Do the names of Joy Gardner, Sheku Bayoh and Sarah Reed mean anything to you? I readily admit that until I read an article by Kiri Kankhwende I couldn’t place them.

Shamefully, they had passed under my radar. Perhaps I could be forgiven for failing to recall the death in police custody of Joy Gardner because it happened in 1993.

But Sheku Bayoh’s death after being detained by the police happened in May 2015. And Sarah Reed died in prison as recently as January 2016. Surely I should have remembered something of them because, in all three cases, their deaths were controversial?

My failure to know is also the media’s failure to report, which is the central point of Kankhwende’s challenging piece on openDemocracy.net, #BlackLivesMatter in Britain too: why does our media care less?

We are not having a national conversation about these deaths, she writes, because “where race is a factor or an issue affects minorities, the media is unable or unwilling to grasp the nettle.” She continues:

“Some might say that deaths in custody do not have a high profile in public discourse, but when it comes to immigration, an issue we never stop talking about, the voices of migrants, including ethnic minorities, are missing from media coverage. Race is not the only factor at play here, but it is a factor.”

She compares the poor coverage given here to similar cases in the United States where African-Americans “are able to speak for themselves”, not just on social media, but in the mainstream media too, including national TV news networks.

Diverse voices are not heard often enough in the UK, she contends. Political analysis is often left to white men. One reason: she cites a City University London survey which revealed that British journalism is 94% white. She writes:

“Ethnic minorities are under-represented relative to their percentage of the population... British newsrooms need to get their own house in order and go further to include Britain’s diverse voices in both news coverage and political analysis. The BBC in particular, as the national broadcaster, has a duty to reflect Britain back to itself and the world.”

And one of those reflections would be to register the fact that a disproportionate number of those who die in or following police custody are from black and ethnic minority communities.

Although the Guardian carried a report about Sarah Reed’s death, in which is raised questions about her treatment by the police, what was lacking was “sustained media attention” on her case.

Kankhwende, a journalist who is also special projects manager at Media Diversified, believes it is the BBC’s responsibility to redress the balance: “They could start by making sure that even if migrant voices are not heard by the newspapers, they are included more often in BBC reports and programmes.”

She does give credit to the BBC (and the Guardian) for recognising that the problem exists, but calls for greater diversity in the media, not as “an exercise in window dressing” but in order to tell “Britain’s story in full.”

She concludes: “There is scope for more to be done to enlist diverse storytellers and commentators on the country’s flagship political programmes on the BBC.

“As the public broadcaster, it is uniquely placed to facilitate better conversations which not only tell the world who we are, but also reflect Britain’s story and identity back to us.”

• This article was amended on 11 August 2016 to remove incorrect figures for deaths in police custody.