The newest 'Woman's Hour' presenter

 

I've read a few pieces recently from old-school Woman's Hour admirers in the mainstream media wanting Dame Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey's far younger replacement Emma Barnett to be joined by someone older and (by implication) wiser - i.e. more in tune with traditional BBC feminism. 

No such luck ladies. The BBC's gone with someone much the same aged as Emma (give or take ten years), but from a different tick box background: 

Countryfile/Strictly Come Dancing's BBC-ubiquitous, twinkle-toed Anita Rani - a BBC favourite who has been promoted far and wide and beyond in recent years. 

An interesting choice to present the Friday and Saturday editions of Woman's Hour. 

Mohit Bakaya, the 'woke' Controller of Radio 4, who's widely regarded (by me) as having taken the ruin of the channel to new depths, in the BBC press release about this makes the BBC's intentions crystal clear: “I want Radio 4 to continue to seek ways to better reflect and be relevant to the audience across the UK” - i.e. he's ticked a few boxes.

I wish Anita well. I like her. It's not her fault that the BBC is using her, and I hope she gets over being a tick in a box and makes Woman's Hour something women and men, feminists and non-feminists, country dwellers and metropolitan elitists, and people from the widest range of social and political persuasions, can all enjoy on Fridays and Saturdays. 

Emma Barnett's first week continues

 

Emma Barnett is having an interesting first week at Woman's Hour. 

Falling prey to the curse of open Zoom links, she was overheard today, just two minutes before going on air, by an interviewee - actress Kelechi Okafor - saying something that the interviewee found "absolutely degrading and vile": namely Emma was overheard worrying aloud to her team about alleged antisemitic remarks made by the actress. A direct confrontation then ensued, with Emma offering to discuss it on air. Kelechi hung up and Emma later tweeted her side of the story.

The programme was about to discuss the #MeToo movement and Kelechi was coming on to say that, whatever women with "white, middle class sensibilities" think, marginalised black women still need #MeToo - a very BBC guest, until this happened! 

BAME BBC (except Newsnight)

 

Today's Woman's Hour discussed diversity in the media. 

The discussion wasn't, of course, remotely diverse in terms of viewpoint. The guests were Yasmin Alibhai Brown, the Guardian's Jane Martinson and Amal Warsame of Women in Journalism, of which organisation both YAB and JM are also committee members. (Small world!). 

They all sang the same tune about how bad it is that the media isn't diverse enough, and the phrase 'male, pale and posh' was bandied about a lot.

The figures in the Women in Journalism report being discussed (which analysed certain programmes over one week) are fascinating though - especially for TV broadcasting. 

BAME presenters are massively over-represented in most of the studied programmes: BBC News at Ten on 43%, BBC Breakfast on 33%, and both BBC News at One and News at Six on 29%. 

Newsnight is the exception with 0% BAME presenters. 

In terms of the experts used, all those programmes either meet or exceed the national BAME population: BBC News at Ten on 22% BBC Breakfast on 19%,  BBC News at One on 13% and News at Six on 20%. 

Again, Newsnight is the exception with 0% BAME experts. 

Wonder if Newsnight will be discussing this tonight? I'm guessing they'll give it a miss.

It's enough to make you start peering over the top of your glasses

So, Dame Jenni Murray has pulled out of a talk at Oxford University after three student groups called for her to be no-platformed because of her 'transphobic' views. She was intending to talk about 'Powerful British Women in History' (unsurprisingly), but some students wanted her 'publicly condemned' and 'if possible' for the event to be 'cancelled'. What a remarkable state of affairs - one of the most politically correct BBC presenters isn't politically correct enough for some Oxford University students and, thus, other Oxford University students won't get to hear her! 

Odds and Ends

Cuddly-Islam, part 1 

'My wife can never call my name in public'

By Rebecca Seales

BBC News

Seriously? Srsly? 

A whole page devoted to this inane article on the BBC website? 

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Fascists

Oh yes. Trump is a fascist. It’s official.

Deflated

Justin Webb spoke to that poor Leo Murray about his inflatable Trump-in-a-nappy stunt. We used to say ‘it takes one to know one’. Maybe someone should crowd-fund an inflatable Leo Murray-in-a-nappy. (Why bother. Nobody knows who he is.) Dr. Jan Halper-Hayes’s good-humoured response took the wind out of his sails. 

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Women’s hour (Cuddly-Islam, part 2)

Splish-splash I was havin’ a bath when I overheard some of this conversation with Kirstie and Katie on the radio.  Did they really avoid mentioning the motivation behind this horrific attack? From what I heard the motivation appeared to be almost incidental. As if it was a natural disaster or something. An act of God.

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Labour's new anti-Semitism code of conduct.

I wouldn’t have mentioned this if it hadn’t been included in an early morning radio 4 news bulletin t’other day. 

"Labour has taken some of the language used in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is now widely accepted as the most useful definition and has been adopted by the government, the Crown Prosecution Service, many local councils and many other countries.

But instead of adopting the definition as agreed by all these bodies, Labour has excised the parts which relate to Israel and how criticism of Israel can be antisemitic."

They're keeping the following four back for themselves: (why the American spelling I'm not sure)

• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide than to the interests of their own nations.
• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. (sic)
• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior (sic) not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

The Labour Party needs to be able to still use these terms and memes with impunity. They’re not antisemitic; oh no, they’ve fought antisemitism all their life. (For or against?)