Media4Diversity

Although Channel 4 -as a public service television station- is publicly owned it is entirely self funded. Its remit is to innovate and appeal to everyone – different cultures, nationalities, religious persuasions, physical and mental abilities, sexual orientation, races and ages. Founded in the eighties to combat the monopoly of the BBC and ITV, Channel 4 commissions its programmes from over 300 production companies across the UK. ...read more

The BBC is one of the world’s leading media organisations. Its mission is to enrich people’s lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain. They see their audiences as being at the heart of everything that they do. How to reflect and engage these audiences is a BBC priority. The BBC Diversity Centre is responsible for ensuring that the BBC is legally compliant with all antidiscrimination legislation, hard-wiring diversity into the DNA of the BBC through the Diversity Strategy which is comprised of 4 elements - employment, output, audiences, strategy and business planning. In 2006 an Editorial Executive of Diversity was hired to assist BBC Vision (responsible for BBC TV channels) with delivering authentic representation of the audiences they serve. ...read more

The Panjabi Centre (home of Desi Radio, a community radio station in Southall, London) and The Women’s Radio Group (a specialist training organisation) co-operated to offer radio production training to women from minority groups, particularly those from ethnic minorities, single parents, older women and women returning to work after being full time carers. ...read more

Founded in 2005 Mama Youth is a production company that offers young adults from minority communities a chance to gain practical skills and means to have a strong chance of finding employment. Robert Clarke, the founder of Mama Youth, has a minority background and during his working life in the media was struck by the lack of diversity in media organisations. He took this experience and founded Mama Youth to actively promote diversity within the television industry. ...read more

The RAM Project operated on the MediaWise principles that press freedom is a responsibility exercised by journalists on behalf of the public, and that the public have a right to know when the media publish inaccurate information. ...read more

The National Print Media Internship scheme began by creating a dialogue between previously disparate key players – journalism schools, publications and journalism unions – to understand what sort of plan was needed to tackle the problems BAME students might face when trying to enter the media – particularly the print media. Newspapers were assessed to determine whether they were ready to take the issue and the scheme seriously. An agreement that all participating editors would share what they learnt was established. ...read more

Founded in 2006 Radio Salaam Shalom is a UK based Internet broadcaster. It is the United Kingdom’s first combined Muslim-Jewish broadcast project, operating an Internet radio station and making regular Jewish – Muslim podcasts to download. ...read more

Leonard Cheshire Disability is the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of care and support services for disabled people. The charity supports over 21,000 disabled people in the UK and works in 52 countries. It campaigns for change and provides innovative services that give disabled people the opportunity to live life their way. ...read more

The “Be there, Be yourself” campaign focused on common humanity, showing people that their friends who experience mental health problems are still the same people, who still need their help and support. So as to have both sides of the story, focus groups with people living with mental health problems were conducted to ensure the campaign addressed the discrimination they face. ...read more

In 2000 it was revealed that statistical analyses had predicted that Leicester would be the first city in Europe to have a minority white population by 2020. This put Leicester in the media spotlight in a way it had never been before. In 2001, with the general elections coming up, the issue of race was beginning to rear its head. How the media covered the elections, particularly concerning race, needed to be carefully handled. ...read more