In reporting the death of Bollywood star Shashi Kapoor last night the BBC used footage from films starring two Indian actors – neither of whom were Kapoor himself.
The short News at Ten segment showed footage of Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan and Kapoor’s nephew Rishi Kapoor, but no images or video of the actor himself (pictured above) who died aged 79 in Mumbai on Monday.
Amitabh Bachchan
Rishi Kapoor
The error was spotted and tweeted by social enterprise Media Diversified.
Hang on @bbcnews Shashi Kapoor has died not Amitabh Bachan or Rishi Kapoor, who you've weirdly used to illustrate the story. pic.twitter.com/48jo6DGjU6
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— Media Diversified 🇸🇩 🇵🇸 🇱🇧 🇸🇾 (@WritersofColour) December 4, 2017
BBC star Adil Ray, best known for comedy Citizen Khan, said: “Someone at the BBC thought the brown person in this VT is the same person. Worse still neither of them are the deceased actor [anchor] Huw [Edwards] refers to.
“It’s poor when it would have taken them seconds to verify. Not enough care.”
Paul Royall, editor of BBC News at Six and Ten, said on Twitter: “#BBCNewsTen is very sorry wrong images were used to mark the death of Shashi Kapoor. Not our usual standards and I apologise for any upset.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “BBC News at Ten is very sorry the wrong images were used to mark the death of Shashi Kapoor. The piece did not meet its usual standards and the programme has apologised for any upset.”
Picture: Reuters/Punit Paranjpe
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