Lenny Henry calls for law to boost low numbers of black people in TV industry

 

Henry wants a boycott:

Lenny Henry has demanded the BBC improve its recruitment of people from culturally diverse background amid wider calls for a general boycott of the BBC licence fee.

 

What’s interesting is that Henry has instant access to the BBC’s DG, Tony Hall:

He is putting a proposal to BBC director general Tony Hall on Tuesday and to the regulator Ofcom intended to encourage more productions to use BAME actors and production staff.

 

‘When I met Tony Hall at the BBC he said “Let’s talk at the end of April”,’ he said. ‘Tony Hall wants to be seen as leading from the front and the BBC needs to lead from the front because they’re the main game in town. If the BBC decides they are going to do something everybody’s going to follow.’

 

 

I wonder if the same rapid show of concern would be coming from Hall if it wasn’t a Black man complaining about lack of representation for the ethnic ‘communtiy’ but someone who believes the BBC doesn’t represent the vast majority of people politically, socially and culturally in their coverage of Europe, immigration, climate, the economy, religion and Israel?

We already know the answer to that……far from responding positively to such critcism and trying to improve their political balance the BBC’s response is firstly to ridicule such a notion, then to indignantly deny it absolutely, then, years later, to admit well maybe we were a bit lacking in impartiality…but only to claim that that was all in the past…things are better now.

 

The BBC’s stonewalling of such complaints can be evidenced by this internal spat where the controller of Radio 1 refuses to acknowledge any criticism even from that great BBC Immortal, Jeremy Paxman:

Take the stairs, Paxo! Radio 1 chief hits back at Newsnight host who says lift music is ‘hell’

‘Dear Jeremy, I read with interest your views on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra. I am Controller of both.

‘Clearly you are entitled to your view, but please consider who and what you effect [sic] when you express those views.’

 

 

Yes…‘I read with interest..’

Just before filing it in the trashbin.

And note that…‘you are entitled to your views but….’

 

That encapsulates the whole problem with the BBC…..don’t say anything that will offend certain sections of the community….which leads to the unofficial censoring and manipulation of the news by the BBC….the manufacturng of consent, the undermining of dissent.

…all the more important when you consider how powerful the BBC is….as Lenny Henry admits:

‘If the BBC decides they are going to do something everybody’s going to follow.’

 

 

Radio 1 Controller Ben Cooper did say something else of real note though:

‘If the licence fee is collected from everyone, then the BBC should represent the whole of society, not just certain parts of it.’

 

Shame the BBC fails completely in that task….much as I’m delighted to be treated to the ‘Whispering Worthys’ ‘, and his fellow travellers’,  asthetic and moral values perhaps we could have something more ‘diverse’…and I don’t just mean the same old BBC message but with a ‘Black face’  just as the BBC does when it employs ‘authentic’ working class voices…who are all carefully selected, screened and vetted to check they show the appropriate BBC values despite their ‘disadvantaged’…morally, socially and politically, exposed as they must have been to innate prejudices and ignorance of the white working class….lives.  Stacey Dooley is a prime example of this at work….Giles Fraser another prime case where showing the right ‘right-on’ credentials gets you a BBC meal ticket.

‘…..the more of her ‘investigative journalism’ (enjoyed that part in your review too, lmao) you watch, the more you realize that BBC must be paying her for each teardrop she produces. Her crying probably got good ratings in the first episode, so they told her to keep it up. That’s my theory at least.’