
Ahem! This festering pile of lightweight trash the BBC calls an “inquiry” is just propaganda as usual — and is itself racist. Enjoy the next step: anyone who objects to dumbed down drivel with an ethnic element is always branded a “bigot”. We are only hours away…
I don’t know how to bring this to the attention of the webmaster
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3878891.stm
BBC is now saying:
“The typical politics of America’s Jewish community is easy to caricature: Roosevelt-loving, New Deal Democrats.
The caricature blurs the community’s complexity but nevertheless, in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore won 80% of the Jewish vote.”
Jews are easy to caricature. I can’t believe the contempt in this approach. It is outrageous.
Yesterday I addressed another glaring example of employer discrimination:
Brits are Bigoted Mass Murders Who Deny Animals Basic Rights
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2004/07/brits_are_bigot.html
Something really must be done …
Damn those employers recruiting those they think they will feel most comfortable working with!
As a related issue, I think that the BBC’s documentary this evening, ‘The Secret Agent’, shows how they are getting more and more interested in policing the nation’s values.
I have a very short attention span for Nick Griffin, but the Beeb’s determination to reinforce Blunkett’s anti- religious discrimination laws seems less than impartial. It’s on BBC1 at 9.00pm if anyone wants to see the Beeb go undercover and ‘expose’ the unreconstructed little Englanders of the BNP.
I wonder if there will be a BBC ‘investigation’ into racist recruitment at the BBC’s very own ‘CBBC’ . I can’t be the only person to be puzzled as to why , in a country which is (officially ) 92 % white ,there is such a remarkable over representation of Afro -carribean presenters on that channel. The number of presenters of Asian origin should be roughly similar to afro-carribeans , but they are notable only by their absence .
Time for another ‘undercover documentary’ perhaps? The Secret Teletubby?????
To follow up your idea… There is one Asian CBBC presenter Pui Fan Lee who is also a Teletubby! She plays Po, the small red one.
Andrew – for once I have to agree with you – this tiny snapshot did not warrant the kind of headlines we have seen, most of which can be ascribed to sloppy, cliche-ridden journalism, something the BBC is not alone in being guilty of.
However, the sad facts are:
1. The BBC shouldn’t have to do such snapshots at all – how much money do we pay in taxes already to stop racism?
2. Doesn’t this show it’s all being wasted by a Government hell-bent on destroying free speech under a raft of needless PC legislation
3. You need to generate such headlines just to get such issues aired.
However, this was only a tiny part of the day’s news output. Under your own measures I could say that it’s wrong for a small item on a small blog to become the inspiration for a great deal of “BBC are biased” headlines… Sorry, couldn’t resist.
PS Cindy – some facts:
1. Jews are easy to caricature, so are Muslims and Christians, Americans and Scotsmen.
2. Al Gore did win 79% of the Jewish vote, Bush 19%, which equated to 3.3m votes for Gore, 780,000 for Bush (Source: VNS)
3. Caricatures are used because they are easy, and because the people using them often don’t understand the depth of the subject they are caricaturing. The BBC article says as much, and therefore makes the same statement against those who employ such caricatures.
What the BBC said is not outrageous, it is fact. Just because the facts are at odds with your personal sensibilities doesn’t make them bias.
Ah, Reith old chap, do tell where this blog has prompted a great deal of ‘BBC are biased’ headlines – I thought there was just you and me and a couple of other folk here 🙂
On output point, yes it may have be a small part of the BBC’s output, but, apart from R5 Live, it was picked up on Breakfast (probably more than once), again on the One O’Clock News and on all three London local news progs (leading item at 6.30pm and 10.30pm) – going out to a massive population, 29% of which is from ethnic groups – so shaky headlines from small survey quickly becomes established fact in the public mind and race relations get set back that bit more in terms of ‘them & us’ thinking, especially the way in which the apparent prejudice was interpreted as being specific to Muslims rather than Asians in general (not that either is right).
I hope Mr. Shoesmith and the various producers involved realise that this easy space-filler headline for them does more harm than good in the wider world.
“Doesn’t this show it’s all being wasted by a Government hell-bent on destroying free speech under a raft of needless PC legislation”
Now if only the BBC felt it was appropriate to sometimes take this line: to investigate where our taxes go, and whether we could handle the same problems individually without state involvement. Or even whether the states’ solution is actually worse than the original problem. Of course then our socialist equivalents would accuse them of being biased (or of being traitors to the cause) 🙂
Having watched the BNP Party Political broadcast aka Secret Agent last night I can only say well done beeb for spreading their foul message to an even wider audience now. After all the Beeb were the ones who keep Gerry Adams and his ilk on screen during the IRA bombing campaigns so such stupidity is nothing new. When are we going to ahve an independent watchdog who bites the Beeb’s bum when they make such wild claims based on junk science? They had one the other day which claimed most Scots wanted more power to Folyrood. 1500 people etc interviewed in the UK – Oh and only 337 were Scottish. 337 people do not speak for 5 million Scots and neither do 1163 non-Scots! I have done my own just as scientific survey and 1 Jock was asked if he/she liked Jack McConnell. sack the bugger was the overwhelming consensus…will the peoples’ will therefore be done?
