Changes of wording to Pledge Four in light of Podnews Live
On Wednesday 27th September 2023, Podnews Live was held in Soho House, White City. It was brought to our attention before the event by signees of the pact due to speak AND event organisers that the event did not meet Equality in Audio’s [EAP] standards of being representative of it’s locality as stated in pledge 4:
“4. No longer participate in panels that are not representative of the cities, towns, and industries they take place in.”
We understand the event had no panels and that Podnews hasn’t signed the EAP. James Cridland, CEO of Podnews emailed us before the event to state: “Podnews Live has no panels. Our speakers are all specifically from senior, board-level roles (Co-founder, CEO, CRO, CMO) in large podcast companies from across Europe. It is not an event focusing on talent or production staff.”
James went on to say: “I’m disappointed at this. I would have liked to have done better.”
Furthermore, Sam Sethi posted, in a X/tweet that has since been removed, comments that reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the Pact's intent and aims.
We have since received confirmation that the issues around representation of the event was brought to the organisers attention as early as February 2023.
Given this situation we believe that the intent of the pledge isn’t clear enough, and as champions making the audio industry as accessible as possible - and to prevent any further ambiguities - we're revising Pledge 4 to:
“4. No longer speak at events (and/or panels within those events) that are not representative of the cities, towns, and industries they take place in.”
An email has gone out to all signees of the pledge to make them aware of this change.
We would also like to take this time to celebrate and highlight that some EAP signees withdrew from speaking at the event, showing the pact gives the ability to make a difference, even through small actions.
Our regional leads met this week to discuss the implications of not adhering to our pledges. We tentatively agree with the position that if an organisation doesn't act upon a notified discrepancy, they may be delisted from the EAP without prejudice. They will be welcome to rejoin, however for transparency, additions and removals to our pact will be logged on our members page, which has also now been updated.