So, the BBC reports today that David Phythian, a Councillor of the West Lancashire District Council, has been prohibited from attending football matches for three years and fined £250 by the Wigan and Leigh Magistrates' Court after pleaded guilty to using racially aggravated threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards Tottenham Hotspurs' Pascal Chimbonda, a black footballer, during the Wigan v. Spurs match that took place in April 2007. The local Labour group at the Council has now suspended Mr Phythian.
The BBC report contained most of the salient facts, but I could not help but notice that one additional fact, which I should have expected from a BBC report, had not been included in the title emblazoned, "Racist abuse councillor suspended". Of course, the word Tory was missing. Wigan Today, the newspaper that broke the story on 1st June 2007, was not so timid. However, it transpires that the problem faced by the BBC was that Mr Phythian was a Labour, not Conservative politician. Only by reading the BBC's full report could we deduce that he was not a Conservative. Most people would have gleaned all they wanted to know from the first few lines of the report and assumed the rest.
The BBC is often coy concerning the political affiliation of an individual involved in "minor, local difficulties", save when it is a Conservative. In the matter of local issues, political affiliation is almost invariably irrelevant to the misdeed committed. As such it is not necessary to highlight or headline such a fact. The BBC should exercise such restraint even-handedly when reporting "small town" misdeeds.
Racist abuse councillor suspended
Race-jibe councillor banned by Labour