Anyone Agree There Are Too Many White Male Presenters On The Bbc?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2615471/BBC-race-bias-Corporations-news-boss-says-presenters-white-men-managers-recruits-look-like-them.html

[ludwig]

I think he's wrong, but it'd be interesting to see some figures to prove it one way or another.

I couldn't help noticing that James Harding is a white male. Perhaps he'd like to resign and get the diversification process off to a good start.

[Svejk]

anyway, you're so blinkered and bigoted you take offence when people are paying compliments to your chums. gay people are over-represented in the arts, media etc under the current system. ie, they got there on merit. I said cut them back to 2% and see how that works out. there'd be a lot of blank screens, I suspect.

[sp1814]

emmie

I thought this was about news presenters, rather than the whole of television?

And if someone is not openly gay (ie. in a publicly acknowledge relationship with someone of the same sex, or someone who has confirmed they are gay), then to the viewing public, they are neither gay or straight.

Bit like Schrödinger's cat....

[emmie]

it is, but you said that there were 0 percent BBC newsreaders, and i have shown two, and there could be more, some won't come out the closet in case it wrecks their careers.

[scooping]

Never really understood why it matters to anyone whether someone else is 'gay or straight'. Their business.
Also, why is it some big deal when people 'come out'. Don't care about their sexuality.

[emmie]

Clare Balding is gay and came out, as did the news presenter, that may be two, however as i said some may not want to, but if others do it, then they may follow suit

[Cloverjo]

I agree, scooping. I don't know why gay people have to announce to the world the gender of who they sleep with. What difference?

[sp1814]

Both James Harding and I were referring to news and current affairs.

He is actually quoted as saying this in the article.

He did not refer to presenters across the board. He was specifically talking about news.

[emmie]

he did say white male presenters, or the poster said that

[sp1814]

Cloverjo

I will tell you why.

It's to stop embarrassing social slip ups.

I will give you a couple of examples, and I would be interested to hear what you think...

Say if a chap joins an office and your mate Deborah from Training (whose single) starts flirting with him at the Christmas party. If he is gay, should he not have a quiet word in her ear? Or your ear?

And what happens when this new chap - let's call him Jonathan, is asked, "What did you get up to at the weekend?"

If he went to a wedding with his boyfriend, should he say, "Oh...me and my partner went to a wedding", or would he be okay to say, "Me and my boyfriend went to a wedding"?

Did you know that most gay people I know don't go 'shouting it from the rooftops', but instead know so many straight people that are cool with their sexuality, that it can be casually slipped into conversation?

You ask 'what's the difference', well, I would suggest that it makes a very real difference when it comes to dating.

[emmie]

would anyone look like him in front of the cameras.

[sp1814]

scooping

I suspect it's because there are still many people for whom being gay is a huge deal.

Not everyone is as sophisticated as you seem to be. If you were introduced to a male colleague who then introduced you to his boyfriend or husband, it wouldn't matter a jot to you.

But if you were a fundamentalist Muslim or Christian, it would matter a massive jot.

I think we need to appreciate that not everyone is a hip urbanite...not everyone actually knows openly gay people, and for many, it's a big issue.

[emmie]

i do, most of the friends do, and honestly you make out as though people who live in Chipping Chipping wouldn't have likely met a gay person.

[emmie]

chances are they have, or have a gay relative, its not as unspoken as it used to be.

[sp1814]

Svejk

Once again...I am talking about news.

And furthermore, I don't think I'm being bigoted. I would suggest you look at my earlier post. In answer to the question, I don't think that white male presenters are over represented, and that there has been a massive sea change in the past 20 years with new, young, perfectly competent presenters coming through.

I am not sure where my bigotry lies.

What I said was that in News, (as James Harding is specifically referring to), gay people are under-represented.

I did not say this is a good or bad thing...it's just how I see it. Personally, I like it when I see a gay person in 'non-stereotypical' role (cf. Evan Davies), because it gives the wider public some light and shade, if you see what I mean.

[sp1814]

emmie

Chipping Chipping???

I'm sorry - you've lost me.

What I mean is that in urban areas you will find greater numbers of gay people than you will out in the sticks. Not that there aren't any gay people living out in the countryside...it's just that younger gay people tend to gravitate towards towns and cities - for practical reasons if anything else.

[emmie]

i could have said Midsomer, would that suffice.

[Old_Geezer]

Gosh. This thread has become so gay !

[emmie]

many of the news presenters are not white however, i think the bloke is just a wazzock