BBC calling President Zelensky *Mr*Zelensky

AGAA4

GG13 Eddie Izzard is a man. Zelensky is a President and shouldn't be addressed as Mr.
The first was an understandable mistake. The second was bias.

I think it was a deliberate attempt to belittle President Zelenskyy by not addressing him by his title .

It is also in my opinion just as rude to say Zelensky without using President as you have done in your post.

Eddie Izzard is definitely a man.

GG13 Eddie Izzard is a man. Zelensky is a President and shouldn't be addressed as Mr.
The first was an understandable mistake. The second was bias.

Because I am sorry to say this but why would we join you in your concerns about accuracy if you will nod along to that. I think you will say anything, up is down, the world is flat, etc, etc. I am not going to join you in a moral stand against inaccuracy because I don't trust 'you' to recognise what that is.

AGAA4

I don't think Eddie Izzard has anything to do with this discussion. Most on here aren't 'nodding along' to his/her gender issues.
It may be better to start another thread about Eddie Izzard if posters want to discuss him/her.

Eddie Izzard was mentioned on the same BBC’s News Watch programme this morning, as a presenter had to apologise for calling him a man.

I don't think Eddie Izzard has anything to do with this discussion. Most on here aren't 'nodding along' to his/her gender issues.
It may be better to start another thread about Eddie Izzard if posters want to discuss him/her.

Because it about the accuracy of the bbc. The BBC are deeply unreliable and these are examples of those inaccuracies. I don't understand how you can strive for accuracy and the truth and ignore this.

What has Eddie Izzard got to do with this?

The discussion is about the BBC disrespecting an elected head of state whose citizens have been fighting a war against a foreign invader for three long years.

Why are people bringing their personal opinions about gender issues into this?

Personally I think using the term "girly days when wearing pink is OK for little girls aged around 3 or even slightly older" for a man in his 60s nah! What next "Princess pointy toed frou frou days" Parallel universe doesn't even begin to describe it.

How are they "preachy?" Just go to todays I player page and tell me just one thing that is "preachy?"

www.bbc.co.uk/news

The irony about worrying about the accuracy of zelenskys title whilst nodding along to them calling Eddie a woman is delicious.

BBC need putting out of my misery! Have become very annoyed with them over the years with their self righteous attitude! Do not like being preached at & would be glad if BBC disappeared right now!

Does Eddie Izzard have XX chromosomes or XY .
That should solve the problem.

Yes it is on Newswatch at 7.50am every Saturday Bbc1.

I am struggling to imagine BBC presenters and reporters saying President Putin and Mr Trump in the same sentence of President Trump and Mr Macron in the same sentence.

AGAA4

pascal30

Thank goodness for the BBC.. you can very rarely fault Newsnight, Question time or PM on radio 4.. for their wonderful presenters..

I agree but in this instance they got it wrong.

Agree. Courtesy titles should be applied equally. I remember a locum dentist introducing himself as Mr X and calling me Doodle. The Health Visitor who came when my children were babies did the same. I put them both right. We are either on first name terms or we aren't - either way is fine by me, but it is one or the other. So, Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky, or they are both 'President'. That's pretty basic manners IMO.

pascal30

Thank goodness for the BBC.. you can very rarely fault Newsnight, Question time or PM on radio 4.. for their wonderful presenters..

I agree but in this instance they got it wrong.

There's another programme on Radio 4, the long running Moral Maze, that has undertaken many really, really thorny questions with admirable neutrality. It works by assembling a panel with very different POV to give their "evidence" but doesn't proffer a "conclusion" but leaves it up to us. And yes, its covered gender issues and talking to terrorists.

Thank goodness for the BBC.. you can very rarely fault Newsnight, Question time or PM on radio 4.. for their wonderful presenters..

I'm very glad they have been pulled up on it!

Thank you.

I’ve found it at 1:57 - three BBC clips in which President Zelenskyy was called Mr Zelenskyy in the same sentence as President Trump, and in one, President Trump, Vice President Vance and Mr Zelenskyy. It is hugely disrespectful and legally incorrect.

The previous segment was about how the BBC gets Canadian terminology wrong too, calling its premier President instead of Prime Minister and calling provinces states.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00292d5/breakfast-15032025

Silverbrooks

I cant find the programme to which OP refers. Is it part of the breakfast show? What time did it go out? If the broadcaster is referring to both men in the same sentence giving one his title and the other not then that is surely wrong.

It was part of BBC1 Breakfast Show this morning, the section is called BBC News Watch presented by Samira Ahmed.

I was interested enough to look up why the BBC takes the position is does on Hamas - here is John Simpson late 2023.

"Government ministers, newspaper columnists, ordinary people - they're all asking why the BBC doesn't say the Hamas gunmen who carried out appalling atrocities in southern Israel are terrorists.
The answer goes right back to the BBC's founding principles.
Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that's their business. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists.

The key point is that we don't say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.

As it happens, of course, many of the people who've attacked us for not using the word terrorist have seen our pictures, heard our audio or read our stories, and made up their minds on the basis of our reporting, so it's not as though we're hiding the truth in any way - far from it

Any reasonable person would be appalled by the kind of thing we've seen. It's perfectly reasonable to call the incidents that have occurred "atrocities", because that's exactly what they are.
No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies - nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival"

I do follow the coverage in I player on Gaza and the BBC never fail to cover events from both POV - for example, it never supports criticism of Israel in terms of the ICC proceedings

I cant find the programme to which OP refers. Is it part of the breakfast show? What time did it go out? If the broadcaster is referring to both men in the same sentence giving one his title and the other not then that is surely wrong.

eazybee you are correct 👍

Eddie Izzard IS a man, there is no mistake.
Dropping the title President in front of Zelensky's name is exactly the same as the long BBC refusal to call Hamas a terrorist organisation.