BBC presenter Gary Lineker criticized the British government’s rhetoric. The BBC suspended him. After much criticism, he can now return.
British football presenter Gary Lineker returns home after walking his dog. Monday 13 March 2023 in London. PA
Twitter is known to be a curse and a blessing in one. Not just since Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging platform. Where it serves journalists on the one hand to push content, to sharpen their own journalistic profile and to exchange substantive blows with those of a different mind, what happens on Twitter sometimes collides with the self-image of those who hire journalists.
After all, tweets are not the result of editorially clearly coordinated text contributions, but rather spontaneous, sometimes unthought-out and usually extremely abridged reflections of an attitude that is rarely congruent with what editors understand as a mandate for objective reporting. As the active Twitter user knows, the well-known online logic applies here: “the more striking, the bigger”. A logic through which precision and balance sometimes fall by the wayside.
A blatant case of such a Twitter scandal between journalist and employer was recently reported on the British broadcaster BBC. Prominent football presenter Gary Lineker tweeted last Tuesday that the conservative British government’s rhetoric towards refugees was “not dissimilar to that of Germany in the 1930s”.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Home Secretary Suella Braverman had previously presented a bill to deny people who have entered Germany irregularly the right to seek asylum. Criticism came from the UNHCR, among others, which recognized a breach of international obligations in the move. Braverman had previously spoken polemically of an “invasion” of refugees.
In response to his tweet, Braverman accused Lineker of downplaying the Holocaust. Conservative MPs called for consequences. But Lineker didn’t want to apologize. A little later, on Friday, the BBC suspended Lineker. The public broadcaster saw its independence in danger. What the BBC apparently did not expect: Several moderators and commentators refused to work in the flagship program “Match of the Day” out of solidarity with Lineker – game scenes were sometimes shown without comment. Critics accused the BBC of bowing to government pressure.
Then on Monday the turnaround: The BBC announced that Lineker could now return after all. BBC Director General Tim Davie has announced an independent investigation into the company’s social media regulations. Lineker himself was satisfied. The case not only raises questions about the independence of public broadcasters and controversial social media policies in editorial offices, but also shows that Twitter can not only do bad things.