Decision
of the Complaints Committee – 11074-22 Knight v The Times
Summary
of Complaint
1.
Julian Knight MP complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation
that The Times breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in
an article headlined “I loved Yorkshire, but I was brutally axed. Why won't
they listen to me?”, published on 30 July 2022.
2. The
article was an interview with a man whose role as a physiotherapist at
Yorkshire County Cricket Club had been “terminated” in 2021 “after the racism
allegations which engulfed the club”. It quoted the man as saying that the
“allegations came as a shock and surprise given I was never aware of any racism
or complaints of racism during my time at the club”. It said that notice had
been served to the man’s employer as “he was contracted through a third party”.
3. The
article set out the individual’s experiences during his time at the club, as
well as the aftermath of his termination – including a video call which the
interviewee had had with the complainant. The article reported that the man had
said that the complainant was “dismissive on their one, brief Zoom call”, and
the article included a quote from the man saying:
It
seemed to me he was unwilling to listen or have a conversation and became, I
thought, aggressive and dismissive and concluded the meeting by leaving the
call abruptly before I had a fair chance to say what I wanted to say.
4. The
article went on to report that a “spokesperson for [the complainant] rejected
this characterisation of the meeting: ‘[…] At no stage was Julian ‘aggressive
or dismissive’ as suggested and […] Julian completely refutes these
allegations.’”
5. The
article also stated that the complainant was “the chairman of the DCMS
committee that was charged with investigating the allegations of racism at
Yorkshire, and which had held its televised inquiry two weeks before…”. It then
went on to report that:
The
initial Yorkshire inquiry was subsequently criticised as “flawed” by [the
current Chairman of the club]; the DCMS hearing was limited in scope; the
current ECB enquiry has charged one person without conducting an interview with
him, and the dismissal of 16 people happened without any consultation.
6. The
article also appeared online in substantially the same form, under the headline
“Kunwar Bansil: I loved Yorkshire, but I was brutally axed. Why won’t they
listen to me?” This version of the article was published on 29 July 2022.
7. At
6.54am on the day prior to the publication of the online article, a journalist
working for the publication contacted the complainant’s office to ask for his
comment on the interview. The request for comment stated:
We
intend to publish an interview with the former Yorkshire physiotherapist […].
In it, he claims that his dismissal process from Yorkshire was unfair and
happened too suddenly that his voice has, in effect, been silenced. His views
as a British Asian within the dressing room were and are, he thinks,
significant and contribute to the debate around this complex issue and ought to
have been heard.
Specifically,
he claims that he tried to speak to you on a Zoom call about his experiences as
a British Asian within the Yorkshire dressing room, but that he felt he was not
listened to and that you became aggressive and dismissive and abruptly left the
call before he had a fair chance to say what he wanted to say.
We
intend to publish on Friday July 29th at 5pm. Should you wish to respond to or
comment on the above, please do so by no later than 10 am, Friday July
29th.
8. The
complainant’s office wrote in response to the request for comment on 29 July.
In this response, the office said:
The
characterisation of the meeting put forward is completely untrue, as
corroborated by the account of staff from [the interviewee]’s office, who were
also on the call, and who this morning explained directly to [the reporter]
over Zoom what had occurred during the meeting.
If
Julian had been rude or acted in any way unreasonably then it is inconceivable
that staff from the office of [the interviewee]’s constituency MP (a Labour
member), would be offering their support.
[…]
Julian
expressed sympathy for [the interviewee]’s position following his sacking but
politely explained that he could not get involved in potential tribunal
proceedings. At no stage was Julian ‘aggressive and dismissive’ as suggested.
9. The
complainant said that the article was inaccurate and misleading in breach of
Clause 1. He said that the article inaccurately depicted the meeting between
himself and the man who had been terminated; he strongly disputed that he had
been “aggressive” or “dismissive” and noted that another MP who had participated
in the call – and who was from an opposition party – had also disagreed with
this characterisation. He said that, by failing to give weight to the second
MP’s view that he was not “aggressive” or “dismissive”, and by publishing the
interviewee’s account without any evidence to support it, the article portrayed
the call in an unbalanced, unfair and inaccurate manner.
