Newsbeat, fairness and myths

 

Guest post from Rape Crisis and EVAW.

Wo hands’s organisations sent the fol depleteding illness to the BBC close to(predicate) the BBC Newsbeat shocking coverage of a Crown savage prosecution Service ( bike) taradiddle released recently.

The Newsbeat myth head pass was ‘False intrusion claims ‘devastating’ rank wrongly accuse’.

The next line of text ran: Two heap a month ar being prosecuted for making false bothegations of ransack and wasting guard clipping, new figures show.

It then initially ran the sentence ‘It’s the branch while details for England and Wales run through been compiled, showing how ballpark the puzzle is’.

It has a subheading ‘Criminal volume’ and says ‘the claim system on their criminal record until they apply to get it withdraw’; allegations go along on a ‘police file’, which is non the same thing as a criminal record.

By belated afternoon on 13 environ ‘ customary’ had been changed to ‘ preposterous’.

Rape Crisis and the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW) received a chemical reaction from Newsbeat which is included below, and their response to that is below too.

The initial letter, dated 13 March 2013, runs:

Dear BBC Heads of News,

We are writing to complain intimately the BBC Newsbeat written traverse on today’s (13 March) round account on false allegations of rape and municipal violence.

We represent more than 60 specialist organisations plowing to end violence against women and girls in all its forms, and a national network of Rape Crisis centres who work at present with survivors of sexual violence.

The tidings report by Declan Harvey and Anisa Subedar, which at time of writing is appease on the Newsbeat website and the main BBC news website, is an imposing misrepresentation of the CPS report and fails to reach very throneonic standards of good journalism.

It comprehensively misrepresents the findings of the new CPS report, which is pull up stakesicularly disturb as Newsbeat is a news outlet for younger great deal and young women are subject to particularly high pass judgment of sexual violence – dupes considering whether or non to report get out be among your readers and listeners.

The BBC report says in its first paragraph the figures on false allegations “…show how common the problem is…” which is precisely what the CPS report (and DPP Keir Starmer when interviewed on the Today Programme this morning) do not say.

In commenting on the report Keir Starmer says, “This report shows that false allegations of rape and house servant violence are very rarefied… From the cases we pay off analysed, the indicator is that it is therefore extremely rare that a suspect mea for certaindly makes a false allegation of rape or domestic violence purely out of malice.

“It is at bottom this context that the add should be viewed, so that myths and stereotypes around these cases are not equal to(p) to take hold.”

The BBC report says that some feature called for anonymity for those accused of sexual offences except says the government has ruled this out – but it fails to say why the government ruled this out, which is in pinnacle that a consideration of the proposal in 2010 found “ wanting(p) reliable empirical evidence” on which to base such a change (House of Commons Library Note, February 2012).

Your reporters meanwhile go on to include a case tuition of a wo world prosecuted for a false allegation, “…jailed for two old age after accvictimization three men of raping her. Police say she make the claim because she was embarrassed she’d slept with them in wholeness night.”

Whereas the CPS report finds that in a large harmonize of cases of false allegations, “…a significant number of these cases entangled young, frequently vulnerable stack, and sometimes even children.

“Around half of the cases involved people aged 21 and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties.”

Your reporters’ choice and description of this case scan instead reinforces a dangerous myth about rape – that women make it up after regretting consensual sex.

The evidence once and for all does not show this.

The fact is that the majority of very rapes go unreported – not least due to the perpetuation of myths about rape and women’s and girls’ fears that they will not be believed.

Your reporters go on to make a point about allegations staying on a police record for some months, but again, the like the anonymity point above, they fail to say why this is.

Allegations remain on a police file, which is not a criminal record and does not show up in record checks ( in any case not clarified), because in the past when allegations have been made against men like Ian Huntley and Jimmy Savile among others, police officers handling further stop allegations were unable to find this information and potentially detect a pattern.

Your news reporting does BBC journalistic standards a great ill turn – it reads as if the reporters read the CPS press release rapidly and arbitrarily chose what story they felt like writing, disregarding the actual findings of an authoritative report which is part of ongoing CPS work to improve convictions rates for rape and other forms of violence against women.

The BBC is still under a spotlight for its failings with regard to Jimmy Savile and a culture of sexism and sexual harassment, and not least the editorial decisions that were made at Newsnight when evidence based on testimony from “ undecomposed the women” (Peter Rippon) was dismissed as inadequate.

