The economic downturn could hit women and ethnic minorities working in the media harder than their white male colleagues, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, said today.
Phillips, speaking at the first MediaGuardian Ethnic Media Summit, said that belt-tightening by companies often led to a shift away from catering to minorities.
He said that the prospect of a four- or five-year economic downturn could "reverse the limited advantages" that have been made relating to women and ethnic minorities in the media workplace.
Phillips said that the first group to potentially feel the impact would be women, as in a downturn they could be viewed as "too expensive, too difficult" in respect of workplace flexibility policies.
He said that history has shown that "belts squeeze disproportionately" in relationship to ethnic minority employees and that this could be socially destructive.
"All is not well, nor has it been for a while," he added. "The media industry promises itself it will get better next year or next decade."
"The faces on the screen may have changed complexion but there is still far too little diversity among those who call the shots," he said.
"Ethnic minorities remain dissatisfied with the offering of mainstream media."
"However, diversity is increasingly becoming a mainstream concern. White viewers now feel most uncomfortable in the absence of diversity of what they see, listen to and read because it doesn't reflect daily life."
He said that the "ugly fact" was that there had not been as much progress on diversity in the past three decades as the media industry might like to believe.
Phillips likened this to a "Dorian Gray effect" - referring to Oscar Wilde's novel about a beautiful youth who stays superficially young but has a hideous portrait that ages in the attic. "[The portrait] needs to be bought out of the attic and shown regularly," Phillips said.
He said that a central question in the next licence fee settlement for the BBC should be to look at whether the corporation was reflecting change in society quickly enough.
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