The reporter’s statement that “over a hundred diplomats from 40 countries” had walked out was accurate but, taken with her reference to “Russia’s growing isolation as they alone listened to what Sergei Lavrov had to say”, may have led viewers to conclude that only the Russian delegation remained for Mr Lavrov’s address.  As the delegations of several other countries had not joined the walk-out, that conclusion would have been misleading, which the ECU thought inconsistent with the BBC’s standards of accuracy.  In terms of impartiality, however, the ECU noted that the description of the protest was in support of the reporter’s opening point that “Moscow is now looking increasingly friendless”.  Her subsequent reference to ongoing support for Russia by Belarus guarded against any impression that Russia was entirely friendless, and in the ECU’s view the element of inaccuracy in relation to the scale of the particular protest did not affect the tenor of the report, or render it less than impartial in the context of a situation where Russia was demonstrably facing increasing diplomatic isolation.
Partly upheld