On the morning of Friday 7 November, the BBC published an article about a rather sad case where a woman standing trial for making a false rape allegation had committed suicide. Putting aside some of the fairly biased reporting, or the fact that the BBC routinely refuses to report on false rape accusations where the accused commits suicide, the detail that really stood out in this instance was the BBC’s incredible choice of headline.
In large bold text at the top of the article (not to mention not their Twitter feed, their main news pages etc) the supposedly impartial BBC turned reality on its head and informed the licence fee paying public that the case was really all about an alleged “rape victim”
So, to hell with the accused men who’d fought against massive odds to bring the case to trial. His £200,000 basically went down the drain in an instant because someone at the BBC apparently knew all the facts. He wasn’t the victim, and instead the person on trial for criminal acts was! Not only this, but if she was an “alleged” rape victim, then the BBC is also quite clearly informing us that the gentleman concerned was therefore “allegedly” a rapist.
Unfortunately, HEqual wasn’t made aware of this sickeningly misandrist piece of “journalism” until it had been in place for almost half the day, but needless to say we weren’t going to stand for it and complained though several BBC channels pointing out their sexism and dishonesty. The BBC was given two options, either they fix the headline, or in future we’d expect all accused rapists to be described as “alleged victims of false rape allegations”. It goes without saying that we preferred the first option, though at least the second would have meant the organisation was showing constancy in its reporting.
Despite initial denials of there being any problem, we’re pleased to be able to announce victory for licence fee payers as we’ve managed to finally force the removal of the offending headline. It now uses neutral language and correctly describes the story as a “rape allegation case”. The excellent Newssniffer site captured the change.
The only downside here is that the change occurred some 36 hours after the story was published, so the vast majority of those who will read the story were exposed to the sexist and dishonest version of the article. Also of concern is the lack of support in the article for something as important actually prosecuting the vile people who make false accusations, not to mention other blatantly obvious solutions to some of the issues raised such as anonymity for the accused, or for people to stop pressuring the police into arresting innocent men. On the plus side of things, we are now starting to build up a track record of forcing media organisations into u-turns and to actually report in a more balanced and truthful fashion.
Anyway, we’re pleased to have again exposed the BBC’s blatant bias against men and victims of false accusations, and we’re particularly pleased to continue our pattern of victories against sexism. I would normally thank the BBC for eventually doing the right thing, but the article is still highly inadequate, they haven’t even apologised and even the “latest updated” timestamp on the article is wrong too, so you can’t even believe that either.
P.S. Apologies for the lack of posts recently, this isn’t the type of blog to be updated every day but we’ve not been as busy as we’d have liked with HEqual projects recently. There will of course be many more sucesses to come in future.
Update. Funnily enough, the Guaridan are using the exact same dishonest phrasing in their headline and did so before the BBC. The journalist responsible is Sandra Laville, I’ve asked her to follow the BBC’s example and I’ll update this post with the response (further update – according to Ally Fogg, it will be a Guardian sub-editor who was responsible for the dishonest headline, so probably not Sandra’s fault). Whatever the outcome it’s certainly interesting to see the BBC yet again parroting the feminist misandry of the Guardian.
Update 2. I’ve been in contact with the BBC today (11/11/14) regarding a few remaining instances of the offending headline that were elsewhere on BBC websites such as seen here. They acted on my concerns rather more swiftly this time, as a result, not a trace of the sexist wording appears anywhere on the BBC anymore. The amended version of the page now looks like this. As expected, we haven’t had any response from the Guardian reader’s editor yet.
hequal 
Well done. Great efforts. Appreciated by a common man like myself
A sad story all around turned into rape culture propaganda by media bias. No attempt to discuss the facts, merely blame her victim and the CPS for daring to follow up the case. No mention either that the falsely accused didn’t have any rights or could make a charge against her, since the only charges that could be laid are wasting police time, a minor charge leading to 6 month sentence at most or a fine. This case is reported as perverting the course of justice, though since it’s clearly not something like jury tampering, there is virtually no chance of the severest sentence which can be life imprisonment, if you do something like threaten the lives of a jury. Her case would have investigated ‘fabricating evidence’.
These are crimes against the police and the justice system, there is in fact no recourse for the damage caused to the falsely accused under British law, they have to instead try and clear their name by either getting charged with rape and going to court, or attempting to prove a crime has been commited against the state, not them.
This tragic story was used in the media as argument against investigating false accusation and in favour of conviction by accusation, even in some reports going as far as implying that if she had been more able to get a conviction, that would have saved her life.
This is a sad story, there is no doubt about that, its a waste of a life. But the likelihood that there were others involved in convincing her to pursue a false accusation, who may well have been taking advantage of her mental state, they will never be investigated now.
It’s hard work that you do, and I’m very grateful to see the false reporting by the media being challenged.
Why didn’t a responsible law enforcement system talk this girl down from the cliff…..Completely ruining an innocent boys life on a whim, can have life long guilt consequences for the false rape accuser. Not only does the falsely accused suffer, the girl that told the lie, and her interrogators that left her no way to come clean with it being a lie…..Are at fault here also for everyone’s suffering.
stop smoking crack. she lied and tried to destroy someones life. while its tragic she killed herself she it’s nobodies fault but her own.
Well done. Every little success counts. I did notice that when BBC Radio 4’s Today programme reported this case it was immediately followed with a report on the recent man-eats-woman cannibal case. This is a pattern I have noticed before. Anything favourable about men, or about men’s disadvantage, is followed by something negative to erase it from the public’s mind.
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Well done. I’m sure much of this is laziness, not bothering to check, so any reminder that readers care may make them more careful next time
They deliberately slander men who have been tortured and murdered as rapists, too:
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The government’s version of equality states that “women can do no wrong”. It’s an extension of the Queen’s rights.
So they fight a natural order they described as “patriarchy” and replaced it with a hyena system. Read up how Liam Allan managed to get off the hook after police hid evidences that would have worked in his favour, dragged a young man’s life and reputation in the mud for 2 years on a false rape case. And the nympho accuser herself remains “innocent and protected from the media”.
If you know such people, please expose them on http://falsevictims.com
let’s create some balance and true equality once and for all
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