Promotion for BBC News Channel anti-UKIP tweeter

Well, here's a thing (with a firm tip of the hat to Biased BBC)!...

Do you remember Jasmine Lawrence (known at the BBC as Jasmine Williams), the BBC News Channel editor who was taken off election duties for the BBC and forced to delete her Twitter feed during the 2014 local elections after tweeting the following to the world (in breach of the BBC's editorial guidelines)?:

#WhyImVotingUkip – to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today— 

Jasmine Lawrence (@journomummy) May 21, 2014

Well, James Stephenson, News Editor for BBC News and Current Affairs, has (Biased BBC informs us) now sent out an email to BBC staff:

Dear all, 

I am delighted to announce that Jasmine Williams has been appointed as Deputy News Editor on a year’s attachment. She is currently an Assistant Editor on the News Channel, where she has combined editing with a substantial planning role. Jasmine has a wealth of experience working across platforms as a news editor and deployment editor on the desk, planning editor and assignment editor. 

Jasmine will be sharing the weekend news editor role and the planning editor role with Toby Castle, rotating between the two sides of the job each month. She will be taking up her new role in May. 

James

 Just in time for the EU referendum!

Head of Newsroom tells BBC staff: "Don't do anything stupid!"

This is now...

The upshot of DB's latest fine work in highlighting bias at the BBC through the tweets of BBC journalist - the Jasmine Lawrence affair, taken up by Guido Fawkes, the Daily Mail and the Huff Post - is that the Head of the BBC Newsroom, Mary Hockaday, has now sent an e-mail to BBC staff warning them "Don't do anything stupid!" on social media.

The Guardian quotes her saying the following:

Social media is now a vital part of our work, allowing us to get our journalism to new audiences, connect with people, and gather news as it happens.

But the guidance is clear when it comes to personal activity: 'As a BBC member of staff – and especially as someone who works in News – there are particular considerations to bear in mind. They can all be summarised as: 'Don't do anything stupid.'

"I'd also specifically draw your attention to the following section: 'You shouldn't state your political preferences or say anything that compromises your impartiality. Don't sound off about things in an openly partisan way. Don't be seduced by the informality of social media into bringing the BBC into disrepute.'

Anti-UKIP BBC editor Jasmine Lawrence, who broke that guidance, subsequently deleted her Twitter account and was taken of the BBC's election coverage. The BBC have also apparently launched an investigation in the affair.

This isn't DB's first scoop by any means. In fact, one of his earlier scoops foreshadows this one to quite a remarkable extent.

Please cast your minds back to October 2010 [ah, I remember it well!] and you find DB busting another BBC editor, Rachel Kennedy, for politically-loaded tweets [an anti-Mrs Thatcher tweet especially]. 

...and that was then

Again Guido Fawkes took up DB's scoop, and the story spread to the Spectator. Then, again, and just as swiftly as this time, the Head of BBC News at the time, Helen Boaden, sent out an e-mail to her staff:

Dear All,

We have had some occasions recently of BBC News staff using social networking sites to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy and the future of the BBC. Unsurprisingly, these have been picked up by the wider web and used to discredit the BBC and its impartiality. We have Editorial Guidelines which cover the personal use of the internet …which everyone should observe. We also have brains and judgement which I suggest people fully engage before rushing to communicate. Hx

The chatty tone of that e-mail obviously didn't hit home hard enough. BBC News staff kept on using social networking sites "to share with the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters of public policy" in the following years - the evidence for which can be found in DB and David Preiser's massive In Their Own Tweets archive over at Biased BBC - and now Helen B's successor has had to tell them off all over again. 

Maybe Mary Hockaday's more schoolmarmish tone will hit home harder. Or maybe not.

I rather suspect that DB will have many more scoops, thanks to the 'rush to communicate' without 'brains' or 'judgement' of so many incautious BBC tweeters. 

Anti-UKIP BBC News Channel editor taken off BBC's election coverage

Back on the Jasmine Lawrence story, the Daily Mail has more reaction: 

Mrs Lawrence had been due to help lead BBC News coverage of today’s local and European elections, but the corporation last night said she had been removed from that role as it launched an internal investigation. 

A BBC spokesman said: 'Jasmine Lawrence was tweeting from a personal account. She has been reminded of her responsibilities to uphold BBC guidelines. She has deactivated her Twitter account and will now be playing now part in the BBC's election coverage in coming days.'

Last night, Mr Farage called for Ms Lawrence to be removed from her post.

He said: ‘We have seen during this campaign a lack of debating the real issues of the European Election by the other parties.

‘Now for this senior figure in the BBC to show such prejudice when she works for the public service broadcaster is astonishing.

‘If the BBC are serious about challenging bias she should be fired immediately.’

Update: In an earlier post I wrote, "Guido Fawkes has 'done a DB' (internet slang, 'to catch out a BBC reporter/editor's bias by monitoring their Tweets')".

Actually he hadn't. DB himself had 'done a DB' and then gifted it to Guido. 

As he himself writes at Biased BBC, 

I have fewer than 170 followers on Twitter but in the past week I’ve forced one senior BBC journalist [Mantej Deol] to apologise for tweeting nasty remarks about a Tory MP and made a BBC editor delete her entire Twitter account. I would urge any of you not on Twitter to sign up – doesn’t matter how few followers you have, if you use your account wisely you can make a difference.

DB has been using his account wisely for some time, and scored many goals against the biased BBC. Like it or not, Twitter really is one of the best ways of taking the fight to the BBC.


Further update: DB's scoop was also reported at (of all places) the Huffington Post UK. 

An anti-UKIP BBC News Channel editor exits Twitter left, pursued by a bear

Guido Fawkes has 'done a DB' (internet slang, 'to catch out a BBC reporter/editor's bias by monitoring their Tweets'). 

The BBC editor he's caught out is Jasmine Lawrence, a BBC News Channel assistant editor whose Linkedin profile boasts "I have impeccable editorial judgment (sic)."  

According to Mr F, her Twitter feed apparently "largely consists of retweets of Labour MPs and left-wing journalists" and... 

Today she has been sharing her thoughts on UKIP, joining those using the anti-UKIP parody #WhyImVotingUKIP hashtag to attack the party:

#WhyImVotingUkip – to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today— 

Jasmine Lawrence (@journomummy) May 21, 2014

Guido makes the obvious point:

The BBC’s Charter requires its journalists to be impartial, something you would have thought they might be particularly careful about at election time. For such a senior BBC journalist to openly broadcast an attack on a political party the day before an election is inappropriate to put it mildly…

Guido is yet to update his post with the breaking news that Jasmine Lawrence's Twitter account has disappeared. She has left Twitter. 

Whether she leaped or whether she was pushed by the BBC is hard to know, but if I were her I'd have left Twitter pretty sharpish too.

What will her bosses at the BBC do though?


Update 22/5:

BBC Gags Anti-UKIP News Editor After Media Guido Story » BBC bans her from tweeting and Euro-election reporting. #Winning ++ MORE FOLLOWS ++
— Media Guido (@MediaGuido) May 21, 2014