The BBC has reportedly banned staff from using turns such as ‘sweetheart’ and ‘mate’, with one insider describing it as “woke gone mad”. The corporation is also encouraging staff to read books on race, according to reports.
Staff are reportedly required to complete a screen skills training ‘passport’ which includes a multiple choice quiz “designed to create a better, more welcoming and safe place to work”. Modules include “tackling harassment and bullying at work”, per reports, and lay out ‘microaggressions’. It is claimed staff are warned against remarking on someone’s curly hair over concerns it could be racist.
They are also being told not to comment on people’s accents, according to The Sun.
It reports that staff are required to complete the 60-minute passport once a year, and ‘silver fox’ is another term seen as ageist and improper.
Workers are also reportedly warned against interrupting people as it is “indirect, often unintentional expressions of bias which come out in seemingly harmless comments but can have an immediate or cumulative effect”.
A frustrated production worker said “it feels like enforced speech” and told The Sun on one of their latest jobs at the BBC, they were informed they couldn’t be employed unless the training was completed.
The insider, who described themselves as being from a “diverse background”, continued: “I feel like I have to tread really carefully in what I say on set.
“It’s like walking on eggshells, whether it’s about race, your sex or your preferred pronouns.
“Increasingly, we have runners who are LGBTQ+ and it’s hard to remember everyone’s pronouns, so I just call them ‘hun’, but now worry that’s wrong, too.
“I got called up for calling someone ‘a babe’.
“Apparently it wasn’t professional, even though I meant they looked beautiful.”
They said since then, they felt they’ve needed to be “really careful”, adding: “It feels like woke gone mad.”
A BBC spokesperson hit back at the reports, saying: “This Screen Skills training is not mandatory for BBC staff and any suggestion otherwise would be wrong.
“The content of this pilot for freelancers is being reviewed by partners across the industry.”
The Sun reported that staff are also being asked to complete sexual harassment prevention training.
The BBC purportedly declined to comment on this.