Telling news outlets what you think

Starting with the BBC

There are so many different ways to let news outlets know you’re unhappy (or pleased) with their output. This is where you can engage with varying levels of effort to suit every occasion. Sex realist campaigners do an enormous amount of unpaid work - work that well-paid people should have already done - and it’s easy to burn out with complaints, emails, and social media responses. But every way of engaging is counted, so pace yourself.

Complaints

Before you can go to Ofcom, you have to navigate three stages of the BBC complaint system. It will take around three months, but has been known to take longer.

It’s worth knowing that public social media calls for people to complain to the BBC are often logged themselves by the complaints unit, and they diminish the impact of the volume of complaints.

Also worth knowing: it doesn’t have to be a complaint. When the BBC reports a gender story well, using accurate language and appropriate balance, you can send in an ‘appreciation’. It gets fed back to the team in the same way.

Here are the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines (just refreshed on October 1 2024) which you can use to give extra weight to your complaint. They can provide very handy quotes.

These are the stages:

Stage 1a – initial submission - has to be within 30 working days of the item being published/broadcast. Even then, if the BBC tells you it’s too late, you can complain direct to the ECU and ask for a review of that decision.

Stage 1b – if you progress the complaint further, you get a response from or on behalf of a BBC manager or a member of the editorial team. You have to follow up within 20 working days.

Stage 2 – if you’re still unhappy, the next follow up goes to the Executive Complaints Unit - again do it within 20 working days and they’ll address it within 20-35 working days.

After this, you can take it to Ofcom, whose online form will ask if you’ve been through all the stages of the BBC process.

Notes

When you submit your complaint for the first time you’re asked (with a drop down menu) what it’s about - bias/inaccuracy/offence etc. You aren’t supposed to add a supplementary complaint as you progress through the system. So make sure that you use the text box to explain all the issues you’re complaining about - add any extras eg safeguarding, harm, or offence, and so on.

Always say yes when asked if you want a response.

The wait can be frustrating - but being prepared to progress it can be very empowering. Stage 1a should take about two weeks, Stage 1b and Stage 2 about four weeks each. If response is overdue you can complain to Ofcom about it - you don’t have to wait until you’ve completed the BBC process.

One of the easiest ways to complain is by phoning (03700 100 22211). You can also text (03700 100 212). These aren’t treated as lesser complaints - they’re all logged in the same way, but you don’t get a written response.

You might get an email saying your complaint won’t be investigated because it’s ‘trivial, misconceived, hypothetical, repetitious or otherwise vexatious’. No further explanation about how it could come to these decisions is given. We’re currently FOI-ing the BBC about ‘vexatious’ complaints.

Emails sent to reporters aren’t likely to get very far. They can’t respond to complaints sent directly to them.

Links and contact numbers are at the bottom of this blog.

Other ways of giving positive feedback

The most basic - clicks. The BBC newsroom in New Broadcasting House has monitors dotted around which constantly tell its hundreds of journalists which stories are doing best online, from one to ten. That’s the radio desks, the TV bulletin desks, the live desks, and the newsgathering desks. The sight of a story in the Number One spot for hours, when there’s nothing in the diary, nothing on prospects and no correspondent assigned can be jarring. Editors may ask - how can we now cover the story with a guest or local reporter? I’m thinking of Tickle v Giggle as the latest example. You can see the Top Ten Most Read yourself by scrolling to the bottom of the BBC News Online front page. That’s what BBC journalists see all the time.

But this works the other way too - rage clicks are just a number, and every click looks good for a story. Try to read or share archives if you don’t want your numbers to count.

Scrolling, or ‘engagement’. The BBC, like all news outlets, can see how far you read, when you stopped reading and how long you stayed on the page. More scrolling and engagement is good for a story. Shares are also important: the BBC is studying monetisation - as it should - and every bit of data counts. Share it yourself on X, even if you saw it on X, or to another SM.

Social media responses to BBC staff - first, if you want to get a point across, don’t ever be abusive, or even rude - you’ll be ignored. Quote tweets may not be seen by the poster. Corrections are most likely to get a reporter’s attention. If you like what they did, tell them. People complain more than they ‘appreciate’ so if it’s good, let them know.

That’s it, but there much more detail here in the BBC’s 52-page complaints framework if you want to plough through it.

Link: BBC complaints

Phone: 03700 100 22211 Text: 03700 100 212

Address: BBC Complaints, PO Box 1922, Darlington, DL3 0UR.