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Naga Munchetty reprimanded by the BBC

droodzilla

droodzilla

pfm Member
Maybe this deserves a thread in its own right. If not, please merge wherever it's most appropriate.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/25/bbcs-naga-munchetty-reprimanded-over-trump-criticism

Of all the spineless decisions taken by the BBC in recent times, this must be one of the very worst. Telling black people to "go home" is objectively, archetypically racist and only a racist would have a problem with a TV presenter saying so.

The BBC might have lost its moral and intellectual compass but at least these people haven't:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...no-such-thing-as-impartiality-open-letter-bbc

Meanwhile, the BBC continues to platform the far-right, while doing the "both sides are as bad as each other" shuffle.
 
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Great to see so much push back on this. Between this, the doxxing of members of the public and the debates about whether or not Johnson should break the law, the BBC has jumped the shark. I’d be amazed if they climbed down on this though: the sense of entitlement defines them, it’s impossible for them to be wrong about anything. That’s a long-standing problem, and recently they’ve basically been taken over by the Tories in terms of senior personnel.

They’re capable of reform but not of reforming themselves.
 
droodzilla said:
Maybe this deserves a thread in its own right. If not, please merge wherever it's most appropriate.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/25/bbcs-naga-munchetty-reprimanded-over-trump-criticism

Of all the spineless decisions taken by the BBC in recent times, this must be one of the very worst. Telling black people to "go home" is objectively, archetypically racist and only racist would have a problem with a TV presenter saying so.

The BBC might have lost its moral and intellectual compass but at least these people haven't:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...no-such-thing-as-impartiality-open-letter-bbc

Meanwhile, the BBC continues to platform the far-right, while doing the "both sides are as bad as each other" shuffle.
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Don't forget how they are uniquely funded.... so they can pay millions to the people they illegally accuse of doing things they haven't done. The BBC is a travesty and needs dismantling!
 
myles said:
****ing BBC are cowards. There isn't one word of untruth in what she said.
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They didn't criticise her furious reaction to racism, as I understand it, or even disagree with it, just her expressing an opinion on Trumps motives. Her anger at racism is commendable, just not expressing an opinion on someone's motives. That is our job, not the newsreader's.
 
farfromthesun said:
This about sums it up: https://twitter.com/TheIDSmiths/status/1177561290799288320
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Except that the BBC is not reprimanding her for saying what is in that tweet, nor is it reprimanding her for stating that "go home" is said by racists.

She is being reprimanded for breaking editorial guidelines that a journalist giving an opinion on someone's motive which IMHO is a sound rule to go some way to preserving objectivity. If you think the BBC is wrong, then get them to change the guidelines, although if reporters are then allowed to speak their mind, it'll end up like the rest of the press that you rightly identify as being very partisan.
 
A man who commits robbery is a called a robber.


A man who commits murder is called a murderer.


What do you call a man who uses racist language?

No, it's not racist. It's a man who uses racist language.




Maybe we should flood http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
 
awkwardbydesign said:
They didn't criticise her furious reaction to racism, as I understand it, or even disagree with it, just her expressing an opinion on Trumps motives. Her anger at racism is commendable, just not expressing an opinion on someone's motives. That is our job, not the newsreader's.
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Seeker_UK said:
Except that the BBC is not reprimanding her for saying what is in that tweet, nor is it reprimanding her for stating that "go home" is said by racists.

She is being reprimanded for breaking editorial guidelines that a journalist giving an opinion on someone's motive which IMHO is a sound rule to go some way to preserving objectivity. If you think the BBC is wrong, then get them to change the guidelines, although if reporters are then allowed to speak their mind, it'll end up like the rest of the press that you rightly identify as being very partisan.
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White, male presenters do that all the time. Plus, she didn't actually do that. Here's what she said: she's “absolutely furious a man in that position thinks it’s OK to skirt the lines by using language like that”. I mean, he said it, so I guess he thinks it's ok to say it - she's hardly imputing some hidden motive. And even if she were, in this context - a world leader saying something racist - it's just ludicrous to insist that she doesn't have the right to suggest that he intended it to be racist. We know he did!

The letter is dead right. It's not reasonable to expect the BBC or its staff, let alone BAME staff, to be impartial on the question of racism. If racists end up as VIPs that presents some dilemmas for journalists and broadcasters, but Jesus, is it too much to ask that they think things through and do the right thing?
 
Seanm said:
White, male presenters do that all the time. Plus, she didn't actually do that. Here's what she said: she's “absolutely furious a man in that position thinks it’s OK to skirt the lines by using language like that”. I mean, he said it, so I guess he thinks it's ok to say it - she's hardly imputing some hidden motive. And even if she were, in this context - a world leader saying something racist - it's just ludicrous to insist that she doesn't have the right to suggest that he intended it to be racist. We know he did!

