The BBC breached its editorial standards when it broadcast a “highly offensive” racial slur during the Baftas ceremony in February, a review by the broadcaster’s executive complaints unit (ECU) has found. The N-word was shouted by John Davidson, a Tourette syndrome campaigner, as actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan presented an award. The corporation said the breach was unintentional but acknowledged a “serious mistake” in not removing the footage from iPlayer until the following morning.
The ECU findings, published on Wednesday, stated 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”. The BBC’s editorial guidelines require “the strongest editorial justification” for potentially highly offensive content.
The review accepted that production staff monitoring the live broadcast did not hear or recognise the slur because it was “extremely indistinct”. However, the BBC received one complaint while the programme was still on air and another shortly afterwards, leading the ECU to conclude the word was not “entirely” unintelligible. The delay in removing the content from iPlayer was deemed a “serious mistake” that “aggravated the offence”.
Kate Phillips, the BBC’s chief content officer, apologised directly to Lindo, Jordan and Davidson, as well as to actor Wunmi Mosaku. She said: “We take this matter extremely seriously… We must learn from our mistakes and ensure our processes are as robust as they can be – particularly around our event broadcasts.” The BBC is strengthening pre-event risk assessments and reviewing production setups for major live events.
Separately, the ECU did not uphold complaints that the BBC had misapplied impartiality standards by editing out remarks including “free Palestine” from Akinola Davies Jr’s acceptance speech. The decision was based on time constraints, not impartiality, the ECU found.
