A couple of days ago, I reported on the BBC’s interview with cerebal palsy sufferer Jody McIntryre, who’d been dumped out of his wheelchair during the student fees demonstration. Along with repeatedly asking McIntyre if he’d been throwing missiles (despite McIntyre saying he was incapable of doing so), Ben Brown offered the following gem, more than once:
There’s a suggestion you were rolling towards the police in your wheelchair.
The YouTube video going viral has resulted in the BBC’s Kevin Bakhurst responding on a BBC blog. Predictably (and sadly), Bakhurst defends the interview and offers no apology. In fact, he seems nonplussed regarding the fuss that’s been made about it.
I am aware that there is a web campaign encouraging people to complain to the BBC about the interview, the broad charge being that Ben Brown was too challenging in it.
In once sentence, Bakhurst manages to miss two points, which is some kind of record for anyone who’s not a politician. There’s no online campaign, just a viral video clip. And the broad charge has nothing to do with Brown being challenging—it’s to do with Brown repeatedly suggesting someone did something they are incapable of doing, showcasing either ignorance or extreme arrogance. Brown’s questioning was little different from repeatedly grilling a blind man on why he didn’t dodge something thrown at him. “You’re just making it up,” is a line one could almost have expected to hear next.
I have reviewed the interview a few times and I would suggest that we interviewed Mr McIntyre in the same way that we would have questioned any other interviewee in the same circumstances
This, at least, is pretty accurate. The BBC’s news output has been getting steadily worse for a number of years now. So, presumably, this is the way the BBC questions interviewees:
- Go into interview with clear agenda to ‘out’ interviewee in some way.
- Ask ‘challenging’ questions, hoping to get your story/agenda across.
- Ignore all responses, especially those counter to your agenda.
- Repeat until, hopefully, interviewee gets frustrated.
- End interview abruptly.
- Pull smug ‘I’ve won’ face.
BBC News should remember that it’s not Fox News. It should write it on its face using a Sharpie.
Bakhurst again:
Mr McIntyre was given several minutes of airtime to make a range of points, which he did forcefully
I’m not sure he did so ‘forcefully’; I’d say, given his condition, he did well in terms of clarity, and, given the nature of the repeated stupid questions, with a surprising amount of grace.
Mr McIntyre says during the interview that “personally he sees himself equal to anyone else” and we interviewed Mr McIntyre as we would interview anyone else in his position.
McIntyre isn’t equal to anyone else physically, though. He’s in a wheelchair, and is a cerebral palsy sufferer. This, Kevin Bakhurst, is the crux of people’s complaints, not that you were too rough in general on an activist or a disabled person. If Stephen Hawking was mugged, it would not be OK for Brown to say “did you punch your attacker in the face?” repeatedly, especially having already been told that the interviewee is incapable of such actions. But that’s more or less what Brown did, and what Bakhurst is now not fully understanding and yet is defending.