BBC Watch

Journalist Ella Whelan is arguing that censoring the classic Christmas song, Fairytale in New York is a form of cultural vandalism.

The Spiked Online contributor was speaking to Newstalk Breakfast after BBC Radio 2 became the latest station to censor the song.

She said her biggest problem with the decision is the suggestion it was taken at the behest of a young generation that's 'more sensitive' than those of us horrible old people to questions of gender and sexuality.

Censoring Fairytale of New York has become as much of a Christmas tradition as hanging up stockings and putting the tree up, she said. It's getting ridiculous now.

The BBC is shaking up its complaints process after TV censor Ofcom told it to be more open with its feedback.

The broadcaster will make its online complaints page easier to find and use. It also aims to improve how editorial teams respond to complaints. BBC director-general Tim Davie claimed:

Trust is a core value of the BBC. If audiences want to raise a complaint they must be dealt with swiftly, fairly and consistently. The process must be easy to understand.

It will be interesting to see if the BBC continues its policy of never actually publishing what is being complained about. The BBC merely acknowledges that complaints have been received about a programme, and then often provides a wishy washy response with out addressing details of the complaint.

Trevor Phillips has attacked the BBC for censoring the word 'nigger' in Bob Dylan's anti-racism protest song Hurricane .

The former race equality chief said it was incredibly patronising of the BBC to let black artists on urban radio station 1Xtra use the word, but then censor other musicians. He described the decision of Radio 6 Music bosses to edit out a line of the Dylan song featuring the word as absurd and insulting.

Bob Dylan's anti-racism protest song Hurricane is about the boxer Rubin Carter, who was wrongly convicted of murder. It had the line:

And for the black folks he was just a crazy nigger

removed when it was broadcast on Tom Robinson's 6 Music show, Now Playing, on April 24. T

A listener pointed out that the song itself was an impassioned anti-racist account of a notorious miscarriage of justice and that the line you fellows deleted is very much a key moment in the story. Phillips appeared on a Radio 4 show to discuss the issue and was scathing about the way the BBC had behaved. He told the programme:

Bob Dylan has used that word for a particular reason in one of his most powerful pieces of work --which by the way is a profoundly anti-racist piece of work and for somebody, who frankly shouldn't be there to judge a genius, to tell me I'm too fragile to listen to what Bob Dylan has done with his work of art -- I think this is both absurd and insulting and actually not what the BBC is there to do.

Graham Norton joked about Prime Minister Boris Johnson's trip to Kyiv in Ukraine on his Friday night programme, saying:

This week, he flew off to Ukraine -- or if you're watching on catchup TV, he flew off to southwest Russia.

The BBC responded to 130 whinges:

We received complaints from people unhappy with a joke Graham Norton made about Russia and Ukraine.

Our response

Each week the programme begins with a monologue from Graham in which he makes reference to the latest news stories. On this occasion these concerned Boris Johnson's recent trip to Ukraine. We appreciate the seriousness of the current situation there and can assure you there was no intention to cause any offence with these remarks. Comedy is one of the most subjective areas of programming and while no subject is off limits we appreciate that some jokes may resonate differently for those with personal experience of a particular situation.