Loyal readers with exceptional memories may recall this post from a couple of months ago:
Well, the BBC agrees with that and has ruled against Andrew Marr over this.
According to the Mail on Sunday, Fraser Steel, head of executive complaints at the BBC, has written to Jonathan Sacerdoti (in response to a complaint from him) saying:
The BBC’s guidelines require that output is “well sourced” and “based on sound evidence”.
In the absence of any evidence to support the reference to “lots” of children being killed at the time of transmission, it seems to us to have risked misleading audiences on a material point.
We therefore propose to uphold this part of your complaint.
Miraculous that the BBC might admit to anything...but that response is pathetically weak and unexceptable:
ReplyDelete1. The response makes it sound like while it might not be "lots" it might be "many" or "some" children being "killed" - and "killed" is itself a prejudicial usage (if not given any context, it will make the killer sound like the attacker).
2. It does not rule out the possibility that there might have been evidence to support Marr's assertion.
3. It is laughable that the guidelines demand claims made by its news and current affairs staff are "well sourced" and "based on sound evidence" when we know those guidelines are simply set to one side all the time.
4. I'd be interested in seeing Sacerdoti's complaint. Did it not reference anti-semitism? If so, if the BBC ignored that in their response they are providing an inqdequate response.
Whoops - spelling...unacceptable. My spelling was unacceptable.
DeleteIt does not seem that the BBC is motivated to see what might make a person think excess numbers of Palestinian children are not merely at risk, but have been slain. http://ifamericaknew.org/stat/children.html
ReplyDelete