Centre’s Work Goes On

As the Sir Lenny Centre for Media Diversity celebrates its fifth anniversary, Diane Kemp (pictured), Professor of Broadcast Journalism at Birmingham City University and the Centre’s Director, reviews its achievements to date. But says that its work is far from over

“It was on 25 March 2020 that the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity was launched. Not the launch we had planned for, since we came up with the idea in September the previous year. But the date will look familiar to you as being just days after the first national Covid lockdown was announced. Everything, for all of us, changed.

“And yet in terms of the core issue which the Centre was set up to address, namely the lack of representation within the media, nothing had changed. So we agreed that, in spite of the pandemic, we would launch the Centre and start the work. The ‘we’ I’m referring to is of course Sir Lenny Henry, Marcus Ryder, Marverine Cole and myself. Guessing that most, if not all those names, will be familiar to members of the Press Club as being associated with this city and the media/journalism.

“All of us had been involved in campaigns of one kind or another over the years to address the lack of representation in the UK media. It seemed a logical idea to pool our resources and create a space to do research and collaborate with industry and academics which we were encouraged to do by the then Vice-Chancellor.

“We did a launch video setting out our aims and our approach which is still on the Centre’s site: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/research/media-and-journalism/sir-lenny-henry-centre-for-media-diversity

“Looking back on it five years later I’m amazed that we achieved so much considering the context we were all working in for the first two years.

“All our research is on the site – freely available as downloads - along with our journal ‘Representology’ which we co-publish with Cardiff University colleagues. Please have a read.

“We’ve worked with the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, News UK amongst others. Some, multiple times I’m proud to say. And there have been many positives. Ian Katz quoted the Centre’s recommendations when committing more funds to diversity at C4. The BBC and others took on board our recommendations to change the use of some terminology – notably ‘BAME’. We’ve been quoted and we’ve given advice and we’ve offered support to a range of organisations in the past 5 years.

“But you’ll have seen that representation in the UK media stays stubbornly unrepresentative of the country. So the work continues.

“Most recently - 16 May, in fact - Sir Lenny talked about Diversity being in the fight for its life and the importance of allies and active allyship. He did this as a response to the attack on Diversity and DEI in the US. His speech is here, please have a look. It’s not long, but it is impassioned:

https://www.bcu.ac.uk/research/media-and-journalism/sir-lenny-henry-centre-for-media-diversity/media-and-keynotes

“In it he talks about people needing to step up and do more – particularly those in positions of authority, and about reclaiming the notion of Diversity as a description of who we are which enriches us.

“All of us.

“And I think that’s a pretty good notion to see us into the next five years of the Centre.”