Since I started writing about the privilege of speaking English, the messages and emails have been coming thick and fast, turning my inbox and social media comments into some sort of linguistic confessional.
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Most of the stories were depressingly predictable. Some showed gaslighting of the first order while others bordered on the hilarious. If you’ve read my previous post about being taken off air for sounding foreign, you’ll know I have great empathy with anyone who’s been through a similar experience, but I have to admit some of the messages made me laugh out loud. Here’s a selection:
There was the producer who voiced a report for a British outlet’s website, which elicited panicked messages from viewers who thought the website had been HACKED, because really, why else would a report be voiced in a foreign accent?
Then the journalist who, after having voiced the script for a report, was told by her picture editor “I LOVE your accent! You remind me of Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro.” Which is probably not what you want to hear when you’ve just reported on a war or natural disaster. Or if you are, you know, female.
The Italian who was told “Instead of journalism, why don’t you focus on cookery programmes?” (which reminded me of the time I was encouraged to apply for a sports presenter job because of the way I pronounced ‘Sampdoria’ and other Italian football teams. One of life’s missed opportunities.)
And of course, the message that pleased me most, the one linking my work to the spiritual Godmother of all of us odd-sounding bilinguals, Colombian legend Sofia Vergara, and her now-immortal line “Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?” Oh Sofia, we DO know. It’s practically the motto of this newsletter.
But that’s where the fun stops. Because all the feedback I received is proof that linguistic barriers (which are also national and cultural barriers) are real and have a huge impact on the careers of second-language English journalists. It’s part of a wider issue around diversity and representation that extends beyond journalism, but in this post I’ll focus specifically on the media and the impact the lack of diversity of voices has on which stories are highlighted and how they’re told.
I have spent 22 years working for some of the biggest names in international broadcasting in the world. I started my career as a CNN intern, followed by on-air roles at the BBC and Sky News and then for 16 years I was a prime-time news anchor for Al Jazeera English before resigning in 2022. Based on that experience, I have come to the following conclusion:
There is no such thing as International News. It’s English-Language news.
By ‘International News’ I don’t mean the foreign news section of a newspaper or TV programme.
I mean publications that can be considered journalistic reference points that are read or watched around the world.
Unsurprisingly they are overwhelmingly anglophone (USA/UK) media outlets, which are predictably dominated by native English-speaking journalists.
You know who they are: CNN and the BBC. AP and Reuters. The New York Times. The Guardian. The Economist, the FT. I may be missing some, but there aren’t many other publications that can truly claim to have a global footprint. Sure, loads of countries are getting in on the English-Language news channel game, from China, to Iran, to Russia. But even the more reliable likes of English-language France24 and Deutsche Welle can hardly claim to have an audience or credibility on a par with the BBC. The only one to break the mould in a significant way was Al Jazeera English. for reasons I will explain below.
Some of the publications mentioned above have a dedicated ‘international’ section. That’s certainly true of the broadcasters and broadcasting is, unsurprisingly, where the issue of language is felt most acutely. There’s CNN International and CNN domestic. BBC World and the BBC’s national news channel have recently merged into one TV channel (a questionable decision) but the BBC’s World Service Radio is as close to a truly international outlet as you can get. Credit where credit’s due, the World Service has several non-native English voices in key presenting roles. But am I going to hear any of them on the domestic channels? On the prime-time, national 6 o’clock news? Unlikely. It may happen with some foreign correspondents working on stories outside the UK, and though I won’t say you can count them on one hand, you will have a few spare fingers if you count them on two. They are all notable exceptions. (I’m collating a bilingual journalism hero-list, so please let me know if you have any particular nominations in the comments section below.)
The truth is that the domestic channel will always take precedence over the international one. So when managers decide which reporters and presenters to nurture and whose careers to develop, they will mainly think about who will go down well with the domestic audience. A BBC Radio 4 presenter can easily be moved to the World Service. The reverse isn’t true for a foreign-sounding World Service presenter. It’s not a two-way street. So a channel’s true stars will always be the ones that will appeal to the domestic audience, even if the international one is bigger. After all, the domestic market, whether it’s advertisers or the licence fee, is where the bulk of the money comes from.
As I mentioned, broadcasting presents particular challenges but the concept applies everywhere, not just to on-air journalists or famous bylines in print. It applies to the editorial chain as well. The focus of any publication will always be their domestic audience. Editors who understand it best will thrive, their careers will advance and they will then play a major role in deciding which stories are covered and whose voices get amplified.