Marchamont recently stumbled across an obscure corner of the BBC website: Equality Matters. Although tricky to find from the main menu, the section’s stories appear in the likes of Google News, looking like any other BBC article.
These stories pose as objective features, but read as if the authors are laundering their own opinions. Headlines include “The harmful ableist language you unknowingly use”, “Why getting a name right matters”, and “Why it’s hard for people of colour to be themselves at work”.
It will surprise nobody that views which contradict the headlines are not given much of a hearing in any article. Even headlines that seem unrelated to race devolve into complaints that white men have it easy, such as the piece on “failing up” in the workplace.
The biased output of Equality Matters is perhaps most starkly shown in its coverage of unconscious bias training, with the surrounding debate described as “complicated”. As science hack Tom Chivers, who can hardly be called a fire-breathing reactionary, has straightforwardly reported: such training doesn’t work. Simple enough.
Some of the authors’ output elsewhere also suggests a less-than-BBC level of impartiality. Sarah Novic has advocated for more deaf representation. Chika Ekemezie’s Twitter profile begins with #BlackLivesMatter. Earlier this year Reina Gattuso also complained about “an entire system, rooted in slavery and anti-blackness”, presumably referring to the American justice system.
Asked by the Right Dishonourable whether an equally-prominent section criticises the woke views that Equality Matters endorses, the BBC has not responded. Perhaps scepticism against the “global solutions-based approach” to inequality is unwelcome at the Beeb.
