Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420-427)
27 JANUARY 2004
MR NICK
CARTER AND
MR KEVIN
JOHNSON
Q420 Christine Russell: Do you include
in them a particular module on community cohesion, for instance?
Mr Carter: Yes. We have an intranet,
and an induction programme which introduces all new journalists
coming into the company to the diversity of the communities in
our area, the key elements about them, basic stuff like how names
are constructed, particular tenets of the faith, particular issues
which might arise from that, and we seek to keep that awareness
going at all times. We have particular journalists charged with
pursuing contacts with new groups that are coming in and new communities
that are starting up. The Somali community in Leicester is a comparatively
recent arrival, a growing community of 9,000 or 10,000 people,
and we are starting to develop much better links with that community,
which will lead, I think, to some quite interesting developments,
but it has to be a constant process.
Q421 Christine Russell: How widespread
do you think those training practices are, from your experience
of other newspapers?
Mr Carter: I would not have thought
they are hugely widespread, but then there are not that many newspapers
which have the particular diversity of community that the Leicester
Mercury enjoys.
Q422 Chairman: In a sense, is that not
most important, because quite often most offence is given by reporting
from another area where perhaps ethnic minority understanding
is much worse?
Mr Carter: Yes, and, I think,
in areas where the ethnic minority communities are much, much
smaller by comparison, if anything, there is a greater need for
the local media to have an understanding of that community, because
otherwise it can very easily feel marginalised by the coverage.
Q423 Mr Clelland: The composition of
the ethnic communities is never static, of course, there will
be fluctuations from time to time. What sorts of systems do you
have in place to monitor these changes, to make sure that they
are continually reflecting fairly the changes in their composition?
Mr Carter: We receive information
from our own ongoing market research, which obviously we do on
a regular basis to determine the make-up of the readership of
the newspaper and how long people spend reading it and what they
are interested in, that kind of standard market research information.
Also, of course, through our contacts with Leicester City Council
and other organisations, we are able to keep track of the population
shift, and even the make-up within individual parts of the city.
We have an arrangement, which is not at all unusual, where individual
reporters are assigned to particular patches within the city area,
and their task is to get to know the issues on that patch and
have contact with organisations and groups and have an understanding
of what is going on in those areas. They are supported in that
by people like my Community News editor, who is a key worker in
our relations with ethnic minority groups, who can provide support
and information when necessary, and they know where to come for
that. Yes, we can keep on top of what is happening.
Mr Johnson: If I may, Chairman,
I want to make a sort of answer to both that and the last question,
in a sense. The most important thing we can do, I think, is make
sure our workforces represent better the communities to which
we are broadcasting. We have got to get our workforces up to the
same kind of population balance as we see outside of our own doors.
I think that is one way in which the journalism training is added
to, because if you have got more people in your newsroom who have
come from different backgrounds, different cultures, different
races, different religions, then the understanding of everybody
in that newsroom and everybody in that organisation increases.
Certainly that has been the case with us, where the number of
black and particularly Asian journalists in our newsrooms has
increased in the last few years, so the understanding of the issues
around those communities has increased amongst the newsroom in
a wider sphere. I think only by having people from every walk
of life and every background in our newsrooms and elsewhere will
we begin to both represent the news and make the kinds of programmes
that the people out there want to watch. Journalism training is
a very big issue, but actually bringing through people from all
backgrounds into our employment is the most important issue. Also,
I think it is the most difficult issue to deal with, because people
from particularly black as well as Asian backgrounds are not coming
forward in anywhere like the kinds of numbers that we would wish
to see. Therefore, we have to go that one step further to encourage
them earlier on in their potential careers, ie during the education
process. That is going to be the single most important, biggest
challenge we will see in any of our organisations, if we get the
workforces properly representative.
Q424 Mr Clelland: Do you have any examples
of the changes you have made as a result of the monitoring that
you do?
Mr Carter: The biggest single
change we have made over the last five years was to move the newspaper
to a position where we said "We will play a more proactive
role in the cohesion of our communities and, rather than stand
on the edge of the road and comment on what is going on, we will
become a player in that." This puts us in a much more complex
position, because it obliges us to consider everything that we
do, everything that we publish, in that light. We know that what
we publish can affect people's perceptions, therefore we have
to review everything, and all policy decisions are made on that
basis. Clearly, that was because of the growing awareness of the
significance of the ethnic minority population of Leicester, its
aspirations for itself and for the city. That is the great potential
and the great excitement of Leicester, what is going to happen,
what kind of a society are we going to produce in the future,
will it remain a case of separate communities, with mixing around
the edges, will there be a much greater coming together, and how
will our newspaper be able to lead people through that in a constructive
way? There are plans for a new cultural quarter in the city. The
intention is that will be looked at as being a blank sheet of
paper into which different social groups, cultural groups, can
come together, and who knows what will be produced from that,
and I want to make sure that we are in a position to tackle that.
