Prestwich_Blue
Well-Known Member
I've just escalated my two complaints to the Editorial Complaints Unit. The first was about Pete:
The other was about their blatant plugging of the rags' new "Tag Heuer Official Club Watch" costing £1,300:
We'll see what happens
I wish to escalate the above referenced complaint to the Editorial Complaints Unit due to the completely unsatisfactory and untruthful responses received to the initial complaint and for clear breaches of the Editorial Guidelines.
The summarised facts are as follows:
· On the morning of the Premier League match between Manchester City & Swansea, the BBC MOTD Facebook page published a picture of a recognisable and well-known Manchester City fan by the name of Pete Green.
· Pete is a City fan of very long-standing, is a friendly and articulate man but it’s believed he has Asperger’s Syndrome.
· The picture was captioned using the name “Bertie” which is a derogatory term used by some Manchester United fans to refer to Manchester City fans.
· There were numerous complaints from City fans (and one from the club itself I believe) about this and the caption was first changed to a less offensive one, then the picture was withdrawn completely from the page.
· Following formal complaints, the initial response was that the picture had been purchased from an agency with the offending caption already attached and that the significance of the term Bertie wasn’t understood.
· This was completely untruthful from whoever provided the response and it was easily shown that the picture had been sourced from the Press Association with a completely different caption and that the BBC Sport website had published a specific article about the use of the term “Bertie” about 12 months earlier.
· After a number of us replied to this insulting and untruthful response, pointing out the lies, the response changed to it being an “error”, a response which was only marginally less insulting and untrue as it must have been done deliberately by an employee or agent of the BBC in full knowledge that it was a derogatory term.
The original action, being on a publicly accessible Facebook page operated by the organisation, led to a number of offensive and insulting posts ridiculing Pete, who dresses in a very recognisable fashion along with a trademark lunch-box and ‘bum-bag’, from fans of other clubs. This alone was a clear breach of the Editorial Guideline regarding causing harm & offence to individuals.
The substance of this referral is that:
1. It’s quite obvious that someone did this deliberately (and sources tell me that the BBC management know who it was and that it was done with deliberate intent).
2. It was in clear breach of a number of editorial guidelines so one has to ask what editorial controls are in place and whether they are adequate.
3. There has been a concerted cover-up of this and bare-faced lies told to licence paying viewers.
There needs to be a full investigation (although I’m told that happened quite quickly if my sources are correct), the individual responsible identified and dealt with appropriately under your disciplinary code and serious questions asked as to why blatant and easily discoverable lies were told in an attempt to evade admitting the true situation.
The other was about their blatant plugging of the rags' new "Tag Heuer Official Club Watch" costing £1,300:
Having received a second unsatisfactory response to the above referenced complaint, I believe I can now escalate it to the Editorial Complaints Unit (although the response to my second complaint didn’t mention this). This complaint was about blatant advertising via a number of BBC web-based outlets, in particular contravention of section 14.4.4 of the Editorial Guidelines.
This complaint arose from a commercial promotion put on by Manchester United at Old Trafford, in respect of their partnership with Tag Heuer, the Swiss watch company. A BBC Sport reporter, Simon Stone, went along to cover this event which was promoting the launch of an “Official Club Watch” retailing at £1,300. The event consisted of players competing to score the highest number of points from kicking a ball around a large enclosure designed to look like a Tag Heuer watch. This was prominently branded and there were a number of videos and photographs on the reporter’s Twitter timeline. That alone broke the guideline on undue brand prominence in my opinion as there was no real editorial justification for publicising this event. I received a response saying there was great interest in the growth of United’s commercial revenues but this was quite simply a promotional event for a specific product from a specific club partner.
The following day saw the release of Manchester United’s second quarter (and therefore half-year) figures and there is clearly undeniable editorial justification for reporting these. However the article (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38904511) included a blatant plug for the watch, which was completely unnecessary in the context of the results announcement. Having spoken to some relevant sources, I believe it’s customary for attendees to be invited to such events on condition that they plug the product or brand being promoted. While that’s acceptable for a commercial media outlet, there can be no excuse for the BBC to agree to such an explicit piece of product promotion. In fact I’m not sure I’ve even ever seen anything so overt on the BBC in respect of a commercial product being promoted by a third party.
Simon (who I know having dealt with him when he was at the Press Association in the past) attempted to justify his attendance on the grounds that they were offered interviews with first team players but it seems these didn’t actually materialise. Even if they had, there was still no connection between this prospect and the blatant advert for Tag Heuer attached to Bill Wilson’s report. I’ve no issue with him attending any event but that should not lead to what is in my view a clear breach of Editorial Guideline 14.
We'll see what happens