Will the BBC be infiltrating the SWP next to highlight their vile policies?
BNP = race war.
SWP = class war.
They are cut from the same cloth, but one seems to be handled very differently from the other…
The SWP haven’t won a vote in 20 years and any infiltration would automatically double their strength so it would be pretty pointless.
Infiltrating the railway unions would be interesting and worthwhile though.
The results are given for pairs of candidates. I’d be interested to see a breakdown of how many invitations to interview each of the two candidates with British names got. Supposing one of them was very successful and the other did no better than those from the other groups – what would that show?
“…this was only a tiny part of the day’s news output…” says Reith.
Baloney. It was a big part of a couple of days of hysterical race coverage that included yesterday’s “investigation” of the BNP — hyped on Breakfast and then on the One o’clock and Six o’clock on BBC1, followed by the “documentary” itself, which then became the lead for a hyperventilating H. Edwards Esq on the Ten o’clock, who pointed the way to yet more “analysis” on NewsNight…zzzzzzzzz.
So what’s new here? Not much. The BBC’s agenda-driven diet of social engineering and selective reporting is on full display. Again.
More interesting, maybe, is the timing, since it distracts attention from the (near complete) exoneration of Blair and Bush over intelligence questions on Iraq. BBC-TV still hasn’t mentioned the public disgracing of the Wilson/Plame duo who were given center stage for days when the Nigerian yellowcake story broke. Betcha they never will.
All that fuss over the BNP programme. But we already knew that the BNP has a lot of nasties among its membership. The question the BBC shouil be investigating is why nearly a million people voted for them, why they won a third of the vote in a byelection yesterday in East London. Such an investigation need not take months, need not be dangerous, need not require a big budget.
The electorate are not stupid – they KNOW about the bad record of the BNP. But they don’t find the other parties are answering their worries. How about the BBC doing an investigation among the VOTERS of East London ?
I wouldn’t recommend talking to the voters of East London. You’d be odds on to get stabbed.
OT
A sustained parody of how today’s BBC might have covered D-Day :
http://silentrunning.tv/archives/cat_beebvision.php
Actually there is more detail on the survey on the Five Live website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/news/workplace_results.htm).
However, there are one or two puzzling features, eg in the detailed table ‘Nasser’ appears to be invited for six interviews, but in the results section this becomes three. This seems unfortunate in a survey that is taken as showing “proof of a recent rise in anti-Muslim feeling”. Also, looking at the CVs, ‘Fatima’ is much the oldest of the candidates and I wonder, as most of the positions are fairly junior, whether this counted against her.
OT but typical:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3898161.stm
Gratiutous anti-American editorializing, Number 1,375,246th in a series:
“And because in this post-11 September world, ***Americans expect their troops to be patrolling in places they couldn’t find on a map***, peacekeeping is not news any more.”
jwe j
Glad I’m not the only one who has noticed.
As the owner of a 2 yr old I’ve often watched ‘Storymakers’ on CBBC.
So far I have counted 6 different presenters -3 female and 3 male- all of whom are Black.
What are the odds of that happening?
“Barclays Bank has frozen the accounts held by the far-right British National Party.
The move is believed to be in response to a BBC documentary…”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3901621.stm
Some interesting consequences, if true.
.
JohnInLondon:
The correct term is “root causes”. Funny how we always hear the usual suspects asking about the “root causes” of crime, or the 9/11 attacks, but not about voting for the BNP. 🙂
Cindy, while I think the article about the voting preferences of US Jews was imperfect, I did not see it as offensive. As Reith says it mentioned the caricature while explicitly acknowledging it was a caricature, and only as a starting point for looking more closely than the caricature.
I did wonder whether the BBC’s characterisation of Republican Jews as richer than Democrat Jews was true.
[continued below]
[continued from above]
I also think that the BBC was remiss in not including a factor turning US Jews away from the Democrat party that involves the BBC itself: the alarming way that an “anti-Zionism” that frequently is no more than anti-Semitism with a fig leaf is moving in from the fringe and becoming mainstream.
I note that this concern is not that closely focussed on support for Israel. It’s more about Jews worldwide.
Since I am neither Jewish nor American nor particularly knowledgable when it comes to US voting trends it is difficult for me to tell whether this concern is a major one in the general voting population of US Jews. But it certainly looms large among some intellectual US conservative writers, by no means all of them Jews.
JohninLondon
You have hit the nail right on the head. This programme was filmed mostly in Keighley where there are many problems. Asian gangs terrorising the local population, no-go areas for whites, etc.
Just prior to the election, 3,000 muslims marched through the centre of this small town, to celebrate Mohammed’s birthday. They were all men and many had come from other towns. People couldn’t fill in their voting forms fast enough. Contrary to public opinion, the BNP actually calms things down by persuading people that problems can be sorted out through the ballot box rather than by retaliation.
If there were problems before, the BBC has just made them much worse.
Don’t forget that a documentary by Channel 4 about abuse of young white girls by (largely) Asian men in Keighley was pulled after West Yorkshire police decided this topic should be covered up.Perhaps the police should instead direct their energies to tackling this problem , not censoring it?
I look forward to this C4 documentary being aired and subsequently the same level + quantity of moral outrage from the BBC and other media outlets as displayed after the BBC ‘documentary’.
I doubt if the C4 documentary will ever be aired.
It might be, but it’s content was exaggerated in any case. I think it just looked at things from the perspective of an Asian carer looking after a white kid in Keighley or something like that.
Either way, channel 4’s excuses didn’t add up. I was on their forums when it was pulled and they repeatedly claimed it was not pulled because of the euro elections, but because it might provoke tensions in the community. They had no answer as to why it was any less likely to provoke tension when aired at a later date. Quite a blatant political decision by channel 4.
Which just goes to show that you have a freaky, leftie-biased broadcaster with an obligatory public service remit – without forcing everyone to pay for it even if they don’t watch it.
I wonder whether showing the bnp programme on the day of the two by- elections, preceeded by frequent blood curdling trailers, picked up in news bulletins, also on itv, had any influence on the voting.
The idea that public policy should be decided by a truly unscientific BBC “study” (note the scare quotes) is absurd on it’s face. I continue to be embarrassed for the oh-so “enlightened” “sophisticated” European. (note the appropriate title consistent with your loss of sovreignty). Heh.
If any of your lot want to know why the United States (no, the name of our nation is not “America”)acts unilaterally, just remember that a smart man ignores the opinions of fools.
Smart like Dubbya, hey???
Dubya may not be very bright, but Dumya’s dimness does not automatically make the European conventional wisdom seem all that bright either.
Ken,
I think even those of us in the UK who have doubts about the political and economic direction of the EU can be proud of our sophisticated and enlightened European culture, but if you’re happy with your squirty cheeze, Budweiser, creationism, and rugby with crash helmets that’s fine.
What’s it got to do with the BBC though? It’s a bizzare amalgamation of the Guardian and Daily Mail that dictate public policy around here.
The US produces great novels that are actually readable.
British literature is dominated by pretentious, talentless twits like Martin Amis, who put ideas above story and character..
US Culture is much deeper than people give it credit for, a classic example being “Spiderman”.
The C4 documentary I predict will never see the light of day. It’s been kicked into the long grass, where it will “disappear”.
So much for C4’s crusade against censorship.
I find it curious that whereas the Beeb and others like to investigate the root causes of Islamic extremism, there is no effort to understand people voting BNP.
Poor white communities forgotten, and largely ignored by government and media…who at the same time bend over backwards and coddle the “ethnic community”.
The more the media and govt treat minorities as “special”, the more support the BNP will gain.
The problem with problem areas like Bradford isn’t that the ‘ethnic community’ is being coddled and the whites ignored, it’s that both communities were sh*t on by Thatcher and have been subjected to torrents of patronising crap and no action by Labour subsequently – hence the tendency towards ‘direct action’.
So THFC, what did Thatcher do/fail to do? What is your brilliant solution?
“both communities were sh*t on by Thatcher and have been subjected to torrents of patronising crap”
It can’t be that bad for ethnic ‘communities’ or the high level of 3rd world immigration to places like Keighley + Bradford ,which continued throughout Thatchers rule despite the ‘swamped’ soundbites ,wouldn’t continue . Those who live overseas have the choice whether or not to turn up in Bradford etc , the existing residents are not asked their opinion.
All of this never ending prattling about multiculturalism, unfair treatment when britain is 92% white????
Are you kidding?
Alan,
I think you’d struggle to argue with a resident of a town in the industrial North (at least without being on the receiving end of a good kicking) that Thatcher’s economic policies, i.e. running down moribund industry without chucking money at providing alternatives, were anything other than detrimental to THEIR communities. I’m not necessarily arguing that they didn’t benefit the country as a whole.
Equally I’m not saying that these places aren’t a hell of a lot more pleasant than most of the third world. Just saying that, in general, the idea that ethnic minorities are being ‘coddled’ in these areas is crap – they’re just as badly off as anyone else.
Surely the main draw the BNP has is a simple view that there are far too many immigrants. Whole towns in Yorkshire or Lancashire turning 30, 40, 50% or more Asian, say. In the space of a generation. The locals mostly didn’t want this, they certainly were not consulted about any such dramatic change to their neighbourhoods, and they are fearful of further change. And there is little doubt that in some of these towns, public spending has appeared to be slanted towards the immigrant communities.
The add in the threats of terrorism from militant Islamists, and you have plenty of fuel for BNP brushfires.
“and you have plenty of fuel for BNP brushfires.”
Precisely – the ‘mainstream’ parties are either too scared to tackle the subject or else aren’t interested.
David Blunkett’s reckless stupidity in announcing that he can see ‘no limit to immigration’ re-assures no-one .