Cripes! The best BBC foreign reporter by far is quitting her role at the BBC...
Ironically, the gender pay gap row may largely be a myth but there are, apparently, still a very small number of major employers out there paying women less than men for doing the same job. And the right-on BBC is one of them.
Best wishes Carrie! If you want to write for Is the BBC biased and misogynistic? you know where we are! (We're lacking a China editor).
Update: This post has been edited. Carrie hasn't quitted the BBC, as I originally wrote. She's merely quitted her job as China editor. She's staying with the BBC and says she'll return to the BBC newsroom if they give her the same inflated salary as her male colleagues. (The 'inflated' bit is my addition).
Further Update: Carrie has written about the "crisis of trust" at the BBC tonight at The Spectator. (Yes, not the New Statesman). It's a long and compelling whinge. ("Mine is just one story of inequality among many", she writes.)
I don't like popcorn but I'm stuffing it in tonight regardless.
Oh, and BBC watchdog Samira is 'standing' with Carrie...
Well, it may not actually be happening to you, but it does seem to be happening to BBC women.
Yes, it's tempting to quote one of the BBC's greatest sitcom characters, namely Battery Sergeant Major Williams, but we should surely all stand with Carrie. 'Inflated salaries for all at the BBC!' 'Je suis Carrie!' (P.S. In Chinese, according to the infallible Google Translate, that's 我是嘉莉。). A judge-led public inquiry is surely needed.
Oh, and here comes Kirsty...
And now to bed, feeling positively pregnant with popcorn...
An odd story.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you think about the pay row (my view is the BBC ought to be cutting their pay by 3% until some of them actually start resigning! - I noted that CG hasn't actually left the BBC) she has been one of the BBC's best correspondents. Her reports from China, especially the ones where she followed changes in a Chinese village, really did illuminate what was going on.
Thanks for the (discreet) correction! I've updated the post.
DeleteWe couldn’t afford her, Craig!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/may/12/bbc-news-presenter-carrie-gracie-reveals-salary
In 2008 Carrie Gracie was forced to admit that she earned £92,000.
“So you're paid nearly twice as much as an MP to come on and talk this nonsense” said Labour peer Lord Foulkes. "MPs are paid £64,000 a year. How much are you paid for coming on television and harassing MPs and other people in this way. How much are you paid out of the licence fee?”
Not so much a gender pay gap. More of a MP / BBC pay gap.
But I agree, she was jolly good in China..
The Garudian is back:
DeleteBBC's China editor resigns in protest over gender pay gap
Carrie Gracie accuses her employer of a ‘secretive and illegal pay culture’ and steps down to TV newsroom role
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/07/bbcs-china-editor-carrie-gracie-resigns-in-protest-over-gender-pay-gap
The Grauniad says her resignation letter was leaked to Buzzfeed.
Who leaked it? And why?
The BBC however, as the Gudaurnia reports, says it's getting it about right and that everything's super
If only popcorn wasn't so fattening!
At moments like this, the subtle Chinese caution springs to mind: ‘ may you live in interesting timrs’.
ReplyDeleteIf there really was equal pay for work of equal value then train announcers would be on £700,000 salaries too!
ReplyDeleteThe BBC 'news' programmes are stuffed full of 'editors' who offer no more than speculative opinion that any of us could have come up with too. Last night, for example, we had some wind swept woman standing outside in Westminster telling us that Mrs. May was OK for now but things might get difficult in the future! Value? Zero!
An interesting side development. On Woman's Hour this morning they said that because of "BBC impartiality rules" they had to go to a non-BBC journalist (from the Guardian - whatasurprisenot!)to interview Carrie Gracey.
ReplyDeleteRather begs the question why we have had hundreds over BBC people interviewed by BBC people in previous years re Savile, complaints, BBC pay structure, licence fee, the Charter, Ofcom, media matters etc...or is this something, a courtesy, that is afforded only to important female BBC staff interviewed on Woman's Hour as I suspect?