The royal wedding exposed the media’s tokenism

I was lucky (or unlucky, depending on your sensibilities) to be in a prime spot for Saturday’s royal wedding. Wearing my BBC producer hat, I worked on the huge outside broadcast on the Long Walk in Windsor.

Thursday and Friday was all bunting, dogs sporting union jack collars and the Household Cavalry rehearsing. I interviewed people who’d come to camp out, weaving my way through the increasingly packed streets, observing, gathering material and soaking up the atmosphere. It seemed very much like any other big ceremonial occasion. But on Saturday, something changed. Colour. People of colour to be precise, at first just one or two, but as the clock ticked towards midday, everywhere I turned in the area behind the BBC and ITV purpose-built studios, I saw black and brown faces. In my 20 years of working in TV news, I have never seen so many non-white faces on the telly.