10. The
complainant also said that the article omitted key facts about allegations of
racism at Yorkshire Cricket Club. He said that the article omitted to state
that claims of racial discrimination at the club had been upheld by an
independent investigation. He also said that referring to the complaints as
“allegations” suggested that they were in dispute, despite the outcome of this investigation.
In addition, the complainant said that the article had not fully explored the
nature of the terminated man’s employment, nor the reason why his contract had
been terminated.
11. The
complainant then said that it was inaccurate for the article to report that the
DCMS Committee “was charged with investigating the allegations of racism at
Yorkshire”; he said that the Committee only became involved after the
conclusion of the club’s investigation “in order to bring greater transparency
to the issues”.
12. The
publication said that it did not accept that the article breached Clause 1,
noting first that the interviewee was entitled to have his views recorded and
shared. It said that it had taken care to verify the accuracy and
reasonableness of the interviewee’s account; for instance, his lawyer – who was
present on the Zoom call in question, along with the complainant and the
interviewee’s MP – had corroborated the interviewee’s account of the video
call. It also noted that the characterisation of the call had been put to the
complainant’s office and that the complainant’s rebuttal of this
characterisation of the meeting was included at length in the article.
13.
Turning to the complainant’s concerns that the article had omitted what he
considered to be key pieces of information, the publication said that the
inclusion of material for publication is a matter of editorial discretion. It
said that, in the context of an article reporting on the interviewee’s own
experiences at Yorkshire Cricket Club, referring to the claims of
discrimination at the club as “allegations” was not inaccurate: this was the
term which the interviewee had used and, at the time of the events depicted in
the article, they were allegations rather than proven claims. The publication
further noted that: the full investigation by Yorkshire Cricket Club, which
upheld seven out of more than 40 complaints, had not been published; the club’s
investigation was called “flawed” by its own Chairman; and a summary of the
investigation, published by the club, had said that: “It is very important to
note that this was not a judicial process and the Panel’s views, therefore, are
not judicial views.” The publication also said that the England and Wales
Cricket Board’s investigation had not yet concluded, and it did not seek to
prejudice that investigation by referring to the allegations by another term.
It then said that it could not see how any other word could have been
reasonably and accurately used to describe a number of complaints “that have
variously been upheld, rejected or not yet fully investigated”.
14. The
publication also did not accept that the article omitted details about the
nature of the interviewee’s employment in a manner that was inaccurate,
misleading, or distorted, and said that the complainant had not specified how
the omission of further detail had rendered the article inaccurate. It also
noted that the article made clear in its opening paragraph that the interviewee
“was contracted through a third party”.
15. The
publication said that it was satisfied that the sequence of events, as well as
the role of the DCMS Select Committee, was “perfectly clear” in its report. It
said that the article included references to the “initial Yorkshire inquiry”;
there was, it said, no suggestion that the DCMS Committee “undertook the sole
or the decisive or even the initial investigation into events at Yorkshire”. It
then said that, where the “inquiry” examined witnesses and collected evidence
just as an investigation would, it did not accept that the article breached
Clause 1 in its description of the inquiry.
16. The
complainant said that the lawyer who had corroborated the interviewee’s account
of the video call had not attended the call in a professional capacity, but
rather as a friend. He also said that, by referring to the Select Committee
inquiry as an “investigation”, the article implied that the Committee had been
charged to look into the allegations by another party – and this was not the
case, as the Select Committee itself decides its programme of works. The
complainant further said that the article had inaccurately referred to the
Department for Digital, Media Culture and Sport [DCMS] being involved with the
inquiry, and that this was incorrect as the inquiry had nothing to do with the
government department which carries this name; rather, the reference should
have been to the DCMS Committee.
17. The
publication said that, regardless of the capacity in which the lawyer had
attended the meeting, his attendance at the meeting and his corroboration of
the meeting was not in dispute.
Relevant
Code Provisions
Clause 1
(Accuracy)
i) The
Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted
information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.
ii) A
significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected,
promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published.