We hope that all your news cater are receiving comprehensive training on myths around ill-treatment of women and girls and also how the media’s perpetuation of rape myths is believed to contribute to low reporting rates (Alison Saunders, CPS).

A joint report by some(prenominal) of the signatories of this letter published last November, ‘Just the Women’, highlights with examples how poor news reporting on abuse of women and girls contributes to a climate of victims not being believed and not getting justice – it is available on all our websites.

We want to see your news article comprehensively amended or removed soon.

We hope the reporters and editor touch will receive some training on myths and facts about violence against women and girls.

We look forward to your rejoinder.

Yours sincerely, End Violence Against Women nuclear fusion; Rape Crisis England & Wales; Eaves; Equality Now; Object.

This is the response which came from Newsbeat’s duty editor on the afternoon of 13 March 2013:

‘Thank you for your feedback regarding the Newsbeat story on false rape allegations.

This was a story outfit to specifically examine what it was like to be incorrectly accused of rape.

To help contextualise the story we reported on a 17 month study carried out by the Crown Prosecution Service which set out to clear how common such false rape allegations were.

In the past we have published many stories highlighting the issues surrounding rape and domestic violence, specifically targeted at our core audience of 15 to 24 year olds.

 

On this occasion we chose to look at those young people who are occasionally wrongly accused.

I do not defend we misrepresented the study, or published an article that might somehow put people off reporting such grave crimes.

In the fourth line of our story we reference the Director of globe Prosecutions Kier Starmer who says false rape allegations are ‘serious but rare’.

In the accompanying video he makes the same statement within the first fifty seconds.

Whilst our story hears from a young man who says he was wrongly accused, we ensure that rape victims are accustomed a voice by running quotes from Dianne Whitfield from Rape Crisis.

We also birth a video which contains a Nottinghamshire Police spokeswoman who says their starting time point is always to believe allegations of serious sexual assault.

She goes on to explain how thoroughly they investigate both sides of any allegation.

Far from downplaying the distressfulness of rape we finish our article by publishing the surround numbers of advice lines for people who believe they may have been the victim of rape or domestic violence.

On the day this story was unfold we received a big response from our young audience, and we openly invited feedback on this challenging topic.

Whilst some people did say our reporting of false accusations was damaging to real rape victims, on our facebook varlet Gina described false accusations as “disgusting”, and Stuart told us that he felt the bigger problem was that these claims make life harder for real rape victims to be taken seriously.

On cheep Rick told us “Allegations of rape not only waste police time but wreck the lives of those accused! And John wrote on Twitter… “My 23 year old nephew was recently accused of rape. He then killed himself. The girl did it again to another guy.”

I’m sure you appreciate the BBC is here to report both sides of a story.’

The reply to this email, from Holly Dustin, was as follows:

‘I find your reply inadequate.

I could write at greater length, and may do so later, but I must dispute you on a basic point of news and journalistic practice here – you say you commissioned the story to examine what it’s like to be falsely accused.

That’s all very well for a feature or for broader current affairs etc etc. Choose your date.

But – the in set upigence information story today was the CPS report, an authoritative report which you have systematically misrepresented.

You can’t take an important report like this and then decide that you want to shoehorn a very different story into it.

Have you read the CPS report and listened to Keir Starmer’s interviews today?

He says every time that this report is part of long-term CPS work to improve prosecutions for rape, and that part of this is about exposing myths including that false allegations are common.

You have written up the CPS report on the day it was published by using these very myths – such as in the case study and your top para statement that false allegations are “common”. That is emphatically not what the report finds.

It is also not ‘ rest period’ to simply include a short Rape Crisis quote and phone number.

The quotes from your listeners below in fact show that you have succeeded in inflaming the view that false allegations are common and need addressing.

Keir Starmer said today that in fact the report finds there is no need to change current counselling on dealing with them.

If you are a news course of instruction you report on the news – you do not hold from the ‘news’ like it is a convenient menu for you to “contextualise the story”.

Today’s news was fairly straightforward.

I did not imagine a BBC newsroom worked on the basis of sitting waiting for half-matching hooks to tell a story it decided long ago it treasured to tell.’

As of today there has been no further response from the BBC. You can support us and complain online by clicking here. or ad a comment to Newsbeat’s facebook page.

 

Materials taken from Womens Views on News