UK TV is 'too white': Study By Prasun Sonwalkar

London, July 18 (PTI) - The television in Britain is 'too
white' and does not reflect the lives of Asians and
Afro-Caribbeans living in the country, a study reveals
Thursday.

The research, led by Trevor Philips, chief of the
Equality and Human Rights Commission, was conducted after the
alleged racist abuse of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on the
reality show Big brother in 2007.

It found that Black and Asian viewers felt that despite
the growing number of ethnic minorities living in U.K., they
are still under-represented on hit television shows.

Phillips said that all evidences prove that television is
still "hideously white where it matters".

"Most ethnic minority participants felt that the media
has a responsibility to reflect Britain's diversity across all
genres and was failing to do so in three main ways: by relying
on tokenistic and stereotyped representation of characters; by
representing extreme and exaggerated characters; and by
failing to reflect the realities of contemporary ethnic
minority culture," he said.

All these shortcomings were attributed to some extent to
the perceived lack of a representative power base within U.K.
media.

The study’s findings, reported in the Daily Telegraph
Thursday, finds that when non-whites did appear in dramas and
soaps, they are often "token" characters stereotyped as Asian
shopkeepers.

Black and Asian viewers said they were concerned that
white viewers are getting a wrong impression of the ethnic
minority groups because they were often inaccurately portrayed
on screen.

An Indian woman said, "we would like to see a more
realistic view of Asians. A lot of Asians are professionals
and educated and we don't just work in corner shops."

Another black Caribbean man complained, "they don't
portray black people doing different roles and in every aspect
of every field, like doctors, lawyers and architects.

The research comes only weeks after Samir Shah, a
non-executive director at the B.B.C, accused broadcasters of
rampant tokenism in their programming.

He claimed that a "tick-box approach" to showing
non-whites had left minority viewers feeling embarrassed and
Murali chosen Lanka's 'Most Outstanding Sportsman of the Year'

Colombo, July 17 (PTI) Just days ahead of the home Test
series against India, spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan got the
confidence booster as he was chosen for Sri Lanka's 'Most
Outstanding Sportsman of the Year award'.

President Mahinda Rajapakse honoured Muralitharan the
award at a glittering function here Wednesday night. A beaming
Muralitharan thanked the President after receiving the award.

Averaging more than six wickets per Test in his 16 years
of international cricket, Muralitharan is one of the most
successful bowlers in the history of the game.

He surpassed long time Australian rival Shane Warne's
record 708 wickets in December last year on his home turf
of Kandy to become the highest Test wicket taker and has now
735 scalps to his name from 120 matches.