Channel 7 Apologise After Racially Insensitive Euro 2020 Post About England Football Players
They originally captioned a post: "Three Black players failed in the penalty shootout which England lost 3-2 against Italy".
Channel 7 News has apologised after posting a racially insensitive caption after the final Euro 2020 game.
On Monday, online abuse was hurled at three black English players — Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka — for missing penalty kicks in the match against Italy.
England coach Gareth Southgate called the racial slurs “unforgivable”, and Britain’s Metropolitan Police have said they’re investigating the onslaught of discriminatory social media posts after the match.
Soon after, 7News released a story titled “‘Abhorrent abuse’: England players cop racist taunts after shootout” on the same day.
The Facebook post was originally captioned “Three Black players failed in the penalty shootout which England lost 3-2 against Italy”, and changed an hour later to remove their race.
That channel 7 headline was for an article that was calling out racism. They purposely chose a racially charged headline so it could drive up engagement between racist. Look at every FB article these Aus media sites cover about a black person, the comments are always horrific.
— Citation Needed (@GoodGyalSagal) July 12, 2021
The poor wording left an unsavoury implication that Rashford, Sancho, and Saka’s performance was tied to, or because of their background.
People were also quick to point out the caption singled out the players and detracted focus from the racism at the heart of the story itself.
When they score they are English. When the fail to score, they are black. https://t.co/8z637FsQG8
— Nyadol Nyuon (@NyadolNyuon) July 12, 2021
Channel 7, was it strictly necessary to point out that these elite athletes who represented #England are black? Also, could you please let me know, are now going to refer to the players with less melanin as "white" players? #Straya pic.twitter.com/GpVmYad3SY
— Tarang / तरंग (@tarang_chawla) July 12, 2021
Channel 7 released a statement later that day, saying it was a “regrettable mistake” and the “caption on the post was swiftly rectified as soon as it was identified.”
“The post linked to an article condemning the racial abuse of England football players following the team’s loss to Italy in Sunday’s Euro 2020 final,” they said.
“We sincerely apologise for the offence the post caused.”
The seemingly flippant and too common ease that those who should know better continue to show they don’t – or act in spite of knowing better – is a thoroughly depressing state of affairs.
There’s no excuse. It’s not enough to claim ignorance. You have to be better and do better. https://t.co/W4HvSkDjn2
— Joey Lynch (@joeylynchy) July 12, 2021
“Not surprising from Channel 7 Australia,” the African Australian collective replied to the incident. “It would have been okay to say three black England players were racially abused after the loss.”
“These headlines are dangerous and baits racial abuse,” they said, pointing out past examples of racial vilification from the broadcaster, including harmful depictions of ‘African gangs’ in 2018.
I mean, they did put a capital B for ‘Black’ – that’s actually huge leap forward for Channel 7. https://t.co/ljq3pW1MZM
— Pearson In The Wind (@LukeLPearson) July 12, 2021
Channel 7 has since taken the story down.