The Times - UK (2021-11-11)

28 Thursday November 11 2021 | the times

News

Senior BBC news presenters and jour-

nalists have topped up their six-figure

salaries by earning thousands of

pounds in moonlighting jobs.

Data shows that five presenters,

including Huw Edwards and Naga

Munchetty, were paid £10,000 or more

for single events.

Edwards topped up his £430,000

salary with a fee of up to £10,000 for

hosting the National Rail Awards.

Munchetty, the BBC Breakfast pre-

senter who last year was paid up to

£259,999 by the BBC, received two pay-

ments between £5,000 and £10,000,

one for hosting the Bold Woman Award

by Veuve Clicquot and one as host at a

Nimble Media event.

Stephen Sackur, who presents

HARDtalk, earned a £10,000 to £15,000

fee after acting as a panel chairman for

The BBC is to quit a controversial diver-

sity scheme run by Stonewall, citing

concerns over its impartiality.

The broadcaster is the latest high-

profile organisation to withdraw from

the Diversity Champions programme,

which advises employers how to bring

their policies in line with the “best

practice” promoted by Stonewall.

The campaign group says its advice

makes workplaces better, fairer places

for LGBT staff. However, critics say the

Broadcaster quits Stonewall scheme over impartiality fears

scheme acts as a lobbying vehicle. Docu-

ments released under the Freedom of

Information Act have revealed how

Stonewall has, for example, instructed

public bodies to remove gendered words

such as “mother” from HR policies and

to support Stonewall campaigns on their

social media accounts in order to climb

the rankings of its Top 100 LGBT-

friendly employers.

While Stonewall was founded to

campaign against discrimination of

people based on their sexuality, it has

now refocused much of its campaign-

ing on transgender rights and gender

identity. It believes biological males

should be allowed access to single-sex

spaces such as women’s prisons and

refuges, if they identify as a female — a

position that others say conflicts with

the sex-based rights of women.

A BBC spokesperson said it was fully

committed to LGBT inclusion, and that

“we will continue to work with a range

of external organisations including

Stonewall” to support LGBT staff.

The Department of Health and

Social Care is among the public bodies

that have cut ties with Stonewall, citing

concerns over value for money.

The media watchdog Ofcom previ-

ously said it had withdrawn from the

scheme, saying that taking part “poses

a conflict or risk of perceived bias”.

Stonewall said: “It’s a shame that the

BBC has decided not to renew their

membership of our Diversity

Champions programme but, as with all

membership programmes, organisa-

tions come and go depending on what’s

best for their inclusion journey at the

time.”

BBC stars top-up pay with outside gigs

Yalta European Strategy, which de-

scribes itself as a “forum for discussing

Ukraine’s European future”.

Maryam Moshiri, an anchor on BBC

World News, was paid by the law firm

Clifford Chance for acting as a modera-

tor during a three-day event.

Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, who is

paid up to £329,999 by the broadcaster,

was paid in the same range last year for

working as a speaker for the procure-

ment consultancy Proxima.

Amol Rajan, the BBC’s media editor

and Radio 4 Toda y presenter who was

paid up to £244,999, earned between

£5,000 and £10,000 as a panellist at

Leeds International Festival of Ideas

and the veteran royal correspondent

Nicholas Witchell was also in this band

for appearing as a host for the Informa-

tion Security Forum.

Spencer Kelly, who hosts the techno-

logy show BBC Click, was also paid in

this bracket after working as a panel

chairman for the technology company

Cisco, as was Clive Myrie, the news pre-

senter and host of Mastermind, who

carried out some work for the Japanese

company Fujitsu as an interviewer.

Myrie also had two payments of

between £1,000 and £5,000 for jobs

with the Asian Media Group and

American Express.

The list published by the BBC details

how staff supplemented their income in

the past three months.

It is the third time the figures, which

run until the end of September, have

been released, after Tim Davie, the

director-general, decided to publish

them to bolster impartiality at the

broadcaster.

There were 108 entries in the disclo-

sure log with the overall number of

names to appear on the list increasing

from 71 to 76 compared with the previ-

ous three months.

The figures are published in bands

and the exact figures remain private. It

is thought that none of the payments to

BBC talent was more than £15,000.

In August Edwards, 60, said he had

taken a pay cut “years ago” and that he

had been angered by the BBC’s

handling of revealing salaries. He told

Radio Cymru: “If you do get a huge pay

cut, it’s certainly going to affect you.

Especially if you see co-workers getting

large pay rises and you don’t quite

understand why.”

John Reynolds, George Sandeman

Naga Munchetty

was paid between

£5,000 and

£10,000 for

hosting two events

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