THE BBC received hundreds of complaints after it labelled the Irish actor Paul Mescal “British”.
The broadcaster was criticised after a mistake in its reporting on Mescal’s Oscar nomination for his performance in the film Aftersun.
A news ticker on the BBC read: “2023 Oscar nominations. British actors Paul Mescal and Bill Nighy are nominated for leading role.”
But Mescal, who shot to fame for his role in the drama series Normal People, is from County Kildare in the Republic of Ireland.
A total of 605 people wrote in to the BBC to complain about the mistake, new figures show.
One day after the error was broadcast, the BBC issued a correction and apologised.
It said: “In text running across the screen we reported that Paul Mescal was one of two British actors who had been nominated for an Oscar for a leading role.
“The text should have said that Paul Mescal is Irish. We apologise for the mistake.”
The news comes as it was revealed that the BBC also received hundreds of complaints about “misrepresentation/inappropriate language when reporting on asylum-seeking children”.
Experts condemned the broadcaster’s home editor Mark Easton after he appeared to suggested that some young people were trafficked “willingly”.
Speaking about the 440 children who have vanished from Home Office accommodation, Easton told Radio 4 listeners: “These young people are often trafficked, sometimes willingly to be honest. They come knowing that they are going to be employed by criminal gangs in the UK, and they do.”
The Helen Bamber Foundation, which works with survivors of trafficking and torture, was among those to urge people to complain.
“Just awful reporting from @BBCr4today,” the foundation wrote. “Two hundred unaccompanied children remain missing after being unlawfully housed in Home Office-run hotels. Whatever their nationality, they are still CHILDREN and cannot consent to being trafficked.”
A complaints report published by the corporation showed that 304 people had complained about the segment.
The BBC also received some 269 complaints about “bias towards Boris Johnson” in the January 22 broadcast of Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
