Steve McQueen planned to boycott BBC if they didn't apologise for racial slur in news item
12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen, 51, admitted he would have boycotted the BBC back in 2009 if they didn’t apologise for a white news reporter using the N-word on-air. The broadcaster initially defended the racial slur but later apologised for the mistake, but the error saw them hit with more than 18,600 complaints, including by a number of politicians and BBC staff.
It was broadcast by Points West and the BBC News Channel on 29 July, in full in a report about a racially aggravated attack in Bristol.
The director general at the time Tony Hall, apologised and accepted that the BBC should have taken a different approach.
He said he recognised that the report had caused “distress” amongst many people, and said the Beeb would be “strengthening” its guidance on offensive language in its output.
But the row saw BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ Sideman, real name David Whitely, quit the station over the row, saying that “the action and the defence of the action feels like a slap in the face of our community”.
