ITV Peston's madness at banning white young people from internship in favour of ethnic minorities - Kelvin MacKenzie
Kelvin MacKenzie blasted the ITV presenter for the job advert
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There’s a particularly poor political show on ITV called Peston named after the presenter Robert Peston who appeared to have trained his voice as an announcer at Waterloo station.
The show is looking for an intern. Quite an opportunity. Unless you are white. The ad for the job says the intern must come from the industry’s under-represented groups which include black, Asian, disabled, transitioning or from a socio-economically challenged background. That’s skint to you and me.
Literally, if you were white and ambitious not only wouldn’t you get the job, you wouldn’t even be allowed to apply for it.
Anyway, having seen the show, the most unrepresented group appears to be the talented. The other under-represented area is the audience. Nobody watches it. Can’t blame them. Peston would be more successful and make more money by being the front man for a sleep aid.
I quite understand, and welcome, the fact that talent comes in many colours. Being an employer, I know only too well that if you want the best, defining your hirings by race would be commercial madness and counter-productive.
Since the show is shot in West London you would expect a huge number of minorities to apply in any event. And nobody could complain if it went to one of them.
But it’s the demand that this job won’t go to you if you are white unless you are disabled or transitioning, I find objectionable. I tweeted about the Peston issue and one dad replied that he had been helping his 18-year-old son complete a job application for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
In the end, the father advised his son not to bother as they explicitly only wanted minorities, despite the fact his lad spoke Russian and was ambitious to be a civil servant. And that queue can’t be very long.
Working in London it’s clear there is no such thing as black and Asian communities being under-represented. Being white and older and travelling on the Underground I quite accept that I am in the minority.
It surprises me sometimes, and is often a discussion point with my friends, but it does not annoy me. If however, a member of my family couldn’t apply for a job because of their race that would be a major issue.
The reality is that the television media is in all kinds of problems right now. Unless you have glued yourself to the floor Just Stop Oil style you will be thrown out. Old fashioned ad-funded networks like ITV are sacking people left right and centre and are worth a fraction of their value a decade ago.
I am certain, effectively barring young white people from applying to be interns, is only going to do them damage in the long run. They may well be beyond caring. I’m not. Nor are you.