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6 hours ago
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The BBC breached its editorial standards when it broadcast a “highly offensive” racial slur during the Baftas, which was “unintentional”, a review has found, and made a “serious mistake” in not removing it immediately from iPlayer.
The broadcast containing the N-word remained on BBC iPlayer overnight before coverage was taken down. It had been said by John Davidson, the Tourette syndrome campaigner, who shouted it as Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan, the stars of the film Sinners, were on stage presenting an award.
The corporation has previously apologised for its handling of the 22 February incident, with producers overseeing the ceremony from an outside truck said not to have heard the slur. A review was undertaken by the broadcaster’s executive complaints unit (ECU).
The ECU findings, published on Wednesday, state that “the inclusion of the N-word in the broadcast (which was also streamed live on iPlayer) was highly offensive, had no editorial justification and represented a breach of the BBC’s editorial standards, but that the breach was unintentional”.
BBC’s editorial guidelines say: “Content that is potentially highly offensive will need the strongest editorial justification.”
A large number of complaints were made about the broadcast and the delay in taking it down from iPlayer. The ECU found the complaints showed “a high level of awareness” that it was an “involuntary” and blameless interjection by Davidson, author of I swear: My Life with Tourette’s which was the inspiration for the film which won the leading actor and casting awards and was also nominated for best film.
The review accepted the production team monitoring in the outside broadcast vehicle did not “hear or recognise” the N-word, because in the instance complained of it was “extremely indistinct”. Another occurrence of the N-word, 10 minutes later, was recognised and was immediately edited out, it said. “There is no reason to conclude they would have applied the protocols in one case while deliberately ignoring them in the other.”
However, the BBC received one complaint while the programme was still on air, and another very shortly afterwards, so it could not be said it was “entirely” unintelligible.
The fact it was not immediately edited out of iPlayer, and remained until the following morning, was a “serious mistake”, “aggravated the offence” and was another breach of editorial standards, the ECU said.
There was a lack of clarity as to whether the word was audible on the recording, which resulted in a delay before a decision was taken to remove it, which by then was being widely discussed on social media and the subject of broadcast news stories, it said.
The BBC’s chief content officer, Kate Phillips, told staff: “We take this matter extremely seriously and I wrote to Delroy Lindo, Michael B Jordan and John Davidson to apologise directly. In addition, I have written to Wunmi Mosaku [star of Sinners].
“We must learn from our mistakes and ensure our processes are as robust as they can be – particularly around our event broadcasts.”
She added: “I also want to acknowledge the hurt and upset this incident has caused for our colleagues and our audiences – and once again say how genuinely sorry I am.”
Complaints the BBC had misapplied editorial standards of impartiality by editing out remarks in the acceptance speech of Akinola Davies Jr including the words “free Palestine”, particularly in the light of the decision to retain slur, were not upheld.
The ECU found “that the production team’s decision did not hinge on considerations of impartiality”, and “the principal consideration was that approximately three hours of recorded material had to be edited to fit a two-hour transmission slot”. The ECU concluded that the editing of the speech did not raise an issue of editorial standards.
The BBC said pre-event assessment of potential on-air risks, mitigations and escalations was being strengthened, and the production set-up at major live events was being reviewed to ensure there is effective monitoring. The process for implementing the policy on revoking content on BBC iPlayer is also being re-communicated internally to ensure effective removal of programming from the service where necessary.
