Thread by @chakrabortty

This am @BBCr4today discussed the economy with a private equity investor, a coalition minister and the editor of the Economist. All in happy consensus. Why are people from the same political perspective presented as experts? Why are they the only people who talk on the economy?

Last week’s big intv on inflation was with ftse chairman (and coalition supporter) Stuart Rose. Why not ask mick lynch or sharon Graham? Why not invite @DEHEdgerton or @AdamLeaver1?

In the six weeks after Lehman died in 2008 @BBCr4today featured 233 extended interviews on the banking crisis. The biggest proportion of those interviewees – over 1:3 – were from the City. There was one single appearance by a trade union leader

When Gordon Brown launched his bank bailout 70% of all the ‘experts’ wheeled on by John Humphrys and co were from the City. Why, 15 years later, carry on discriminating against all the other people in the economy?

This morning sees the launch of a terrific book by @DantonsHead and @adribuller called Owning the Future, which deals with precisely the issues of inequality and oligopoly that disfigure our country. Why doesn’t @bbcr4 interview them?

My stats on media representation were culled from this book by Mike Berry at Cardiff university books.google.com/books/about/Th…
And are summarised here
amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

When the BBC calls in the people who broke the thing to explain how to fix it, they spout cliches that aren't even true. Take the one this morning about how British workers must be more productive to earn more.

And productivity growth has been pitiful. But there is also a good debate, years in the running, on how workers' pay has become 'decoupled' from rising productivity. Yet the radio discussion followed that with some more cliches about deregulation and investment

This isn't just a political thing. It's the assumption hardwired into the BBC that speculators are business people, that execs can speak economics, that economists are white guys in glasses and no one else- incl union leaders, activists, historians -can speak about the economy.