BBC staff are being told not to hire candidates who are “dismissive” of diversity and inclusion, The Telegraph can disclose.
A recruitment policy document says applicants should be asked to “explain what diversity and inclusion means to you and, should you be successful, what opportunities do you see for you to promote, celebrate or encourage diversity and inclusion in your role?”
The guidelines, used in a major non-editorial department of the BBC, tell recruiters: “Don’t hire [candidates who are] unsuited to the organisation” if they are “dismissive or derisory of diversity and inclusion and surrounding topics”.
That’s how corporate cultures work. Not by changing those within them but by not allowing in those who don’t agree.
It’s also why it’s near impossible to change a corporate culture. You have to burn it down and start again…..
And no-one ever lies during their interview….
From personal experience I can confirm the same is true at The Baank of England and UCL. For senior roles they check your social media for compliance and require evidence that you actively supported the ideology in your existing job. Thus you cannot progress unless you actively profess their creed. It is necessary to purge these tax payer funded institutions .
Julia
I suppose they think that if someone is prepared to lie during their interview, they’ll be happy to continue to lie while on the job.
When the Black Broadcasting Company say “diversity” it’s not the ordinary definition…
It’s been happening for years: applications to the BBC require quite ridiculous detail as to your background. Which is why they need burning down 🙂
What do diversity and inclusion mean to me?
Totalitarianism.
Sounds like a bit of pointless bureaucracy, is anyone who is “dismissive” of DEI ever going to apply to the BBC?
Nah. Just dump the license fee and force them to go subscription only.
They’ll be bankrupt by years end.
I’ve not watched Auntie Beeb, nor paid for her propaganda since 2008.
What other qualifications are needed for mindless propaganda drones other than mindless adherence to the propaganda?
It’s not like any sort of talent or ability at anything vaguely media production related is needed?
If adverts are in the guardian, surely that alone is an absolute filter removing anybody sensible, talented and competent.
In 35 years of living as an adult in the UK I”m quite proud to say I’ve never bought a TV license. Wouldn’t even know how to. Never been much interested in watching TV. Better things to do. Owned a few at one time or another. The ex was quite keen on it. But she was French & French women only abide by laws they approve of. I seem to recall she dismissed the TV Licensing snoops on one occasion by babbling at them in high speed Marseillaise. Nobody would enjoy being on the receiving end of that.
Don’t think I’ve missed much by it. I do tend to come over rather blank when people start talking about some supposedly seminal programme or vaunted TV personality. But it all seems so horrifically trivial. Like decades of the DailyMail/online.
Ha! That question would be a red flag for me in an interview, because on the surface it’s well intentioned, but you know it’s loaded with politics. They’re not asking for a genuine answer, rather one that ticks all their PC boxes.
I’ve often wondered how I would answer it and I guess I’d just be honest and say that my hiring record as a manager speaks for itself. I’ve had people from all over the world work for me and they were all hired on the basis of two questions: are they competent and can they work with other people? If the answer to either is no then see you later. I very much doubt I would get the job on that basis.
Yes, this was why I couldn’t dump mine prior to 2008, because the wife enjoyed her googlebox during the day while looking after the kiddy and back then there wasn’t the alternatives that there is now.
I suspect a lot of men would have dumped their TV licenses if not for fear of wives and girlfriends being harassed by TV Licensing goons.
Robin Aitken (ex-BBC Scotland and Today) wrote his book “Can We Trust the BBC?” about the corporation’s biases seventeen years ago. It was hardly news then, and if anything at all has changed since then, it’s been for the worse.
And Tim’s right: trying to reform it is a mug’s game, much like it was with the EU. Anyone who thinks denationalisation and/or commercialisation would fix it needs to take a long hard look at Google, Amazon, and Netflix, not to mention all three legacy American networks. Nope, you need to go full Javier Milei on it: shut it down, sell its physical assets, and put the broadcast archive immediately into the public domain, under the curation of the British Library or that joint in Bradford. You might make a few quid renting some of it out around the world I suppose, but fuck it; we’ve paid for it.
BiND,
I think a lot of people will be all “yeah, I love diversity, me” to get a job. They’ll spend time covering every indication of not being on board. But these places are always bureaucracies. Useful places want a job done. bureaucracies are overrun with parasites who care about nonsense and internal politics.
Which is why the BBC can’t make anything that’s much cop now. People who just want to make good TV aren’t going into it, or a lot of US TV or Hollywood. If you want to spend your day doing the work and collecting the rewards, you pick up a camera and get onto YouTube or Netflix.
@WB – Most tv production at the BBC is outsourced (except news, regional and studio daytime) and it’s still dogshit because it’s outsourced to former BBC production teams who might want to make more money than BBC payroll (hence working outside the BBC itself), yet still have the same mindset / right-think.
So, the same dogshit, but outsourced.
I’m moderately surprised how passive this requirement is. It’s pretty much in “don’t rock the boat” territory. Oppressive but a low bar to meet if for some reason you want to work in this sort of environment. There are other jobs, US academia perhaps the worst offender, where you need to show a positive commitment to being pro-DEI in your social media feed, as opposed to just being screened to check you didn’t speak out against it. You need to be able to demonstrate on your application form all the pro-DEI activities you’ve taken part in, an action plan for what pro-DEI things you’ll implement in the role, and so on. That’s the truly 1984 scenario where you can’t get away just mumbling some inoffensively platitudes at interview, but instead must spend years trying your best to pretend you are genuinely, totally, 100% on-board with this train. Makes you wonder how much pro-DEI sentiment you see is just performative balls from people who know which side their bread is buttered.
Recently looked at an application for a job with a university, there were 2 pages of questions in race/ethnicity, gender and disability.
The ethnicity one had multiple categories for Asian people, Japanese, Korean, Chinese etc but no option for European just a blanket’White’ category. Would be tempting to tick other box and put in ‘Celt’ or something like that and see what happened
Yarp, Civil Service applications has more pages on ethno-religio-social background than actual questions about the actual job. WTF do they want to know what my Mum’s job was 40 years ago for an application for a software developer?
jgh: it’s for class detection.
Mother’s job 40 years ago:
home maker, stay at home wife = probably, right wing middle class = ungood
Solicitor, teacher, doctor = probably left wing middle class = good
Nurse, assembly line worker = probably left wing working glass = plus good
Single mother = double plus good.