The BBC had hours to fix it. They didn't.
During Sunday night's BAFTA Film Awards, a subject from the documentary I Swear shouted the n-word during a live moment while Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting. The man, John Davidson, has Tourette's syndrome, which the film documents. His tic was involuntary, understandable, and absolutely not the scandal here.
The scandal is what happened next: nothing.
The BBC was broadcasting the ceremony on a 90-minute tape delay. This wasn't live television where split-second decisions are made in crisis mode. This was recorded, edited content with plenty of time for someone - anyone - in the control room to say "we should probably bleep that."
They aired it anyway. Then they put it on iPlayer. Then, only after the internet erupted, did they apologize and pull the broadcast.
According to Variety, the BBC released a statement saying they "apologize that this was not edited out prior to broadcast" - which is the corporate equivalent of "my bad." BAFTA followed with their own apology, taking "full responsibility" for the incident.
Delroy Lindo told reporters he wished "someone from BAFTA spoke to us" after the moment happened. He and Jordan handled it with remarkable grace on stage, but they shouldn't have had to handle it at all. The BBC had the tools, the time, and the tape delay specifically designed to prevent moments like this from reaching broadcast.
This isn't about John Davidson or the Tourette's community, who are rightly frustrated that the incident is being sensationalized. This is about institutional failure at the most basic level of broadcast standards. Awards shows already face declining viewership and cultural relevance. They can't afford unforced errors that make them look incompetent.
In Hollywood, nobody knows anything - except that you don't air slurs on tape delay when you had 90 minutes to edit them out. That's not asking for prescience. That's asking for competence.
