Action man

A good chunk of James Harding's rallying speech to the annual BBC News Festival was about issues of diversity.

He revealed that "Across News, we worry that we have a tendency to recruit in our own image, so all members of the News Group Board have taken a course in unconscious bias." To recognise it and remove it, one hopes.

He's also introduced the concept of variable targets - in my view, something slightly risky.  At BBC London, for example, 21 per cent of the team is currently from an ethnic minority background, so now they'll be challenged to raise that to 28% - roughly in line with the wider London population  – over the next two to three years. He says "Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester, for example, will do the same for their cities". Does that mean a 49% target for Leicester, 42% for Birmingham, and 41% for Manchester ? It'll mean quite a turnover...

• 0800 Tuesday update: on-air diversity in some BBC Local Radio stations is as much of an issue as finding women to present at Breakfast. Apart from weekend schedules (traditional home of shows aimed at ethinc minorities) Radio Leicester's current weekday output has one presenter from an ethnic minority; Radio Manchester has one (at 0500) and Radio WM has none.  And while we're on about it, are any of the 40 stations run by a manager from an ethnic minority ?
• 1030 Saturday 3rd May update: I think we've found two local radio managers from ethnic minority backgrounds.