Last week we noted the unsatisfactory response we received from BBC Complaints concerning an inaccurate claim made in the December 26th edition of BBC Radio 4’s ‘World at One’.
Listeners to that programme were told by presenter Jonny Dymond that:
“More than 200 million Christians are at risk of persecution around the world – a number that has risen sharply over the past few decades according to the Foreign Office. In Christianity’s home – the Middle East – the numbers speak for themselves. Four fifths of Iraq’s Christians have fled or been killed. In Israel and the Palestinian territories as those following other religions have grown sharply in number, the Christian population has shrunk. Today the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt ordered a review into the persecuted Christians around the world and how much help they get from the UK.” [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
As stated BBC Watch submitted a second complaint and the reply received (also by complainant Mr Stephen Franklin) includes the following:
“Thank you for taking the time to contact us again. We are sorry to learn that you were not satisfied with our earlier response.
It was our intention to say that the figures within the region have been in decline over the last few decades, which is accurate, but on reflection we can see that that [sic] the way the script was worded meant listeners could have understood that we were referring to the present day state of Israel.
We have added a clarification to our Correction and Clarifications page to acknowledge the point: https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications”
That clarification reads as follows:
Unfortunately, however, despite that clarification the programme itself is currently still available online (from 07:24 here) in its original and inaccurate form and with no link provided to the clarification.
Related Articles:
BBC Radio 4’s inaccurate claim about Israel’s Christian community
The BBC’s response to a complaint about Christians in Israel
