Naga Munchetty’s BBC Breakfast co-host Dan Walker was also listed on the initial complaint about her discussion on Donald Trump’s tweets, it has been reported.
BBC anchor Naga is currently being penalised after being deemed ‘in breach of BBC guidelines’ for speaking about inherent racism in tweets from the President, in which he told four opposing, female politicians from minority backgrounds to ‘go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came’ in July.
But according to The Guardian, her co-host for the show, Dan Walker, was also listed in the original complaint, despite the BBC saying he was not.
In the message, Dan was dubbed ‘very unprofessional’ and was accused of ‘repeatedly expressing incredulity’, as both him and Naga ‘never made any secret of their left-wing and anti-Trump bias.’
The complaint was titled: ‘Blatant political bias from both presenters’.
‘They are employed as presenters not political commentators and as such should at least feign impartiality. It’s about time they were reminded of this,’ it read.
The BBC initially defended both presenters, causing a follow-up complaint from the same person demanding the moment ‘be investigated again with a more honest response’.
In the email, the complainant narrowed in on Naga, highlighting that she was making specific targeted comments on Trump.
As a result, the new ruling was made with the complaint partially upheld, and just against Naga.
Metro.co.uk has contacted the BBC for comment.
In a statement released by BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit about the complaint, it was stated that while Trump’s comments were ‘widely condemned as racist’ and Naga was ‘perfectly entitled to give a personal response’, she crossed a line when talking about Trump directly.
‘Our editorial guidelines do not allow for journalists to then give their opinions about the individual making the remarks or their motives for doing so – in this case President Trump – and it was for this reason that the complaint was partially upheld,’ they wrote.
‘Those judgments are for the audience to make.’
Since then petitions in Naga’s defence from both fans, fellow journalists and celebrities has gathered weight, with Sir Lenny Henry, Piers Morgan and Nish Kumar coming forward in support.
Piers Morgan even declared the ruling ‘sinister’ as he mocked the explanation given, in a show of solidarity with Susanna Reid as they aired the BBC Breakfast moment on their rival show, Good Morning Britain.
It’s since been claimed that BBC staff have been warned off signing a petition to overturn the ruling.
Ofcom are now assessing the decision.
The BBC’s editorial standards chief, David Jordan, had even said that Dan had ‘led her down the path’ and was partly to blame for her comments, in which she spoke about her own experience of ‘being told to go back where she came from’, and stating she would be ‘furious’ if she was told so.
Despite David’s acknowledgement of this, he asserted he couldn’t uphold a complaint against Dan because no one had complained about him specifically.
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