The BBC and the authorities’ response to the chants led by punk-rap band Bob Vylan show the regulatory system is working, says Northeastern professor Adrian Hillman.
LONDON — Members of the British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have faced considerable backlash since they urged fans to chant “death to the IDF,” the acronym for the Israel Defense Forces, during a weekend show at the Glastonbury festival.
The men have reportedly been dropped by their agency, the United States has revoked their visas ahead of a North American tour this year and U.K. police are looking into whether the incident meets the threshold of a hate crime.
But the duo, who in a statement insisted that they are “not for death of jews, arabs or any other race,” are not the only ones facing flak for the comments made at Britain’s biggest festival — so is the BBC, the official broadcast partner of Glastonbury.
The broadcaster has apologized for allowing the comments by frontman Bobby Vylan to be livestreamed Saturday from the West Holts stage, with its 30,000-person capacity. But that has not stopped the BBC from being singled out for criticism.
The U.K.’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, called it a “national shame” that the chants were shared with a wider audience, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there were questions for the state broadcaster to answer.
Adrian Hillman, an assistant professor of communication at Northeastern University in London, says the BBC has a difficult path to tread when it comes to impartially airing views on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
“There is a catch-22 here because, let’s say the BBC editors had seen something coming,” says Hillman. “Let’s say they broadcast it on a delay and that they heard the chants and stopped it from airing. Can you imagine the outcry over freedom of speech if they had done that?
“Let’s be frank — this is a really hard subject to touch upon and not to tread on toes. The BBC has been criticized by the pro-Palestine lobbies and by pro-Israel lobbies for its coverage [of the war]. It is taking flak from everywhere.”
The BBC has a model that is unique in its funding and mission, explains Hillman. It is largely funded via a TV license fee where those who watch or record live television, or use the BBC’s iPlayer on-demand service, pay £174.50 ($239.60) annually. It negotiates a Royal Charter with the British government every decade that provides the constitutional basis for the BBC and sets out its mission and public purposes.
As well as having to remain impartial with its news coverage, another of its purposes is to provide and spread culture around the U.K., something Hillman argues it fulfills with its yearly wall-to-wall Glastonbury coverage.
And while the BBC has admitted it made an error by not pulling the plug on the livestream of Bob Vylan’s performance after the chants broke out, Hillman points out that it has promised to learn from its mistakes.
The BBC issued an apology and said the Bob Vylan show included “utterly unacceptable” and “antisemitic” comments. The broadcaster livestreamed the chants with a warning on screen about the language.
“Pulling the live stream brings certain technological challenges,” the BBC said in a statement. “With hindsight, we would have taken it down.”
The livestream was viewable online for a number of hours afterward but the BBC has decided the band’s performance will not be made available on its catch-up iPlayer service. It is also set to review its editorial guidance around live events.
Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator, issued a statement saying it was “very concerned” about Bob Vylan’s comments being livestreamed and that it was seeking clarity over “what procedures were in place to ensure compliance with its own editorial guidelines.”
Hillman says the responses from the BBC, Ofcom and the police in the aftermath of the incident show that the U.K.’s regulatory and lawful environment are functioning well and that checks against extreme behavior are in place.
“One of my arguments would be,” Hillman continues, “that I’d rather something is aired by the BBC, they correct it, outline the concern and highlight that what was done was incorrect, than it be sent out on YouTube without a disclaimer, without concern and without any moderation.
“So while mistakes will be made, because you cannot have an entity the size and scope of the BBC without making mistakes, those mistakes are brought to the forefront and are corrected.
“Broadcasting is regulated in this country. Regulation has its concerns but it also has its place — wise, thoughtful analysis of broadcasting has prevented a lot of disinformation and misinformation going out there.
“I would make an argument and say, yes, the BBC erred and they need to look at their guidance. But the fact that the BBC is analyzing its processes and the fact that the authorities, as a consequence of this, are looking into this and asking serious questions of what was said, shows that the institutions are actually working.”
Northeastern professor of journalism Dan Kennedy says television broadcasters carrying live performances from major events such as Glastonbury and the Super Bowl halftime show need to be alert to what can go wrong.
“There are risks that something’s going to happen that you don’t want to be on your air,” says Kennedy, who teaches an ethics and issues in journalism course in Boston.
“In the U.S., oftentimes for live events, there’s a seven-second delay. I don’t know whether there was with this [Bob Vylan incident] or not. If there was, it just seems like somebody was asleep at the switch.”
Kennedy argues a distinction should be made between the BBC’s news coverage role during the Israel-Gaza conflict and the broadcaster’s handling of a livestream that would likely have been operated by its entertainment department.
The decision on whether to cut short the Bob Vylan livestream, Kennedy continues, would have been made more difficult for staff due to the fact it was an artist performance that entered into the arena of political commentary.
Those on the ground would have had only seconds to consider whether it was suitable for broadcast, he points out.
“What Bob Vylan was doing was incredibly toxic — it is pure anti-Semitism,” says Kennedy. “But it was also political commentary, so that puts it in kind of a weird gray area. And if there were people back in the booth trying to decide whether this should continue to go out or not, I can see them hesitating and wondering whether they should or not.
“It is really hard to respond in real time. And even if you’ve got seven seconds, that’s not much time to think.”