26 July 2012
By Aidan White
A gold-plated victory for diversity has been registered by journalists and supporters of The Voice, Britain’s only national newspaper for black readers, only days before the opening of the Olympics.The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) reports that the British Olympic Association has backed down in the face of protests over their refusal to grant press passes giving the paper’s reporters access to the Olympic stadium and media centre.
The Voice had requested two passes to cover the track and field events where scores of athletes from African and Caribbean countries will be competing – including 29 of the 78 members of Britain’s Olympics team.
The initial refusal sparked a backlash from journalists and readers of the paper. More than 700 signed a change.org petition started by Zita Holbourne, a member of the Race Relations Committee of the TUC, who said the original decision was “insulting and racist.”
She is now pressing the BOA for an equality audit on the selection procedure for media passes when it was revealed that the of the 14-strong panel responsible for handing out press passes to journalists, 12 were men and all of them were white.
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, supported this demand calling on the Olympic Association to publish an equality impact assessment to ascertain if the selection process and criteria it used had the effect of discriminating.
To read the report by the NUJ, click here
To read the change.org petition, click here
