18 March 2021
Complaint
At 8.22 am on the day after polling day, an article was posted under the headline US Election 2020: Result goes to wire as Trump falsely claims fraud. A reader complained that this was inaccurate, as it could not be known at the time whether the claim of fraud was in fact false. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
The ECU accepted that, while it was accurate to report in the body of the article that the President had not provided an evidential basis for the doubt he had cast on the validity of the poll, neither the BBC nor any other media outlet was in a position to describe the claim as false (as distinct from unsupported), and the headline fell below the BBC’s standards of accuracy in that respect. However, the ECU noted that, by 8.46am, the word “falsely” had been removed from the headline to the article and from the short version of the headline in the site index. In the ECU’s judgement, the promptness of this action sufficed to resolve the issue of complaint.
Resolved
Complaint
At 8.22 am on the day after polling day, an article was posted under the headline US Election 2020: Result goes to wire as Trump falsely claims fraud. A reader complained that this was inaccurate, as it could not be known at the time whether the claim of fraud was in fact false. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
The ECU accepted that, while it was accurate to report in the body of the article that the President had not provided an evidential basis for the doubt he had cast on the validity of the poll, neither the BBC nor any other media outlet was in a position to describe the claim as false (as distinct from unsupported), and the headline fell below the BBC’s standards of accuracy in that respect. However, the ECU noted that, by 8.46am, the word “falsely” had been removed from the headline to the article and from the short version of the headline in the site index. In the ECU’s judgement, the promptness of this action sufficed to resolve the issue of complaint.
Resolved
