BBC and Coronavirus reporting

Dr George Lee, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Westminster North recently filed a complaint to the BBC requesting that the news channel stopped using images of Chinese people as the backdrop whenever they reported on the Coronavirus. This was adding to the fear and prejudice shown against the British Chinese community and fuelling hatred and racial incidents.

Below was the reply received from the BBC dated 10 March 2020:

"Dear Dr Lee 

Thank you for writing. We appreciate your concerns about our choice of images relating to the coronavirus outbreak.

This is a developing story which is having a widespread impact in the UK and around the world. Although the outbreak was initially centred on China, it has since spread to other countries around the world and we have used images of people from all the areas affected.

We regularly review our output as the nature of the outbreak changes and have circulated your comments onto senior News editors.

Thanks again for taking the time to get in touch.

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints