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 Diversity Unit is within the VRT to implement the actions outlined in the Diversity Policy and Charter. The Unit looks at a wide range of diversity issues, particularly those faced by ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. Affirmative action towards minority groups is part of the daily work of the Diversity Unit. ...read more

During the 2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE and the production company C-Media created a partnership to make documentaries representing communities fighting discrimination in Finland. ...read more

The initiative began to give young Roma journalists the skills to work in radio production and therefore be able to run a Roma Community Radio themselves. With skilled Roma journalists producing programmes, it became very difficult for public authorities to ignore the request for a Roma community radio station. ...read more

The Roma Mainstream Media Internship programme has been running at the Centre for Independent Journalism since 1998. It tackles widespread misunderstanding of and stereotypes on the Roma community in the media by diversifying newsrooms. Young Roma journalists are offered internships within mainstream media organisations. ...read more

This Polish 2007 EYEO project had three elements. The first was to design a website (www. multikulti.org.pl) that would become a reference point about diversity. Launched in November 2007, with seven different sections relating to diversity in general, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, age and sexual orientation it now comprises over 1000 pages of information. A team of journalists write the articles on each topic, users are also able to add related content. ...read more

The 2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities for All gave Lithuania an impetus to improve the national understanding of minority groups who face discrimination in Lithuanian society. Centre for Equality Advancement Project, IESSP: From April 2006 to December 2007 the CEA focused primarily on the broadcast of fifty-two topical chat shows, transmitted weekly on prime time television. ...read more

“Otechestven Front” (Fatherland Front) is a weekly prime time TV show that seeks to challenge prejudices or myths in Bulgarian society. For two episodes broadcast in June 2007 it was decided to use Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as an allegory to reveal current racial discrimination against the Roma community in Bulgaria. A real life scenario was used in which a young Roma man and a Bulgarian girl are in love, but the girl’s family refuses to accept the match because of her beau’s ethnic origins. ...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