At least half of all shortlisted candidates for current reporter vacancies at a regional daily will come from ethnic minority backgrounds, its editor has announced.
The Birmingham Mail and its Birmingham Live sister website have confirmed they will be adopting the policy when recruiting new journalists in a bid to make their newsroom more representative of the communities they serve.
It means 50pc of those shortlisted for such roles will come from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
The Mail’s initiative was announced in a Twitter post by editor Marc Reeves, pictured.
Wrote Marc: “I’ve been posting a lot about our reporter vacancies at Birmingham Live, and thought it worth mentioning that each shortlist will comprise 50pc BAME candidates.”
Speaking to HTFP, Marc said: “I doubt there’s an editor in the regions – or the nationals for that matter – who can say with hand on heart that the composition of their newsroom is as diverse as they would want it to be.
“In Birmingham, this is even more acute. We serve the most diverse city in the UK, yet our newsroom does not fully reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. We’ve known this for a long time, and I know journalism colleges are working hard on their own recruitment policies, but we have to take action on this directly.
“With the expansion of Birmingham Live and the creation of four new reporting roles, we have an opportunity to take control of the process and to try to affect something of a step change. We will ensure that at least 50pc of the candidates we shortlist for interview have black or minority ethnic backgrounds.
“Furthermore, we are also working with a Reach plc project to create opportunities for journalism apprentices, and we want to fill two of the four new roles in this way. That’s the really exciting bit – to work with candidates as young as 18 who have grown up in the heart of our communities and help them get on the first rung on the journalism ladder.”
His announcement comes after Mike Norton, editor of the Mail’s Reach plc sister daily the Bristol Post, admitted last year that his newspaper has “too few” ethnic minority journalists on its staff.
Mike said neither black writers or black communities were “well represented” on the Post, adding that the paper had contributed to a “cultural divide” in Bristol in the past.
His comments came as he announced the Post’s support for a campaign to tackle the under-representation of ethnic minorities in the city.
That’s fine if they also happen to be among the best.
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While I agree most newsrooms are not as diverse as they could/should be, I’m always curious about these sort of initiatives.
The idea clearly has good intentions, but by the very nature of treating BAME candidates differently, you cause inequality. A candidate should be on a shortlist or offered a job based on their ability, not their ethnicity.
So by all means encourage as many applications as possible from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, but I think selecting quotas is wrong. I mean, what happens if you only get one BAME candidate? Can you have only a shortlist of two?
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If I were to be offered a job for any reason other than my own journalistic ability, I’m certain I would feel I was being patronised and insulted. Imagine how you, as a member of an ethic minority, would feel if the white managing director’s niece was given a vacant post you were clearly better qualified to fill.
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SeasideJourno, It’s too easy to knock positive discrimination like this. I’m sure all of us want to live in a society that is 100 per cent meritocratic but the fact is that has not been the case because of unfortunate historic reasons that have ‘stacked the deck’ against ethnic minority candidates in all walks of life for a couple of centuries. Skewing selection processes to give a leg-up to such candidates may be short of the utopian ideal but surely it’s a small price to pay to right an injustice like this.
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I support the initiative to an extent but what about those disadvantaged in other ways eg. social economic status.
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Discrimination based on race is a seriously problematic idea. It also treads a legal tightrope. Who gets to decide what is ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ discrimination? At best this is the policy of a well-meaning fool. At worst it is dangerous and ideological. By all means encourage applications from across the community, but do not treat people differently because of the colour of their skin. ‘BAME’ candidates are free to apply for jobs the same as everybody else. Encourage them to do so, but do not treat them like incapables.
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A really great initiative! Despite the doubters, I’m sure the selection process WILL be entirely based on merit.There are always many more candidates for journalistic jobs than can be taken on. So it’s often a coin toss as who to pick in the end – all of those short-listed being of equal promise. So choosing 50% of the successful applicants from ethnic minority backgrounds in such a racially-diverse city as Birmingham makes total sense. Well done!
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Despite agreeing with Bob Haywood to some extent, I foresee a potential problem. Supposing you are a white candidate with a skillset equal to that of a person from an ethnic minority and you don’t get the job because your skin is the wrong colour. What happens then?
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Since I left journalism for PR and having worked at around six or seven companies I’ve noticed a distinct imbalance between male and females in the workforce with men being very much a minority. Do we also encourage more men to work in PR? Where do you draw the line?
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I don’t agree with “quotas” being imposed on any job hunters. A person should be hired entirely on merit irrespective of race, colour etc. Where do you draw the line? People should be treated with respect as a human being whatever their colour, race, background etc. In all the years I was in a hire and fire position as a news editor or as head of a press office we had very few candidates from non-white (etc) backgrounds. I did interview them and did appoint – but solely on merit. The colour etc of a person’s skin is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is whether they are up to the job. In the Police for example they have the “black officers’ section” or something like that in the Met. Can you imagine the uproar if there was a section entitled “white officers section”. As I have stated: a person should be respected and appointed on metir – not because of their colour etc.
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I never worked in the journalism side of the business but as a percentage how many people qualifying are of non white backgrounds? It’s always come across to me that there are less ethnic minorities choosing to take this career path also so to impose a 50% quota based upon what may only be 20% of total qualified applicants seems a bit odd.
Being someone who has been married to and in a relationship with an Indian partner for the last 24 years I can also tell you that having been heavily involved in the community there is very little drive to take up a poor paying job like this from that quarter.
It also seems somewhat odd and maybe also a PR stunt when you consider they finally choose to do something like this as the industry is dying a death and they are laying off good reporters at a rate of knots. Maybe I am but a cynic
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Working class diversity also an issue – and looking at the output of the national media, probably more destructive to society in general than racial imbalance.
Birmingham Mail could strengthen both racial and working class imbalance by introducing local apprenticeships. It would also help it maintain those local links that are vital to local/regional newspapers.
Create a model and share it with other editors.
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This could be like putting a round peg in a square hole, simply because it’s a red peg and not a blue one. Plus he doesn’t actually say they will be hiring, only shortlisting, which smacks of a PR exercise which may not ultimately make a difference at all.
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Let’s assume that ability and relevant experience are the overriding factors for all appointments.
Having good journalists of different race, religion or gender should have a positive effect on how local stories are presented, which can only be a good thing for a city like Birmingham.
Let’s be honest though, such multiculturalism might not be as welcome by the newspaper audience of some smaller towns. I hope I’m wrong, but I think some editors might balk at the same suggestion.
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Long overdue. If more papers had actively tried to recruit people who were demographically representative of their patch they probably wouldn’t have haemorrhaged so many readers by failing to cater for whole groups of their potential audience.
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I am probably wrong, but I thought employers were not allowed to enquire about the ethnicity of applicants. In my opinion, putting people into categories based on racial background is discriminatory in itself.
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@ex ed – exactly. Where do you stop and start. If those in a hire and fire position (as I was) are not allowed (wuite rightly) to inquire about a woman whether she is planning to start a family I don’t think we should be putting people into “boxes” on ethnic grounds. If that was the case then surely an employer would have to set up a shortlist where there were 50/50 men and women. People should get a job based on ability – not race etc. You have to ask why so few people from non-white backgrounds apply to go into journalism.
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Too little, too late. And if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was a desperate ploy by Reach to attract applicants for vacancies it would otherwise struggle to fill.
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