Complaint
An item in the programme鈥檚 opening bulletin referred to the death of George Floyd and said it occurred during an encounter with white police officers. A viewer complained that this was inaccurate, and (in the light of the recurrence of the inaccuracy in other news programmes) possibly indicative of lack of impartiality. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the 麻豆社鈥檚 Editorial Guidelines on Accuracy and Impartiality.
Outcome
As only two of the four officers involved had been white, the ECU agreed that the reference to white police officers was materially inaccurate. 麻豆社 News, however, had already acknowledged the inaccuracy and went on to post corrections on the 麻豆社 website鈥檚 Corrections and Clarifications page about this and two other instances where the same mistake had been made. In the ECU鈥檚 view, this sufficed to resolve the issue of accuracy. The ECU did not agree that the mistake resulted in a breach of impartiality, as the salient fact in relation to the ethnicity of the police was that the officer who knelt on Mr Floyd鈥檚 neck was white.
Resolved/Not upheld