Black journalists are being inadvertently held back by a "white, middle-class culture" in media organisations, it has been claimed.

Hugh Muir, who writes for The Guardian, told black National Union of Journalists members that it is now less likely that they have to put up with old-style, explicit prejudice, but instead they have to deal with the complications of a white, middle class culture with which they are unfamiliar.

Speaking at the at the NUJ Black Members Council annual meeting, he told a 50-strong audience: "There's a cultural issue.

"We can get into newspapers. The problem now is staying there. How much do we understand white, middle-class culture?

"What we need sometimes is a bit more strategy to tell us how do we get on."

During the meeting Trade Union Congress president Gloria Mills praised the NUJ for its long-standing support for black self-organisation, saying that not only does it have a body for black members that is represented on its National Executive Committee, but it also had black NEC members voted by the general membership.

The meeting passed motions for the BMC to co-ordinate anti-racism work for the International Federation of Journalists and the European Federation of Journalists and for the setting up of a journalists' asylum seekers project within the IFJ.