BBC diversity hiring now includes the dead

BBC diversity hiring now includes the dead

News

norman lebrecht

June 16, 2024

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Comments

  • John Borstlap says:

    I know of at least three people who are entirely qualified for that position, only they don’t know that.

  • Gerry Feinsteen says:

    D and F are next to each other on a QWERTY keyboard

  • CGDA says:

    OK, we got the misprint, but WHAT THE HELL IS “identifying” as neurodivergant, deaf…. etc???!!!

    PEOPLE “ARE” deaf/neurodivergant/etc!

    BBC, let’s not be offensive and let’s not play with words!!

    • Paul Brownsey says:

      No, no. The category of what you ARE has been abolished. Sensible people only give recognition to what you identify as, though, as a matter of fact, no-one IS sensible.

      • John Borstlap says:

        That is correct. We are not what we are but what we think we are. But it’s hard work and every morning I have to make a string of difficult choices.

        Sally

    • msc says:

      In this context, it makes some sense. Otherwise you are forcing people to use resources to plow through all the medical obstacles to get some sort of paperwork identifying them as deaf, neurodivergent, etc. Self-identification removes that barrier (says the screamingly obviously neurodivergent person that has never been formally diagnosed).

      • Paul Brownsey says:

        I thought identifying wasn’t just a matter of *saying* you are this or that. Isn’t there some deep inner process whereby you discern the nature of what you truly are and at the same time embrace it and sink yourself into it and make it your essential self?

        • John Borstlap says:

          Being your Self or becomning it, or creating it, is hard work and may take a life time. And then: there are lots of people one would strongly advise to NOT be themselves. The media are full of them.

          And then: what is a Self? When the term is thrown around indiscriminately, it’s meaning is greatly diminished. What Freud and Jung tried to find-out through painstaking exploration of their patients’ subconscious, is now carelessly spread through commercials and antisocial media.

    • David says:

      It probably means that they are not strict with their formal criteria. They are widening the net with the faith that people will not falsely report their disability. Not everything is political

      • V. Lind says:

        Falsely reporting disabilities seems to be very useful these days. It has long been known in benefits fraud, and now is very prevalent in workers who decline to return to working in their offices.

        I remember the not-so-long-ago times where calling in sick more than once required a doctor’s certificate.

        • John Borstlap says:

          But it’s very useful. When I suddenly feel the need for fun shopping instead of work, I am unexpectedly visited by mysterious disabilities. I had to restrict the number of occurrances though, because I began to notice subtractions on my payslip like ‘Minus 3 x broken leg, 2 x encyphalocitis, 1 x abdomal phragoncitis and a sudden attack of equinophobia.

          Sally

    • Rob says:

      simple verbs don’t do the job anymore. They enforce a patriarchal and colonialist language and deny the lived experience of, etc. etc.

  • Bostin'Symph says:

    That certainly widens the pool of potential employees. And if they’re relying on Charon the ferryman to deliver their job applications, I should think they’ll have the advantage over those using the Royal Mail.

  • CGDA says:

    People ARE neurodivergent
    People ARE deaf
    People ARE disabled

    These people DO NOT ‘identify as’ which sounds like someone trying to pretend and pull off some scam!

  • Observing2 says:

    Hahahaha! I laughed far too hard at this than I should’ve.

  • Maria says:

    It would be very funny if British April Fools’ Day, but then I suppose they’ve been employing walking corpses for a long time, especially some of the BBC News channel presenters.

  • Dwayne Pipe says:

    The whole process will no doubt be rigorous….

  • Old Holborn (deceased) says:

    Proof-readers anonymous has a hotline for troubled marketing operatives…they’re awaiting your call.

  • Herbie G says:

    Litterusee aint rekwired for them wot rite the adverts…

  • Ich bin Ereignis says:

    I think they might mean “dead inside,” which applies to an overwhelming majority of today’s population.

  • Unpaid proof reader for BBC News website says:

    Perhaps someone hired who IS Deaf, could do something about the appalling subtitling, which those of us who have to translate regularly for relatives who are very deaf and rely on the subtitles, find wearisome. At times the subtitles are hilarious, more often than not incomprehensible, don’t get amended, miss phrases, and run well behind the action. Their use of the voice recognition software, if transferred to a UN scenario, could lead to an international incident. As for BBC news website typos, I despair. I regularly correspond with newssiteerrors@bbc.co.uk

  • Rachelle Goldberg says:

    Thanks very much for cheering up Sunday. I laughed so much. Firstly they want an Assistant Producer (Sliced Bread). This announcement has an attachment. Is this a sample of Sliced Bread. They don’t say if the bread is gluten free, vegan or what type. I presume this is a regular programme so will look this up.
    As to assistant producer (Classical Music apply as dead etc. is the Main Producer dead? It said that the vacancy had been advertised, presumably in cemeteries.

  • Shalom Rackovsky says:

    OK- I assume that this is a result of mistyping. When corrected, it says that the BBC is willing to hire an Assistant Producer, Classical Music, BBC Audio North, who is deaf. This opens whole new vistas….

  • Tamino says:

    Applying for the position of a Classical Music Producer identifying as deaf has enormous attraction for me. LOL

  • Tamino says:

    Can we now also identify as young, and then avoid mandatory retirement?

    • SVM says:

      In general, it is illegal for an employer to impose a mandatory retirement age in the UK, unless for a limited range of “objectively justified” reasons to meet a “legitimate aim” (with said justifiability and legitimacy very much open to legal challenge). A small number of notable employers do still impose the ageist abomination of a mandatory retirement age, but these are very much a minority.

  • Rob says:

    We are at the cutting edge of DEI by recognizing the differently animated population.

  • Peter San Diego says:

    Perhaps more nuance would be helpful. People can be partially deaf — e.g., Beethoven, who went progressively deaf over time; similarly, neurodivergence exists on a spectrum where some might want to identify as such, while others might not. Someone who might be very hard of hearing but not stone-deaf (if that is still a permissible expression) could conceivably have a useful role in a BBC Audio organization — for example, in helping to improve subtitling as someone has already suggested.

  • David A. Boxwell says:

    The correct term now is “differently alive.”

  • Nivis says:

    Not just includes, but positively discriminates in favour of the dead. It may be that National Insurance, Health Insurance and Pension contributions are lower, if your employee is already dead. Simple economic choices. Mind you, its a sad day if the role is so unimportant that a dead person can do it as well as a living one.

  • John Borstlap says:

    The point is, of course, that a classical music producer is not really deaf but identifies as such. This means that whenever he gets lots of complaints about his musical choices, he can always excuse himself as not having heard it in advance. The same with critique on the work floor: he can ignore everything and simply continue.

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