The letter is dead right. It's not reasonable to expect the BBC or its staff, let alone BAME staff, to be impartial on the question of racism. If racists end up as VIPs that presents some dilemmas for journalists and broadcasters, but Jesus, is it too much to ask that they think things through and do the right thing?
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It's not as though she is casting her opinion on whether it was a racist comment - it stands out a country mile. She just overlaid her personal experience with prompting from her co presenter.
 
Seanm said:
White, male presenters do that all the time.
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To borrow from a well known phrase; a multitude of wrongs does not make a right.

Seanm said:
Plus, she didn't actually do that. Here's what she said: she's “absolutely furious a man in that position thinks it’s OK to skirt the lines by using language like that”. I mean, he said it, so I guess he thinks it's ok to say it - she's hardly imputing some hidden motive. And even if she were, in this context - a world leader saying something racist - it's just ludicrous to insist that she doesn't have the right to suggest that he intended it to be racist. We know he did!

The letter is dead right. It's not reasonable to expect the BBC or its staff, let alone BAME staff, to be impartial on the question of racism. If racists end up as VIPs that presents some dilemmas for journalists and broadcasters, but Jesus, is it too much to ask that they think things through and do the right thing?
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But herein lies a problem (well in my simple mind anyway). I think we can all agree that it was almost a dead cert that she was correct in saying there were racist motivation behind Trump making the statement so it might be OK to let it pass. When might it not be OK to let newsreaders cast judgement on subjects of news items? You simply cannot have a national broadcaster making judgements on the character of world leaders or major figures global figures and that's reflected in the BBC's rules.

What the BBC has failed to do is to deal with the judgement. It could have done a lot more to emphasise their support for her, their views on racism and stand by all she said bar the offending statement. For example, on Today, they were on safe ground to say that (a) "Go home" is the language of racists and (b) Donald Trump said it - it just leaves it up to the listener to join the dots.
 
Seeker_UK said:
To borrow from a well known phrase; a multitude of wrongs does not make a right.



But herein lies a problem (well in my simple mind anyway). I think we can all agree that it was almost a dead cert that she was correct in saying there were racist motivation behind Trump making the statement so it might be OK to let it pass. When might it not be OK to let newsreaders cast judgement on subjects of news items? You simply cannot have a national broadcaster making judgements on the character of world leaders or major figures global figures and that's reflected in the BBC's rules.

What the BBC has failed to do is to deal with the judgement. It could have done a lot more to emphasise their support for her, their views on racism and stand by all she said bar the offending statement. For example, on Today, they were on safe ground to say that (a) "Go home" is the language of racists and (b) Donald Trump said it - it just leaves it up to the listener to join the dots.
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Well again, she didn't actually say anything about his motivation: that's a reach by the BBC to try and weasel it's way out of a tight spot. It's almost the worst thing about all of this: they've come very close to just straightforwardly making stuff up.

Secondly it's not like she was reading the news: this was one of those let's-have-a-chat-about-world-events segments, when her co-host explicitly asked her to say as a black woman what she felt about all of this, and what her judgement was. It's entirely appropriate to the format and if it weren't then surely her (white, male) co-host should have been reprimanded too.

Thirdly: are the BBC to remain impartial on racism or not? Because if not, then the fact that it's a world leader being racist really makes it all the more important to speak up, I'd have thought. The rules aren't handed down by God: when the world (or formats) change, they need to take a view.

Finally, again, this is absolutely run of the mill stuff for white male presenters, and for an organisation to remember that rules are rules rather than shall we say guidelines only in the case of black women is one of the hallmarks of institutional racism and misogyny.

This is all round grotesque stuff and the BBC has a lot of soul-searching to do. Which it won't do, because it believes itself to be beyond reproach: there is no more entitled institution in the whole of the UK, which basically runs on a sense of entitlement. It needs reform real bad, or it's going to give the whole idea of public service broadcasting a bad name.
 
Seanm said:
Well again, she didn't actually say anything about his motivation: that's a reach by the BBC to try and weasel it's way out of a tight spot. It's almost the worst thing about all of this: they've come very close to just straightforwardly making stuff up.

Secondly it's not like she was reading the news: this was one of those let's-have-a-chat-about-world-events segments, when her co-host explicitly asked her to say as a black woman what she felt about all of this, and what her judgement was. It's entirely appropriate to the format and if it weren't then surely her (white, male) co-host should have been reprimanded too.

Thirdly: are the BBC to remain impartial on racism or not? Because if not, then the fact that it's a world leader being racist really makes it all the more important to speak up, I'd have thought. The rules aren't handed down by God: when the world (or formats) change, they need to take a view.

Finally, again, this is absolutely run of the mill stuff for white male presenters, and for an organisation to remember that rules are rules rather than shall we say guidelines only in the case of black women is one of the hallmarks of institutional racism and misogyny.

This is all round grotesque stuff and the BBC has a lot of soul-searching to do. Which it won't do, because it believes itself to be beyond reproach: there is no more entitled institution in the whole of the UK, which basically runs on a sense of entitlement. It needs reform real bad, or it's going to give the whole idea of public service broadcasting a bad name.
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Great post.
 
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