Complaint
In response to the claim of Chris Williamson MP (in an interview with him earlier that day) never to have seen anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, Nick Robinson tweeted 鈥淒id you forget you鈥檇 agreed to screen a film in Parliament by a woman suspended from Labour for saying the Jews controlled the slave trade?鈥.聽 A reader complained that this was inaccurate, in that the woman in question (Jackie Walker) had been the subject, not the maker, of the film, and that the phrase 鈥渢he Jews controlled the slave trade鈥 misrepresented what she had in fact said.
Outcome
Ms Walker was the subject, not the maker of the film, but this element of inaccuracy was immaterial to an understanding of the issue raised by the tweet.聽 But her original words (in response to a friend who had raised the question of 鈥渢he debt鈥 owed to the Jews because of the Holocaust) were 鈥Oh yes 鈥 and I hope you feel the same towards the African holocaust? 聽My ancestors were involved in both 鈥 on all sides as I'm sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn't for Jews... and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean. 聽So who are victims and what does it mean? 聽We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice. And having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator鈥. Even allowing for the element of compression often seen in tweets, Nick Robinson鈥檚 paraphrase gave an insufficiently accurate impression of Ms Walker鈥檚 actual words.
Partly upheld
Further action
Nick Robinson tweeted that he accepted the 大象传媒 Complaints process finding that his paraphrase gave 鈥渁n insufficiently accurate impression鈥.