vinegarSince the last general election, we’ve had three new prime ministers, a new monarch and a record number of scandal-hit cabinet resignations, but at least one thing remains the same: Tom Bradby will return to present ITV’s election night coverage, joined by George Osborne and Ed Balls.
Familiarity can be reassuring, but for someone like Bradby, that may not be the case. To Radio Times He suggested the reports might be unsettling because, career-wise, there are “very few white, male news anchors left.”
How are we to respond to this? Coming from the man directing election night coverage with Osborne, Balls and Nicola Sturgeon, suggesting a threat to the presence of white men in broadcast journalism sounds like a Ron Burgundy outtake from Anchorman.
Bradby is undoubtedly a good and experienced announcer, but he doesn’t seem to realize the reality of his situation here. Approximately 40% Population England and WalesA return to the days when they made up the majority of news anchors would further erode already fragile trust in media institutions. In an age of mass misinformation, having more people driving news reporting means meritocracy and journalism will scrutinise at least some of its own practices, even if it is true that Osborne, Bradby’s election-night companion, was promoted to editor, hastening the decline of the Evening Standard, which will soon stop carrying newspapers.
So don’t sound the alarm. There’s not a woeful shortage of white men on ITV’s newsdesk; there currently appear to be seven white men on its presenter roster. Things have changed since 2019, Bradby correctly notes. But the promotion of Clive Miley and Laura Kuenssberg to the BBC’s election coverage is not a worrying sign of the times. More accurately, it’s a direct result of the Huw Edwards scandal, in which the BBC’s highest-paid newscaster resigned from the network after allegations emerged that he paid a 17-year-old girl to view indecent images, plus further allegations that BBC colleagues had complained about him to no avail.
While we may be fewer in number as a species now, great white male news anchors once roamed the earth and, in the eyes of their viewers, sat with God. Walter Cronkite, the American news anchor who covered shocking events such as the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the first manned moon landing, was renowned as the most trusted man in America.
There’s no denying that things have changed dramatically since then. Millions fewer people watch mainstream breaking news, and a much wider range of people report the news. Good for them. Talent should grow. But it’s hardly a wave of awakening. It’s a great theory for an alternative to TV.
Bradby’s words could be explained as awkward phrasing, or a response to a leading question, but the reaction of those who jumped on his lament speaks to the insidious paranoia of those who profit from the status quo and know all too well how to perpetuate it.
The fact that a brilliant white male news anchor is sharing a desk with two other white men in an election where the Conservative Party is facing challenges from Keir Starmer, Ed Davey, John Swinney and Nigel Farage is hardly evidence that the diversity issue is out of control or that white men are struggling to rise to power.
The future of white male anchors is unclear. We assume they will always be there, on mainstream channels, on cable, on YouTube, but no one is counting them, and David Attenborough isn’t filming them. They survive by their own wits and those of their negotiating agents.
Bradby, sly gaffes aside, seems to be one of the better guys, and as representative of a dwindling talent pool, his contributions will be needed for the foreseeable future. “You just have to keep your head down, do a good job and try to be as nice as possible to everyone around you,” he said.
The next election may be far in the future, but who knows, and judging by recent examples, they may become as frequent as new series of Strictly.
There’s too much news, too many autocues, too many shiny desks. Maybe we just need as large a diverse group of TV anchors as possible.
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Leila Latif is a freelance writer and commentator.
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