Sunday 5 December 2021

Antisemitism on Oxford Street - Another Update


So it wasn't just Harry Farley on the BBC News website. I've found via TVEyes Thursday's BBC London report on the incident on Oxford Street [18:40, BBC One]. BBC reporter Guy Lynn said:
The Metropolitan Police are treating this as an alleged hate crime and I should say though that we at BBC London did watch this footage and you can hear some racial slurs about Muslim people which does come from the bus. It is not clear at the moment from the person that said that what role that may have played in this incident.

So from that, it's evidently far from being just a couple of BBC reporters who got this so badly wrong, It's ''we at BBC London'' who watched the footage, misheard and misinterpreted the footage, and then used it in the BBC's television and online coverage. 

You can imagine the scene: They watch the footage in a BBC London studio. Someone thinks they heard a particular phrase that casts a bad light on the Jewish people on the bus and others are persuaded that they can hear it too. They don't double-check and triple-check with experts before broadcasting it and others just take their word for it, and it spreads from BBC tv to the BBC News website. Then, for some reason, BBC reporters use the plural ''slurs'' both online and on tv - something they later have to row back on, at least online, given that it was palpably untrue. 

So what now? A lot of people are absolutely furious at the BBC, and I'm sure they won't let the BBC off the hook over this.


P.S. Someone on Twitter made a point that struck me too, writing ''The inclusion of the Jewish witness is worse as the unqualified BBC's assertion next to her denial makes it seem like she is being dishonest.''

This was that passage:
Guy Lynn, BBC: We spoke to someone who was on the bus. 
Tamara Cohen: Pretty scared for myself. The way that it was escalating, I didn't want there to be any violence but obviously we weren't in that mindset which is why we got on the bus and we were starting to leave and then the people that were mocking us, they got close to the bus and started hitting the bus, they starting shouting out rude slurs. It was escalating pretty quickly. 
Guy Lynn, BBC: The Metropolitan Police are treating this as an alleged hate crime and I should say though that we at BBC London did watch this footage and you can hear some racial slurs about Muslim people which does come from the bus.

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