Stacey Dooley, BBC Panorama and how not to apologise for a diversity mistake

I regularly write about how diversity and inclusion must be at the heart of everything broadcasters do and not just an “add-on” to their core programmes and policies.

This week the BBC has come under considerable fire for a Panorama investigation into "western" women involved in the Islamist group ISIS, titled “Stacey Meets the IS Brides”.    

In a short preview film shown the night before on the News at Ten reporter Stacey Dooley described watching “women raising their index finger in an IS salute". It was quickly pointed out by viewers that this interpretation of the hand gesture is misleading at best and is actually a symbol of Tawhid described by the Oxford Dictionary of Islam as a sign for “the unity and uniqueness of God as creator and sustainer of the Universe”.

The BBC quickly apologised and recut the Panorama so it did not include this mistake.

Now, many people have pointed out, myself included, that the mistake would seem to illustrate a lack of diversity in the editorial team at Panorama and the News and Ten. Specifically the lack of Muslim staff with decision making power to identify and rectify this mistake before it was broadcast.

The lack of diversity in high level decision making positions throughout the UK broadcasters’ news and current affairs is a massive problem. 

There is not a single major TV BBC news programme (Breakfast, One O’Clock News, Six O’Clock News, News at Ten, Newsnight, Panorama etc) which is headed by a person of colour or someone from a Muslim background. And to the best of my knowledge the same applies for all the UK terrestrial broadcasters - ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

However in this blog post I wanted to focus on another aspect of the recent Stacey Dooley Panorama furore. 

The incident serves as a case study of how not to apologise for a mistake and why the lack of diversity in the apology was a key failing.

First let’s look at the BBC's apology:

"We wrongly described a gesture made by women filmed in a Kurdish controlled detention camp in northern Syria as an 'IS salute'," a BBC spokesman said.

"While IS have attempted to adopt this for their own propaganda purposes, for accuracy we should have been clear that many people of Muslim faith use this gesture to signify the oneness of Allah.

"We apologise for this error and have removed this description from the footage."

When this did not stop the criticism of Panorama and Stacey Dooley the BBC News press office then published two linked tweets:

Let’s dissect what the BBC Press Office has got wrong and how it could have avoided these mistakes if it truly recognised how diversity should have been at the core of its response.

First of all, as a former BBC exec I have been involved in my fair share of drafting and approving apologies and public relations statements and so I have a little experience in this field.

The BBC says “It’s disappointing that criticism has focused on Stacey; every programme is a team effort, so the mistake wasn’t her responsibility.” 

This statement is just wrong. 

The BBC linked its tweet to an article by the Express reporting Janet Street Porter’s criticism of the Panorama programme on Loose Women. Janet Street Porter goes out of her way not to place the blame on Stacey Dooley saying “I blame the producer”. 

No one then takes responsibility for the mistake. Instead the BBC News press team diffuses responsibility blaming the whole “team effort”. Diffusion of responsibility does not make a problem go away. It demonstrates a lack of leadership and the inability of anyone to take responsibility. Personal responsibility sends out a strong statement.

If the editor of News at Ten or the executive producer of Panorama would have gone up to collect an award if the programme had won any gongs, then one of them should have personally taken responsibility for this mistake. 

It is that simple.

Then comes the diversity problem…

At the core of all the social media criticism of the Panorama investigation is the lack of diversity in the production team’s staff that could have allowed the mistake to happen.

If an organisation does not address the core issue, the apology and subsequent PR around the subject will not make the problem go away.

Therefore however painful it might be to the BBC they should have tackled the fundamental problem. 

If I were advising them I would have suggested the following:

"We understand there have been concerns about the lack of diversity in the production team that could have allowed this mistake to occur…” (Address the elephant in the room)

"...BBC News and Current Affairs has a good track record on BAME diversity with 15.6% of our staff coming from a BAME background..." (Use this as an opportunity to tell a good story about the BBC)

"...But there are clearly issues that need to be addressed, such as only 2.4% of News staff are Muslim compared to the UK population of as a whole of 5%, and we still need to look at BAME representation in key editorial positions...” (Acknowledge the problems people are talking about - validate people’s reality)

“...We have of course re-edited the Panorama programme and all related material not to include this mistake…” (Rectifying a mistake is standard practice and so the BBC should not act as if it has done anything special)

“...And more importantly we are seeing this as a valuable learning experience of how we cover these sensitive issues in the future so similar mistakes are not repeated.” (Demonstrate how you will rectify the broader issue)

Finally if the BBC really wanted to get extra brownie points it could add; “We have invited key experts to discuss with the production team how to cover religiously sensitive issues in the future”.

When I talk about diversity being at the very core of everything a broadcaster does this means; from the the point of hiring staff to commissioning programmes, from the point of making a programme to issuing public apologies. 

The inability of the BBC to properly address the diversity issue in its public statement around this issue seems to demonstrate that once again broadcasters have not yet grasped this fundamental lesson.

And most importantly it means some strong journalism has been completely overshadowed by the BBC's #DiversityFail.