Complaint
The programme included an interview with Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, in which he asserted that 14,000 babies would die of malnutrition in Gaza within the next 48 hours unless appropriate supplies were provided. A listener complained that this claim was grossly inaccurate and required prominent correction. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
As was acknowledged in the original reply from the BBC, the claim was inaccurate. However, the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines require due (rather than absolute) accuracy, and the ECU would regard factual errors by interviewees as breaches of the BBC’s standards only in certain circumstances – for example, if there had been good reason for the interviewer or presenter to challenge them but they had failed to do so. In this instance, the interviewer did question the figure of 14,000, but had no basis for pressing Mr Fletcher further when he effectively re-affirmed it. However, BBC News then began a fact-checking process, which initially resulted in an exchange in that day’s edition of The World at One in which Jeremy Bowen expressed doubt about the figure. Later that day BBC News requested clarification of the claim from UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), which said “We are pointing to the imperative of getting supplies in to save an estimated 14,000 babies suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Gaza, as the IPC partnership has warned about. We need to get the supplies in as soon as possible, ideally within the next 48 hours”. This was reflected in an online article at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crk2264nrn2o, as was the relevant IPC warning that 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition were expected to occur among children in Gaza aged six to 59 months between April 2025 and March 2026. The ECU noted that the UNOCHA statement contained no acknowledgement that Mr Fletcher’s claim was wrong – and, while the degree of correspondence between his 14,000 figure and the IPC’s 14,100 was suggestive, it did not establish that the IPC was its source. Enquiries continued, and the upshot was an item in the 23 May edition of Today in which Yolande Nell was able to explain that Mr Fletcher’s claim did indeed appear to be an inaccurate representation of the IPC’s warning. The ECU considered that, although it might have been possible to reach a conclusion on the matter earlier than 23 May, it was nevertheless to the credit of BBC News that it had pursued the matter to the point where the facts were established and the inaccuracy was acknowledged on air. It found no breach of the BBC’s standards of due accuracy and saw no occasion for further correction.
Not upheld