The Sun, which has attacked the BBC for discriminating against white people over the past few days, has employed two interns so far this year from a graduate training scheme only open to black, Asian and other people from minority ethnic backgrounds.

People working with Creative Access, a not-for-profit set up to provide internships for under-represented groups in the media, have told the Guardian of their disappointment at the newspaper’s attack on the BBC, particularly given the support of parent company News Corp.

“News Corp has been incredibly supportive this year … it’s sort of unbelievable what’s going on,” said one insider who refused to be named.

Set up four years ago to help under-represented people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds into the media industries amid increasing criticism of a lack of diversity from parliament and elsewhere, Creative Access placed its 500th intern earlier this year.

The Sun accused the BBC of being “anti-white” in a front page headline last Friday after the corporation advertised two £25,000 junior scriptwriting roles for shows such as Holby City which called only for people from “ethnic minority backgrounds” to apply.

The Creative Access Trainee Scheme was one of four minority recruitment drives at the BBC named in the Sun article.

After the BBC defended itself by saying it was allowed to target minorities for traineeships because they are under-represented, the Sun returned to the issue on Monday having found another example of an unnamed producer at The One Show looking for a BAME presenter.

In its leader, the Sun said the BBC was wrong to think it can could stamp out discrimination “with more discrimination”. The Sun went on to argue that it was “illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their ethnicity or where they were born”.

The BBC denied that the call was a job advert. “We use dozens of freelance reporters on the One Show each year and we are seeking to encourage a wider pool of people to consider making a contribution. All casting decisions are based on merit.”

Staff and board members at Creative Access said they have been subject to a huge increase in online abuse over recent weeks over the suggestion that the internships it organises at media companies were “anti-white”. “We used to get an abusive email or tweet about once a month and now its four times a day,” said one employee, who asked not to be named.



The attacks kicked off when Katie Hopkins expressed her outrage in the Mail Online over what she called “a very modern form of discrimination” where “it doesn’t help to be white”. In the article, she said she had spoken to the founder of Creative Access, Michael Foster.

The Sun has run a string of negative stories about the BBC and its management in the run-up to and since last month’s white paper on the future of the corporation.

A Sun spokesperson said: “The Sun is happy to support Creative Access and efforts to increase diversity in the media. However, as this and several other recent stories in the Sun have shown, the BBC has a track record of restricting roles to specific ethnic backgrounds.”

While positive discrimination is outlawed in the UK, the European Convention on Human Rights and media regulator Ofcom last year produced guidance which suggested that some form of positive action could be allowed to provide training in industries where people from BAME backgrounds are significantly under-represented.

Figures from the last census showed that while 40% of Londoners are non-white and 25% of young people nationally, ethnic minority representation in the media and related industries has fallen in recent years to just 5.4%, according to the Employment Census published by Skillset in July 2013. In the UK as a whole, the population is about 86% white and 14% BAME.

The BBC’s own figures suggest that 13% of all UK staff are from BAME backgrounds, although it is not clear how senior those roles are.