‘Apartheid newsroom’: minority ethnic journalists still locked out of top jobs, report finds

Exclusive: Survey suggests journalists from minority ethnic backgrounds feel excluded from influential posts and seen as ‘diversity hires’

Broadcast journalists from ethnic minorities are still locked out of top jobs and face a backlash after being perceived as “diversity hires”, according to a survey of UK television newsrooms.

While there has been a sustained focus on racial diversity among Britain’s biggest broadcasters in recent years, the study concluded it had been “performed rather than embedded”, leaving minority ethnic journalists feeling excluded from influential posts and resented by colleagues.

The report, commissioned by the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity and co-authored by Rohit Kachroo, ITV News’s global security editor, based its findings on a survey of 80 journalists, with follow-up interviews.

“For many, the result has been stagnation, frustration, and in some cases exit from the industry,” the report said. “Yet even as racially minoritised staff report only limited progress, many are now experiencing a backlash from some white colleagues who believe they have lost out because of diversity, expressed through resentment, resistance, and attempts to roll back these efforts.”

While interviewees acknowledged the programmes improved access, others said they felt such schemes had been implemented in ways that left them exposed to stigma as a “diversity hire”.

One of the respondents, who said they had not benefited from a scheme, said: “The opposite if anything. People assume you’re a diversity hire when you’re there on hard work and merit. It’s a double-edged sword.”

Another said: “It’s like an apartheid newsroom. You look left and there’s disproportionately too many people [of colour] because everyone’s on the lower rung. And you look on the other side, it’s like, [almost] everyone’s … white.”

One senior journalist said: “I work for one of the biggest news broadcasters in the UK … Not only is young, diverse talent leaving, there is a glaring lack of diversity and range in the editorial output.”

Of those who participated in the research, 63% said they had experienced racism in their workplace, while 70% said there were insufficient opportunities for career progression.

Some of the interviewees were in their first national newsroom job after being recruited through a diversity initiative. Several of those interviewed described structural barriers to progression. “We can’t become editor, or political editor, or even Middle East editor,” they said. “The system is still skewed for us to aspire only to the second tier of roles.”

The report said several respondents described a growing backlash against diversity initiatives, with some saying diversity efforts had been poorly communicated or inconsistently managed, fuelling resentment.

“White middle-aged men publicly mock diversity initiatives in my newsroom every single week,” one said. “The narrative has been set that ‘people were being progressed because of the colour of their skin’ or ‘white men were being held back’.”

Kachroo, along with co-author Ellie Tomsett, a senior lecturer in media and film at Birmingham City University, said diversity initiatives themselves were not the problem. However, they said without change, such programmes risked becoming “symbolic rather than transformative”.

It recommended that news organisations involved journalists of colour to assess whether diversity initiatives over the past five years had been effective. It said awareness and commitment from white staff were essential to ensuring they work as planned.