Dawn Butler calls for better media diversity after BBC confuses her with Marsha de Cordova in Commons coverage ‘This is what happens when the media does not represent the society it reports on’ Ms de Cordova said

The BBC has found itself at the centre of another diversity row after it confused two Labour MPs – Dawn Butler and Marsha de Cordova – during its political coverage.

BBC Parliament misidentified Ms de Cordova, who has been an MP since 2017, as deputy leadership candidate Ms Butler during its coverage of a House of Commons debate on Monday.

Ms Butler, the MP for Brent Central and shadow women and equalities minister, highlighted the mistake on Twitter by sharing a screen-grab of the footage in which Ms de Cordova is speaking in Parliament during a debate on the Agriculture Bill. The graphic underneath misidentified her as Ms Butler.

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‘We are two different people’

Both women have called out the broadcaster’s error. Ms Butler said: “I love my sister Marsha de Cordova but we are two different people. Marsha is amazing and deserves to be called by her own name. Diversity in the workplace matters – it also helps to avoid making simple mistakes like this.”

Ms de Cordova, MP for Battersea and shadow disabilities minister, echoed her colleague’s words, and said: “This is what happens when the media does not represent the society it reports on.

“Representation matters. Diversity matters. This cannot continue.”

The BBC quickly corrected the error and has since apologised for the mistake. A spokesperson for BBC Parliament said: “We sincerely apologise for this mistake. Sometimes we incorrectly identify MPs at the moment when they stand to speak. This error was immediately corrected on screen.”

.@BBCNews @BBCPolitics I love my sister @MarshadeCordova but we are two different people. Marsha is amazing and deserves to be called by her own name. Diversity in the workplace matters it also helps to avoid making simple mistakes like this. pic.twitter.com/pXyrGKJ4hZ — I Can't Breathe…Dawn Butler MP (@DawnButlerBrent) February 3, 2020

.@BBCPolitics @BBCParliament This is what happens when the media does not represent the society it reports on. Representation matters. Diversity matters. This cannot continue. https://t.co/quPPqnTG8m — I Can’t Breathe…Marsha de Cordova MP (@MarshadeCordova) February 3, 2020

Repeated error

The issue of the media mis-identifying BAME politicians or celebrities was exacerbating when, in its reportage of the incident, the Evening Standard used a photo of a third Labour MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy instead of Ms de Cordova.

The newspaper said it had mistakenly used an image from Getty Images that had been wrongly captioned and the editorial team had contacted both MPs personally to apologise for the error.

Getty Images, a photo supplier for many national news outlets, had uploaded a picture of Ms Ribeiro-Addy, the MP for Streatham and shadow immigration minister, during a recent campaign event for Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey.

In the caption of the image, however, it was described as Marsha de Cordova.

Getty said it was notified of the mistake by the Evening Standard and it “corrected the caption information on our website and in a notice sent to customers”.

“Getty Images holds itself to a high standard of editorial integrity and has robust measures in place to ensure our content ingestion process reflects these standards. Although these errors are relatively rare, we, like all news agencies, regret when these measures fail to capture inaccuracies,” a statement said.

“ We unreservedly apologize to Marsha de Cordova and Bell Ribeiro-Addy for any concern this may have caused.”

This latest string of errors comes days after the BBC apologised for using footage of LA Lakers basketball player LeBron James during coverage of the recent death of his colleague Kobe Bryant, who was killed in a helicopter crash.

The broadcaster issued an apology for the mistake, which it blamed on “human error”.

Lack of diversity

At the end of the bulletin, newsreader Reeta Chakrabarti apologised for the earlier on-screen error, saying: “In our coverage of the death of Kobe Bryant, in one section of the report, we mistakenly showed pictures of another basketball player, LeBron James.”