A few months ago, diversity campaigner Simon Albury visited the Today programme and was shocked to find a very white, male, middle-class production team running things. The only person of colour there was the bloke asking if he wanted coffee or tea. But why did this matter? It mattered because what Simon realised and exposed that day was that the news in Britain comes from one perspective. A perspective that is almost exclusively white, and predominantly male.

So Tuesday morning’s show was a big deal for me. I was guest editor – yes Lenny Henry, the man who used to say “Katanga my friends” – in charge of curating the entire show. In short, I had a unique opportunity to explore what the news agenda would look like if it came from a more diverse perspective. Coupled with this, the Beeb pulled out all the stops to make the production team the most diasporic/diverse/multiracial team they’ve ever had. I contributed pieces on young people playing jazz; the new approach to diversity in comics produced by DC, Marvel and others; Ukip; culture secretary Sajid Javid; and also a feature called “Firsts”, about some of the diverse, diasporic pioneers in the television and film industry.

I was very nervous. I knew that the listening public can judge the guest-editing of their flagship news programme harshly. On Tuesday, Twitter was ablaze with criticisms of my tenure and choice of subject matter. There was a lot of “Len’s a racist”, “Len’s got a chip on his shoulder”, too. One stood out: “The sooner Lenny Henry gets Ebola the better.” I could have taken it personally, but what this reaction told me was just how unusual a diverse perspective on the news – that doesn’t come from the typical white, middle-class man – can be, and what a shock to the system it is.

The irony is that I don’t mind being criticised for editing the Today programme. The fact is, I’m a comedian. I shouldn’t be editing the Today programme. I don’t have the necessary skills, judgment and insight required to do a fantastic job. But the other fact is that there are many other black and Asian people with those necessary skills who are simply not getting the breaks.

Black people, Asians and minority ethnics make up 14.3% of the UK’s population. London is 40% Bame. Yet employment of Bame in the creative industries has fallen to 5.4% – the lowest it’s ever been. Since 2009, about 2,000 Bame people have left the industry. In this same period, employment has grown by 4,000. That means, statistically, for every black and Asian that has left the industry, two white people have been given employment.

So how do we make sure that a Bame person editing the Today programme, or any other news programme for that matter, is not a special event? How do we make sure that the other 364 days of news do not consistently come from a white, middle-class, male perspective?

Whenever I have these conversations about “how”, someone from a non-diverse background starts talking about avoiding quotas and box-ticking, and emphasising the importance of employing people on their merits. They often play to my ego. They say “Lenny, you were talented and that’s why you made it. Why should someone that’s not talented get the gig just because of the colour of their skin or gender?” As I said in my Bafta speech in March, and have repeatedly said since, I believe the solution – the “how” – is indeed all about employing people on their merits. What I find frustrating is the complete absence of opportunity in some fields.

Whereas I have only dipped my toe into news, I know much more about another part of the creative industries – acting. And here in the UK, work has simply dried up for Bame actors. People such as David Oyelowo, Idris Elba, Thandie Newton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Cush Jumbo aren’t getting the offers one might expect. Colour-blind casting hasn’t quite caught on in the UK, so jobs in high-end drama are dribbling away. It’s all about supply and demand: until those in charge of deciding who gets to make what programme when and with whom come from a Bame background, we won’t get a Bame Pride and Prejudice or Middlemarch any time soon.

Having spoken to several Bame friends working in UK news and current affairs, I can tell you that the frustrations of actors are no exception. My experience on the Today programme, and the audience’s reaction to it, proved it. However, the minute a decision-maker chooses to open staffing up – says “Maybe we should have this cool Muslim director/London-Ghanaian writer/eastern European production designer” – suddenly the idea of creating an atmosphere where more than the establishment point of view prevails becomes attractive, which is why inclusivity for all comers is the future.

Imagine if there was a ethnically diverse group of executives or LGBT or disabled staff. It would certainly undo some of the damage done in the past three years. The solution I continue to believe will work is for all the broadcasters to ringfence money for Bame productions. These could be made by independent companies or a production team within a larger organisation, such as the Today team at the BBC.

The Today programme’s subject matter and crewing of Tuesday morning’s show were groundbreaking – there were Bame participants from all walks of life and, apart from the usual news, sport and weather, several items handpicked by me about things that I believe Bame people are concerned about at the moment – Ukip, the death of real music, diversity in comics, to name a few.

The final interview, where I was interrogated about my views on diversity, was combative to say the least; I felt as though I was being called to account for spoiling everyone’s Christmas. The fact that my interrogators – Nkem Ifejika and Mishal Husain – were of African and Pakistani origins was a minor triumph in itself, proving the strength of their journalistic integrity.

Overall I enjoyed guest-editing the programme and would do it again. But I would much rather that, instead of one special day, Radio 4 listeners had the opportunity to hear and understand my perspective, through the capable and talented hands of a Bame crew like the one I worked with on Tuesday, for the rest of the year. And I believe that will only happen if the BBC and others adopt the Henry plan. Let’s hope someone out there really was listening.