Mr Johnson: One can lay before
you all manner of statistics, and we can do that until the cows
come home, if you like, but actually the single most important
result is the feedback you get, from viewers, from community and
business leaders and whether they are prepared to discuss with
you, engage with you, co-operate with you, on programme making
and other areas of your business. I think, increasingly, in our
area, both throughout the whole of the Midlands and I am sure
particularly for Nick in Leicester that is the case. Perhaps,
and I know this is obviously the work of the Committee, that is
not the case elsewhere in the UK, and that is because that active
dialogue and that sense of responsibility and trust maybe are
not there.
Q425 Mr Clelland: You mentioned statistics
and you mentioned also the social mix of your workforce. What
are the statistics in both cases, in terms of employees from the
minority backgrounds?
Mr Carter: In the editorial department
of the Leicester Mercury, we have four, I think, minority journalists,
out of a staff of just over 100, which obviously is not enough.
We suffer from probably an even greater issue, because we are
not seen as quite as sexy as television.
Mr Johnson: It is not true, by
the way.
Mr Carter: There is a lack of
diversity of applicants into all areas of the business and into
post-graduate courses, direct-entry courses. That is forcing us,
in our search for a greater diversity of applicants, to look at
where we recruit from. For the last round of trainees we cast
a wider net and had a slightly better diversity in there. We are
part of a Pathfinder project, which has recruited some 20 young
people from different communities in the city, that is underway
now, to work for a year in the eyes and ears project, while they
are still at school or at college. I am hoping that will start
to demystify the process and hopefully will persuade them that
this is an attractive profession to come into.
Mr Johnson: Simply, the answer
to your question is that in our region 8.7% of the population
is non-white, and we are employing about 6% of non-white people
in our workforce, which, clearly, is not enough, and about 7%
in programme-making areas, which, to be honest, you can rectify
quicker than you can in other areas because of the nature of freelance
and contract work. Again, as Nick touched on and I said a few
moments ago, the real key here is not recruitment, at the moment.
In a sense, although we have to do something about that, it is
about going much, much further back and doing something about
the kinds of people who are leaving school, leaving college, going
to university courses, going on to post-grad. journalism courses.
The numbers are not coming through. Indeed, there are studies,
about to be commissioned, which will start to look into this,
particularly at black males and why they are not going into journalism
in the kinds of numbers that they should, if it were done on a
socio-economic, kind of proportional basis in the population.
We have got to do something about that, we have got to do something
actively as well, as we are both doing, to encourage more people
to come through, through schemes such as our post-graduate bursaries.
Q426 Chairman: Mr Carter, what competition
is the Mercury under? Is it from other papers in the area, or
is it from papers published in various ethnic languages?
Mr Carter: No. Our greatest competitor,
I am afraid, is time, the amount of time people have to read us.
Obviously, there are other sources of news and information which
can be found about our area but none which provide the comprehensive
service we provide. Our greatest competitor is the changing habits
of the population of this country, and people have more choice,
more money to spend on the choices and less time to spend on any
particular thing, and we are trying to carve out our slot in their
daily routine.
Q427 Chairman: Mr Johnson, as far as
television is concerned, 20 years ago there was a choice, was
there not, there were two channels and it produced a certain cohesion,
because whoever you were talking to tended to have watched those
programmes? Now, with the availability of satellite, and everything
else, there is a huge diversity of where you can get your information
on television from. Does that actually encourage segmentation
of society into the programmes they want? There are a fair number
of programmes which are put out now in languages from the Indian
sub-continent.
Mr Johnson: Indeed. If you were
going to ask me the same question as you asked Nick, obviously,
my answer would have been the Simpsons, which kind of sums up
really where we are. Which is, as you touched on, multi-channel
competition, Channel Four coming on 20-odd years ago, Channel
Five, etc. Multi-channel can take up to 25% in peak time, nine,
ten o'clock, Channel Five in the Midlands can take about 20%.
This gives you an idea of the scale of competition that we are
under. Are they going off to what you might call either segmented
or niche channels, well, people are, to some degree, but the ITV
point is that it is a broad, popular channel which has a mix of
programmes in it. What we have got to do, we believe, is make
sure that all our programmes, as best they can, represent the
population as it is, society as it is, and have a modern and professional
way of portraying the things that it portrays either in fact or
fictional based programming. That is what will keep people from
all backgrounds, all socio-economic backgrounds, all cultural
backgrounds, all ages, all social classes, watching our programmes.
Our programmes and our business rely on the mass market, mass
viewing, and therefore we have got to make sure that those programmes
reflect society as it is. It is not up to ITV, I think, to go
chasing particular niche audiences at particular parts of the
schedule and time of the day. That will not work. Other channels
are doing that very well. There are some absolutely fantastic
channels serving particular areas of the population on the Sky
platform and they should continue to do so. Ours is to get the
right mix and make sure all our programmes are representative
and proper and professional.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you
both very much for your evidence.
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