In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator.
iii) A
fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when
reasonably called for.
iv) The
Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly
between comment, conjecture and fact.
Findings
of the Committee
18.
Clause 1 (iv) of the Editor’s Code make clear that the press is entitled to
publish the views and experiences of individuals, provided it is distinguished
from fact; it does not require that the views of individuals, correctly
distinguished as such, be supported by evidence. The article made clear that
the description of the complainant as having been “aggressive and dismissive”
during a video call was the interviewee’s subjective view of their interaction,
rather than a claim of fact made by the publication: the phrase was directly
attributed to him and the quote stated: “he was […] I thought, aggressive and
dismissive”. The complainant had been contacted for his comment on this claim
before publication and his denial had been included in the published article.
Publishing the interviewee’s view of the complainant’s demeanour during the
video call, clearly distinguished as his “thought[s]”, did not represent a
breach of Clause 1.
19. The
article itself was clearly presented as an interview with an individual whose
employment with Yorkshire County Cricket Club had been terminated. In this
context, the article’s various references to “racism allegations” were all
clearly describing the situation at or around the time the individual’s
employment ended – which was the subject of the interview – and at that point
the truth or otherwise of those allegations had not been determined. In
addition, the Committee was mindful of the fact that not all of the allegations
that had formed part of the initial investigation had been upheld by this
investigation, and that there were still ongoing investigations into the
matter. In such circumstances, the Committee did not consider that the
article’s reference to the allegations breached Clause 1.
20. The
complainant had expressed concern that the article had not made the exact
nature of the interviewee’s employment at the Club clear, or set out the
reasons for his termination. However, the Committee noted that the opening
paragraph of the article made clear that he had been “contracted through a
third party” and was mindful that the selection of material for publication is
a matter of editorial discretion provided the Code is not otherwise breached.
It was also the case that the complainant had not specified how omitting
further detail about the employment and termination of the interviewee’s
employment had rendered the article significantly inaccurate, misleading, or
distorted. Therefore, the Committee did not consider that these concerns
represented a breach of Clause 1.
21. It
was not in dispute that the DCMS Select Committee had gathered evidence for the
purposes of “bringing greater transparency” to the allegations; the Complaints
Committee did not consider, therefore, that reporting that it was “charged with
investigating the allegations of racism at Yorkshire” was significantly
inaccurate or misleading. While the
Committee considered that the use of the phrase “charged with” was somewhat
ambiguous as to the impetus for the Select Committee’s involvement with the
issue, it did not consider the potential ambiguity of the phrase rendered the
article significantly misleading given that it was, in any event, the case that
the Select Committee had carried out an inquiry. There was no breach of Clause
1 on this point.
22. The
Committee then considered the complainant that it was significantly inaccurate,
distorted, or misleading to refer to the DCMS Select Committee’s inquiry as
“the Department for Digital, Media Culture and Sport [DCMS] inquiry”. The
Committee noted that the word “Department” had not been used in the article;
rather, the acronym “DCMS” was used. It further noted that this acronym is
shared by both the Select Committee and the Department. The first reference to
the Select Committee in the article referred to the “DCMS Committee” and its
Chairman, with the common understanding that this referred to the parliamentary
Committee rather than governmental department. Whilst the exact same phrasing
was not used subsequently in the article, the Committee did not consider that
the slight ambiguity in the use of an acronym amounted to a significant
inaccuracy particularly given that the focus of the article was the interviewee’s experiences relating to the
issue of racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the aftermath of his
termination rather than the specifics of how the inquiry was set up. There was,
therefore, no breach of Clause 1 on this point.
23. The
complainant had expressed concerns that the article was unfair and unbalanced.
While the Committee acknowledged the complainant’s concerns on this point, it
noted that the Editors’ Code does not include a requirement for balance or
fairness, provided the Code is not otherwise breached. Therefore, the
complainant’s concerns on this point did not represent a breach of Clause 1.
Conclusion(s)
24. The
complaint was not upheld.
Remedial
Action Required
25. N/A
Date
complaint received: 09/08/2022
Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 16/11/2022
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