BBC-TV World Service demonstrates cultural exclusion and institutionalized racism

by Jane Fernandez

The United Kingdom is one of the most social-culturally pluralistic and dynamic societies. Correspondingly, the BBC-TV World Service broadcasts internationally to a very culturally diverse audience. Yet, when one watches the BBC-TV World Service, one may be led to believe that Britain is basically a culturally dualistic society comprising of persons of Anglo-Saxon and South Asian (Pakistani and Indian) backgrounds. International news broadcasters like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox in the United States, and in Canada, CTV Newsnet, CBC Newsworld, and CHUM-Citytv, appear to have done a far better job at employing people of diverse background in on-air anchor and other positions.

Britain as a former European colonial power has high population of persons of Caribbean and other African ancestries. However, in our several month study, BBC World Service, for example, appeared to relegate people of Caribbean and African ancestries to generally very casual duties as sports announcer, doing weather, or as a foreign correspondent in Africa. Persons of Chinese and other ethnocultural backgrounds were seen even less in our research of the on-air hiring of BBC-TV television announcers. This apparent cultural bias appears also to be reflected in the somewhat Establishmentarian-oriented, stodgy, and conformist coverage of BBC-TV World Service, in comparison to international television news broadcasting competitors.

Hopefully someday the BBC-TV World Service will catch up to the rhetoric of the Tony Blair government on redressing "social exclusion" in Britain.

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