Former Editor For GRAMMY’s Website Exposes The Recording Academy’s Alleged Bias Against BTS

A former managing editor for the GRAMMY Awards‘ official website, GRAMMY.com, is speaking up about The Recording Academy‘s alleged bias against BTS in the media.

| Big Hit Entertainment

This year, BTS’s “Dynamite” was up for their first-ever GRAMMY award, “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance”. Although the song was a very strong contender, the award went to Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande for their upbeat dance-pop collaboration, “Rain On Me.”

BTS accepted the results humbly and graciously, promising to try again next year, but the GRAMMYs’ decision has received criticism from fans, some of whom believe that racial bias played a role in the voting process.

I just want BTS to know they’ve done the most. They’ve worked so hard. This goes for all POC artists snubbed today. This was not because they didn’t do enough, this was bc of an archaic & backwards institution still adhering to racist principles. That’s all.

— fatima (@fatimafarha_) March 14, 2021

Them nominating bts for views and not giving them an award feels extremely racist to me

— ann ♡︎’s bey ¹ᴰ (@hestyles294) March 14, 2021

Now, former GRAMMY.com managing editor Rachel Brodsky is giving an inside look at what went on behind the scenes leading up to the GRAMMY Awards. She called BTS a “pain point”, claiming that The Recording Academy discouraged her from writing about BTS.

When asked if any rationale was given for the “passive-aggressive” pushback, she recalled being told that less should be written about BTS because they were not GRAMMY winners but GRAMMY hopefuls. She also noted, however, that this guideline was unclear to begin with.

Rachel Brodsky also touched on another sore point for fans; the fact that BTS was heavily used to promote the GRAMMY Awards. Many fans felt that the GRAMMYs promoted BTS solely to drive up the show’s traffic.

Billboard‘s K-Pop columnist Jeff Benjamin has also weighed in on the ongoing bias in the press, stating that many places, “turned down or wanted to heavily alter stories about BTS.” 

And it's still a pain point for some publications, can't tell you how many places turned down or wanted to heavily alter stories about BTS so the opportunities were lost. Shoutout to the writers and editors doing the work to push through though, we know who won in the end https://t.co/4UbBXEDytz

— Jeff Benjamin (@Jeff__Benjamin) March 16, 2021

Read more about BTS at the GRAMMYs here:

BTS Performs “Dynamite” At The 63rd GRAMMY Awards