A BBC complainant’s complaint
JVL Introduction
Much as we love the BBC and want to see it protected from rapacious corporates intent on destroying it as a public service broadcaster, it is infuriating to have our attempts to improve its coverage with constructive criticism frustrated by an increasingly Byzantine complaints process.
JVL co-chair Jenny Manson and media officer Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi have both taken detailed complaints about Panorama’s Antisemitism: Why British Jews are Afraid, broadcast on April 20, through stages 1a and 1b of the process. They have sent letters directly to the programme makers and shoe-horned condensed versions into the strict word limits required by the online complaints forms. Dissatisfied with complacent and frankly insulting replies received from the complaints team, they are now attempting to scale the dizzying heights of Stage 2, addressing the Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). We will publish their submissions shortly.
For now, see Naomi’s account of navigating a tortuous system which seems designed to deter complainants and imposes such restrictions that it’s difficult to make a coherent case, particularly on the complex issues we are trying to address.
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Sorry, there appears to be a problem
By Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi
Overnight on Monday/Tuesday June 22/23 I wrestled with the BBC’s online complaints form in an attempt to submit a Stage 2 complaint for which the deadline was 20 days from receipt, on June 3, of an unsatisfactory Stage 1b response. At last, in desperation I emailed the office of the new Director General, Matt Brittin, formerly of Google, begging a member of staff to help me out. At the same time I submitted a new complaint about the complaints process, as follows:
I have attempted many times to submit a Stage 2 complaint for which the deadline is today. Each attempt generates this:
“Sorry there appears to be a problem. Please reload the form and try again.”
After several attempts I returned to the email which gave the link to my submission form. It appeared to work, but then this message appeared:
“Sorry, it appears there is a problem. Either your email address does not match the one used for the case or you have already submitted a response via this form. Please note you can only submit your form once using the URL we shared with you.
If the problem persists and you cannot proceed, let us know via our Complaints form.”I have tried to email ECU but the address I have is probably defunct. Under the recently altered arrangements it seems that it is no longer possible to send an email directly to the Executive Complaints Unit as in the past. Can you please ensure that my Stage 2 complaint number CAS-8368580-Z4N3B4 receives ECU’s attention. I cannot paste the text here because your word limit is inadequate. I will need an email address to send it to.
I also wish to add a further complaint about the way your complaints process has been rendered increasingly off-putting and inaccessible, in addition to the word limits being far too small to permit any intelligent discussion of problems such as those I am raising. The email I received containing the link to submit a Stage 2 complaint included the instruction to keep my text within 1000 words. When I was ready to submit and clicked on the link to open the form, the limit turned out to be 5,000 characters, requiring a great deal of frustrating editing and forcing me to delete important parts of my argument.
You seem to be denying audience members the chance to critique BBC output. This does not inspire confidence. Can you please provide a new case number for my complaint about the complaints procedure?
To my surprise, a reply appeared in my inbox on Tuesday morning. Someone from ECU had seen my email and responded, as helpfully as one could in the circumstances:
Thank you for your email, which has in fact reached us as the address is still in use. Please take this as an acknowledgement on behalf of the Director-General’s office. I’m sorry you had problems using the link provided to escalate your complaint to the ECU. I will create a record for you manually (which will generate a further auto-acknowledgement) and one of my colleagues will be in touch with a response to your complaint in due course.
So, I can now look forward to a response from ECU to my substantive complaint, and also a Stage 1a response to my complaint about the difficulty of complaining. You have to wonder how many honest souls have been put off from making their views known by the obstacles placed in their way.
My experience of the BBC’s complaints form is similar. It limits you to 2000 characters although the word limit is 1,000 words. So I simply submit the complaint in Parts 1, 2 etc. on their complaint form.
Either way the complaints process is designed not to allow you to challenge anything substantive like e.g. the BBC Panorama ‘Is Labour Antisemitic’ program. Because the complaints system is an internal system it, like that of the police, ensures that it goes nowhere.
To be honest I don’t care if the BBC were to collapse tomorrow. It is a propaganda machine and the most effective too as John Pilger observed. It does some things in the culture field well but in terms of politics it was born in the womb of the British state and there it will stay – anti-working class, racist to the core.
The BBC bears a major responsibility for the rise of Nigel Farage who appeared a record number of times (19?) on BBC Question Time. I refuse to purchase a BBC licence because I am just funding state propaganda
I recall BBC Panorama on ‘Antisemitism’ as ultra biased and factually unsound.
I guess that this is the reason why the BBC is dodging constructive criticism.
Delay, Deny, Defend?
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Thank you Naomi for persevering with this complaint. It would be easy to just give up when faced with these frustrating obstacles and thank you for all you do to help raise these important issues!
I feel Naomi’s frustrations. It should be straight forward for complainants but it is not. It seems designed to be frustrating and when you do get a reply it is more defensive and self righteous rather than what they can learn from your complaint/concerns.(My MOPAC complaint is an example which JVL kindly published).
I think the BBC stifles critical voices and thinkers and is selective in how it reports and produces some of its programmes. And it certainly lacks impartiality.
Persevere because the JVL complaint is important and there are many that stand in solidarity with it.
I very rarely listen to Any Answers? but did last week as imagined it would partly focus on whether Starmer should step aside to allow Burnham a chance to become PM and hopefully change government direction. There were 6 callers backing Starmer and 2 not doing so, 8 messages/emails in support of Starmer were read out by the presenter and only 2 against. If this isn’t a clear bias in favour of the PM and keeping government as it is I don’t know what is. I’ve made a complaint about this asking. Maybe this is just the nature of the majority of Radio 4 listeners them being an older demographic! I don’t know but it’ll be interesting to see how they explain the numbers especially as Anita Anand (brilliant on the Empire podcast) said there were large numbers of people getting in touch with the programme about this subject. Given Starmer’s massive and historic unpopularity it seems odd to have so many in favour of him staying on.
It seems the BBC also failed to report on a recent UN report detailing the horrific IDF targeting of children in Gaza on any of it’s Radio 4 news programmes. I tend only to listen to WATO and PM here and there these days having much reduced my listening in the last few years but checked the Today programme, WATO, PM and The World Tonight for any mention of the above report but couldn’t find any. I have asked via the complaints process for the BBC to provide details of when and where on Radio 4 news programmes it has reported on this story and if not why not.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve made complaints concerning BBC output regrading it’s reporting on Israel’s military actions in Gaza since October 7th…
[cut to our limit of 300 words – admin]
Tony G doesn’t care if BBC “collapses tomorrow”.
If it did, the space would soon be filled by GBNews and other right wing “news” broadcasters funded by hidden billionaires.