Complaint
A listener complained that in the course of the interview with the author Matthew Syed, the presenter Nick Robinson made some inaccurate assertions about the degree to which he had been abused online. The ECU assessed the complaint against the 大象传媒 Guidelines on accuracy.
Outcome
Matthew Syed is a 大象传媒 Radio Four presenter and Times newspaper columnist who was invited onto the programme to discuss his book called 鈥淲hat Do You Think? How to Agree to Disagree and Still Be Friends鈥. The discussion that followed was about how children can be taught to take part in discussions and conversations without being intimidated by controversial topics or resorting to insults. Nick Robinson, by way of illustration, mentioned some of the recent insults that he鈥檇 been subjected to on social media. In the ECU鈥檚 view sufficient evidence exists to support the claim that Mr Robinson is subject to 鈥渁d hominem鈥 attacks online and to justify his allusion to two insults he had recently been subjected to on twitter. His intervention was therefore duly accurate.聽
Not Upheld