Black Radio Host Exits BBC After Station Allows Reporter to Use N-Word in News Report

Posted on by Taylor Berry
David Whitely

A Black radio host resigned from BBC after the network allowed its reporter to use a racial slur during a televised news story. 

What We Know:

  • David Whitely, a Black radio host who goes by DJ Sideman and was on the “BBC Radio 1Xtra” show announced on Saturday in a video posted to Instagram that he was quitting after the BBC journalist Fiona Lamdin said the n-word during a broadcast of “Points West” on July 29. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by David “Sideman” Whitely (@sidemanallday) on

“…the BBC sanctioning the n-word being said on national television by a white person is something I can’t rock with,” Whitely said in the post. “This is an error in judgment where I can’t just smile with you through the process and act like everything is OK, this feels more than getting it wrong. The action, and the defense of the action, feels like a slap in the face of our community.”

  • Lamdin is a BBC social affairs correspondent who was explaining the incident of a crime where a health-care worker was hit by a vehicle. “Just to warn you, you’re about to hear highly offensive language because as the man ran away they hurled racial abuse, calling him a [n-word],” Lamdin said. 
  • Twitter user @laurellah captured Lambdin saying the offensive during the broadcast on her cell phone and shared it on Twitter. By Sunday morning, it collected over 8,000 retweets. More than 18,600 people complained after the word was used and, at first, BBC defended the use. 

  • “In this specific context we felt the need to explain, and report, not just the injuries but, given their alleged extreme nature, the words alleged to have been used – a position which, as we have said, was supported by the family and the victim,” BBC said. But BBC director-general Tony Hall did apologize and acknowledged that using the slur was a mistake and that they should’ve taken a different approach.

Larry Madowo, a US correspondent for BBC, tweeted about how he was banned from using the racial slur in an article when quoting an African American but Lamdin was allowed to say it on air because it was “editorially justified”.

Related Posts