Another disagreement on Twitter

There was a Twitter exchange yesterday between Vote-Watch founder Jay Beecher and Green Party-supporting writer Tom Scott. I know some of you caught it:

Jay Beecher: Made the mistake of putting BBC Radio 4 on in my car. A young Asian woman was saying walking in the countryside 'isn't inclusive' because white people live there. "I like seeing the odd brown face - means there's less white people to kill me". The BBC - promoting racism again.

Tom Scott: You fail to mention that this was part of a comedy show in which every single absurd & *fictitious* character was making a variety of absurd & ridiculous observations. But hey - why bother with honesty when your sole aim is to smear the BBC?

I guessed that Tom would probably be correct, especially as he sounded so certain, but checked it out myself and found that Jay was actually closer to the truth. The 'comedy show' in question was a ragbag collection of things, some funnier than others [especially the Simon Evans bit]. One of the sections featured Poppy and Rubina from the Brown Girls Do It Too podcast - and one of those young Asian woman said pretty much what Jay Beecher said she said. They are actually real people with their own BBC Asian network-linked podcast - just like Jane Garvey and Fi Glover have a Radio 4-linked podcast - and their conversation on Slow Radio Comedy was genuine conversation reflecting their views. That's what they do, and that's what Radio 4 got them to do here. They are not “absurd & *fictitious* characters making a variety of absurd & ridiculous observations”. So when Tom accused Jay of dishonesty, he wasn't being fair. In fact, in his defence of the BBC, he looks to have strayed somewhat from the truth himself.