First LGBT Correspondent at BBC Faces Rampant Homophobic and Racist Abuse Online
February 26, 2019Ben Hunte, the first LGBT correspondent at the BBC, has spoken out about the intense online vitriol he’s received since taking on the role, reports inews.
Hunte’s role as the LGBT correspondent is to report on issues that matter to the LGBT+ community while providing “insight and analysis.”
“So I wanted to see what my first piece would be like as an LGBT correspondent so I put it out this week,” he said at National Student Pride over the weekend.
“It was about LGBT history. And it looked at the fact we don’t actually appreciate the heroes that came before us and represented us.
“In all honesty I have never received so much abuse in my life. Even as being an LGBT YouTuber.
“The difficulty with that was I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn’t know it was going to be that bad.
“What surprised me most was the lengths people would go to find me. I had one email that said ‘since when did the BBC allow negroes to present the news?’”
Hunte this concerned him especially in regards to future stories he might tell: “I had internal conversations with the BBC because that story was just a fun and friendly piece about LGBT history. When I’m digging deeper and I’m putting vulnerable people on the news, what are those comment sections going to look like?
“Because we’re all strong people sat up here and I’m sure there’s strong people in the audience but there’s people who can’t come out in support of their sexuality. So when they’re looking at these comments, what do they see?”
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