BBC Ireland

Newsnight accused of racism over Irish bail out coverage

Author

By The Drum Team, Editorial

November 22, 2010 | 2 min read

The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, has been accused of “racist” stereotyping over recent coverage of the planned IMF bail out of the former Celtic Tiger.

An animated interlude to Friday evening’s bulletin depicted a cut out of Chancellor George Osborne dancing across sepia images of the Irish countryside.

The jig was accompanied by folk music and included statements flashed on screen pointing out Ireland’s current levels of indebtedness, inscribed using a faux Celtic style font.

Viewers were quick to switch from their tellies to their computers to denounce the dodgy graphics, describing the coverage as “condescending” and in “bad taste” on Twitter

The episode is available to view using the BBC's iPlayer service.

BBC Ireland

More from BBC

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +