He is known as the Bard of Barnsley and has long eulogised the beauty of regional dialects on his Radio Three programme The Verb.
Now South Yorkshire poet Ian McMillan is urging broadcasters to employ newsreaders who speak with northern accents.
The celebrity wordsmith – who still lives in the village where he grew up – said television bosses appeared to believe people outside the southeast could not “be trusted with t’autocue”.
He added that if the media truly wanted to help level up the country, it was crucial to have more presenters speaking in a similar dialect to viewers all over the country.
Writing in the Radio Times, he said: “The north is a ventriloquist’s dummy and the south is in control of the speaking mouth.