The Naga Saga

75 days ago, on BBC Breakfast, presenters Dan Walker and Naga Munchetty had a little filler chat on the red sofa. To this observer, it looked like a development of a pre-programme conversation, which may have even involved the show's duty editor. There was clear anger about the words President Trump had used in overnight Tweets, but, with an obvious awareness of guidelines, the pair thought they were being reasonably careful, focussing on Naga's response as a women of colour to phrases she'd heard before in her life. 

One persistent viewer disagreed.

"Dan Walker, whilst interviewing a guest about President Trump's recent tweets regarding 4 Democrat politicians in the USA, repeatedly expressed incredulity that anybody could defend Trump's tweets.

"Very unprofessionally, he then asked his fellow presenter Naga Munchetty for her personal opinions on this news story! She foolishly complied with his request and launched into an attack on Trump, including stating that she was personally 'furious' about his comments.

 "They are employed as presenters not political commentators and as such should at least feign impartiality. It's about time they were reminded of this."

We don't have the words used by the BBC to reject this complaint, but it probably noted the writer's 'general point', and may have even been a generic response, constructed within the complaints unit. Thus a second complaint, from the same viewer.

"'Dan Walker asked Naga Munchetty to comment SPECIFICALLY on the SPECIFIC tweet sent by a SPECIFIC person (President Trump). She said that she was SPECIFICALLY 'furious' about the SPECIFIC words used by that SPECIFIC person in a SPECIFIC tweet..... If you are content for your supposedly impartial presenters to make biased political statements, just say so. If you are not, then my complaint should be upheld and words of advice given "

We don't have the text of the third, formal complaint, directed to the Executive Complaints Unit, but we know that it didn't mention Dan Walker, for whatever reason.

The first leak of the ECU's judgement came a week ago. Last night, sometime after 7pm, the BBC's Director General Lord Hall emailed staff.

"The Executive Complaints Unit ruling has sparked an important debate about racism and its interpretation.

"Racism is racism and the BBC is not impartial on the topic. There was never a finding against Naga for what she said about the President's tweet.'

"Many of you asked that I personally review the decision of the ECU. I have done so. I have looked carefully at all the arguments that have been made and assessed all of the materials. I have also examined the complaint itself. It was only ever in a limited way that there was found to be a breach of our guidelines. These are often finely balanced and difficult judgments.

“But, in this instance, I don’t think Naga’s words were sufficient to merit a partial uphold of the complaint around the comments she made. There was never any sanction against Naga and I hope this step makes that absolutely clear. She is an exceptional journalist and presenter and I am proud that she works for the BBC.

“I have asked the editorial and leadership teams to discuss how we manage live exchanges on air around these topics in the future. Our impartiality is fundamental to our journalism and is what our audiences expect of us.”

Whilst a welcome change of heart, it falls short of apologising to Naga for what must have been a gruelling seven days.