but as a team, aware that with the monologue that you delivered, with the fact you had an explainerfrom me and my bbc news colleagues, with the fact you had jeremy bowen too, that that would be seen as being a statement, that the bbc was doing something different to what it had done with previous sporting events. well, i think what we were trying to do was do a factual account, and i think that s very important. and we were laying it bare for what it was and how it is and why it was here. and the explanation of why it s in, you know, one of the smallest, certainly the smallest country ever to host the world cup, a tiny little country. so i think it was more an explainer of how it got here. but i think the principal motivation of it really was the fact that there was corruption involved in the bid, proven. you know, there was i think 11 of the committee members of fifa have either been fined,
thanks also to roger mosey, former head of sports at the bbc and former head of bbc tv news. now, listening to all of that was the bbc news technology editor zoe kleinman, who s with us on the media show. hi, zoe. hi. well, i wanted to talk to you about twitter and about elon musk. and elon musk has been claiming, hasn t he, that the world cup is driving even greater traffic on twitter? yeah, he has. he s been very prolific on twitter as ever. he s saying, come and watch the world cup on twitter. this is the place to see. some people were querying, actually, whether twitter would be able to cope not only with the extra traffic, but also with the extra hate speech, unfortunately, which always accompanies these events. he has cut down on moderation. he says, you know, he wants a lighter touch. he wants to free the platform up. and people were very concerned that that was going to mean that more hate speech would be around on twitter, especially during the time of the world cup. so far,
also former head of bbc tv news, now master of selwyn college at cambridge university. welcome back on the media show, roger. good afternoon, ros. well, ayman, let me start with you. do you think the bbc made the right decisions around its approach to that first programme of its coverage? so the short answer to that is no. and in my opinion, having just heard gary lineker offer his explanation that the bbc generally does not broadcast the opening ceremonies of world cups, i respect that. i can t speak to that specifically. but i think to the point that you brought up with him, which was very valid, is the fact that they decided then to open the world cup with this hour long or however long monologue singularly focusing on the human rights abuses against migrants, the lgbtq issue, a whole host of other issues. and in making that editorial decision, they shifted the conversation away from it being about sports to a broader conversation.
correspondents to give the proper context there. i think what was different this time was they went more into the sport production with that. and as i say, i think that s ok to a limited degree, it shouldn t be taken too far because news is a better vehicle. ayman, before i bring you back in, i should say we did ask if the bbc would like to take part in this live discussion. it points to us towards a statement which reads, just like previous tournaments, we haven t shown the opening ceremony on bbc one. full build up and coverage of the world cup has been available across the bbc, including the opening ceremony on iplayer. now, i d like to, ayman, with you, explore the broader point that you re trying to make here, which is that you feel qatar is being covered in a way that other countries would not be covered. help me understand that a bit better. so i think there s three buckets of this conversation here. one is what i would call the prejudice that s in the language that is used to
so it was always, so it was decided because they already had the wsl game planned to be scheduled on bbc one, and we came on airjust at the very end of the opening ceremony, but it was available on bbc iplayer, that was made clear, it was available on the red button, it was available on the bbc website. it wasn t, it wasn t. .. it wasn t, we weren t blanking the opening ceremony. it s just a custom that we don t show it. we try and save people from opening ceremonies i think. but there was an editorial decision, wasn t there, to not just talk about the sport? you ran a report by me. you also featured my bbc news colleaguejeremy bowen. that presumably was a plan from some distance out to bring in a news dimension to the coverage. yes, very much so. we felt it was the right thing to do given the nature of the world cup. now, obviously, i m very accustomed to doing world cups