Martin Lipton has vowed to use his new senior role on the sports desk of The Sun to implement greater diversity at the newspaper.
Speaking at the Black Connective Of Media in Sport (BCOMS) D for Diversity conference, Lipton was joined by a host of fellow sports media professionals to debate the lack of ethnic minorities in the media and present ideas and suggestions that will help change it.
Lipton is currently chief football writer at the Daily Mirror, a position he has held for 12 years, but will be moving to The Sun imminently as deputy head of sports content.
He told the conference at LCC: “For the first time, I can actually tell people that I will have a role in the recruitment of journalists, I’ve never had that before.
“There are nowhere near enough people from black and ethnic minorities, not enough women. There is no diversity; it is run by people who tend to be middle class, middle aged and white.” said Lipton
[pullquote align=”right”]“There is a slow cultural change, and the next generation of would-be black journalists will feel the benefits of that.” Martin Lipton[/pullquote]
Lipton does, however, see a gradual move in the right direction. “There is a slow cultural change, and the next generation of would-be black journalists will feel the benefits of that.”
But he argued that changes need to be made at the top in order to usher in greater diversity.
He added: “I can see people in the audience shaking their heads in disbelief, but there is a change, I promise you. It may not be anything near quick enough, but until we have black football writers, black chief editors, black sports editors then there will be what is perceived to be a colour bar in journalism.”
With Lipton now in a position to make a change, he admitted he may look towards using positive discrimination as part of his hiring process.
“I’m looking for the best people, I do not believe I will look at the colour of someone’s skin, except that actually perhaps I might want to make a statement of intent, where if I have two candidates of equal merit I believe I’d actually be tempted to go for the ethnic minority or the minority or whatever it might be.
“I think my liberal credentials are fairly decently bedded down and I think it’s about bloody time that my industry started to reflect the nation rather than the elite that’s run it for the last 150- 200 years.” he said.
With Lipton promising to do all he can at The Sun to try and increase diversity, perhaps the toughest challenge will be test persuading other media organisations to get on board, and start making changes for the better.
Widen
This is something however that Lipton feels is starting to be confronted: “I do believe the majority of the bigger media organisations have at last understood a need to widen their recruitment pool, to change the way they approach these issues, to consider potential different employees.”
Lipton may have been referring to the current initiatives and bursary schemes offered by big-name employers such as Sky and the BBC to try and grant ethnic minority candidates with opportunities to break into the industry.
“Actually it’s the biggest issue facing journalism, not discussing the need for change but how to enact that change. If I could give you a simple straight answer I genuinely would, but I don’t know what that answer is because I’ve never been in a position to determine how things are done before.”
Lipton acknowledged that the industry is only at the early stages of tackling diversity in media and for things to move quicker there had to be changes from the top, but he remained upbeat about his own contribution and the effect he can now have on recruitment.
“All I can say is as a vow is that I will do that, because I genuinely believe we have to have a more reflective media, and that includes everybody regardless of race or sexual orientation. We have to have a media that reflects the society we live in.”
Appalling
The media aren’t the only part of the sports industry struggling to implement diversity.
A study published by the Sports Person’s Think Tank on November 10 shows there are only 19 black and ethnic minority (BME) football coaches in the 552 “top” coaching positions at professional English clubs.
BME coaches take up less than 4 per cent of those positions despite at least 25 per cent of players coming from BME backgrounds.
Sports minister Helen Grant described the findings as “appalling and worrying”, and called for a concerted effort by all concerned to “get the sea change we need”.
Many have suggested that in order to counteract this, professional English clubs should follow in the footsteps of NFL with their own version of the Rooney Rule. The Rule says that teams interview at least one BME candidate when a head coach or general manager position becomes available.
Artefact’s full report of the BCOMS conference held at the LCC.