TELL US MORE ABOUT WHAT INSPIRED IRL WITH TEAM CHARLENE
I HAD a lot of conversations with parents who would say they don't need to talk to their kids about racism because their children don't see race. And, as someone that first experienced it when I was seven, and my niece, who is 10, first experienced it when she was five, from other children, I think pretending that your kids don't see race is not the answer, and it's just continuing to perpetuate these negative stereotypes and prejudice within the world.
CAN YOU GIVE AN EXAMPLE WHICH YOU DISCUSS ON THE SHOW?
There's one girl who brings up a situation that she witnessed on TikTok, where another girl was being bullied and wasn't allowed to get involved in a conversation online because she was black. She wanted to stand up for her, but she didn't know the right way to do it and to make sure that she was OK.
We have to make sure that children have the confidence to say: "No, that's wrong".
DO YOU THINK A SHOW LIKE THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE A DECADE AGO?
Ten years ago, we didn't have things like TikTok and Snapchat, so 10 years ago perhaps there wasn't the need for it in quite the same way. I know that young people shouldn't be on social media, but the reality is that a lot of young people are, and I think it's important to help them navigate that.
IN 2014, YOU BECAME THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO PRESENT ITV NEWS AT TEN
It wasn't like a regular day, because it was obviously a really big moment because it's such a big programme that I grew up watching, and my parents grew up watching. But in terms of it being a historic moment, I didn't know that until about three to four days later, and that was when a former boss at ITN had come in for a meeting and came over to my desk and said: "Do you know you made history the other night?" And I was like: "What?!" and he explained it to me.
It would never have been something that I would have thought about because there surely had to have been someone before me, and that was the moment which I realised, "wow, OK, that was big".
HAVE YOU FELT THE IMPACT OF RACISM DURING YOUR CAREER?
Being in newsrooms, especially early on, where you'd be the only black person in the entire newsroom, you did stand out. You would have people being very curious about your hair, for example. But overt racism? I never have within a newsroom. But there could be particular jobs that I would be deemed not necessarily suited to because of the colour of my skin. And, historically, you could have in some of these newsrooms a situation whereby if you have one black reporter, the chances of you having another one would be very slim, because they've ticked that box.
But I was really, really lucky that in my 20s I worked at Radio 1Xtra. That's the BBC's black music station and I worked with possibly the highest number of black journalists in my entire career – incredibly talented journalists that I learnt so much from.
DO YOU FEEL HOPEFUL THAT CHANGE IS OCCURING?
Well, I think the reactions to Diversity's amazing dance on Britain's Got Talent [which was inspired by Black Lives Matter] is a really good example of a company not just letting it go by the wayside.
ITV taking out adverts in newspapers supporting Diversity, when you have Alesha Dixon wearing a Black Lives Matter necklace on BGT, I think that's a really good example of a company not just saying that they support something, but actively doing something about it.
OFCOM RECEIVED 24,000 COMPLAINTS – WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THAT?
It comes down to the fact that you can't please everybody. Not everybody's going to like everything that you do, but that isn't necessarily a reason to stop doing it. Sometimes you have to fight through that, in order to encourage people to discuss things.
:: IRL With Team Charlene is available on the ITV Hub
