The BBC has ruled that the BAFTA N-word debacle breached its editorial standards but in a way that was “unintentional.”
The broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit had been examining the SNAFU over the past few weeks, which saw the N-word yelled unintentionally by Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson at the stars of Sinners remain in the broadcast version of the show and on iPlayer for more than 12 hours.
The BBC probed why the slur was broadcast, why it wasn’t edited out from the broadcast version due to the two-hour time delay and how it remained on iPlayer for so long.
On the first two points it ruled 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.” On the third, it also ruled there was a “breach” and “the fact that the unedited recording remained available for so long aggravated the offence caused by the inadvertent inclusion of the n-word in the broadcast.”
The BBC threw out complaints around the issue of Akinola Davies Jr’s acceptance speech, which was edited for length including removing comments about Palestine. Regarding the speech, the BBC said the team’s “principal consideration was that approximately three hours of recorded material had to be edited to fit a two-hour transmission slot.”