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Gay News: The BBC Trust rejects complaint about a headline on its website which asked the question, "Should homosexuals face execution?"
By: Nigel Robinson
BBC: headline was "too stark"
BBC: headline was "too stark"
BBC rejects "homosexual execution" complaint
The question was posted on a talkboard for the World Service programme Africa Have Your Say in December 2009, and was designed to encourage debate about Uganda’s proposal to introduce legislation which would impose the death penalty on homosexual acts.
The posting generated complaints, especially after a Twitter post had misquoted the headline as “Should homosexuals be executed?”, and gay and lesbian employees at the BBC successfully persuaded the World Service t5h change the headline, with World Service director Peter Horrocks agreeing that the headline had been “in hindsight, too stark”.
In its monthly report the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee agreed that the wording had been too stark and the fact it had not been immediately obvious what the headline was referring to had caused offence.
However, it goes on to say that “Mr Horrocks had apologised for any offence caused. The committee therefore concluded, with regard to the phrasing of the headline that, while it was agreed that the initial headline was an error – not only for its starkness but also because it did not make clear that the headlline referred specifically to Uganda – it recognised that BBC management had apologised promptly and this had resolved the issue.”
The Committee agreed that no further action was required.
