Bias

Excoriating article under Caroline Dinenage’s name remains on ConservativeHome website It was a crisis that toppled a BBC director general and his head of news. After contentious accusations of bias by a former external adviser, Michael Prescott, both Tim Davie and Deborah Turness quit the corporation.At the height of the media storm that ensued last November, the corporation was struck by another blow. A key figure in scrutinising the BBC – the chair of the Commons culture, media and sport committee – delivered an equally damning verdict. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Analysis shows 72.5% of 91 judgments in England and Wales contained judicial victim-blaming, with mothers scrutinised more intenselyA report has found “widespread and concerning evidence” of bias and victim-blaming in the family courts – primarily disadvantaging women.The report, Scratching the Surface: Victim-Blaming and Bias in Family Court Judgments, by the nonprofit organisation Right to Equality, will be shared with MPs on Tuesday at an event in parliament. Continue reading...

The Hampshire force whose officers responded to the murder of Henry Nowak have a higher than average racial disparityThe police force accused of anti-white racism following the murder of Henry Nowak is over five times more likely to subject black people to a stop and search than white people, according to the latest figures.The racial disparity in the Hampshire force is higher than the average for England and Wales, and has gotten worse in recent years. Continue reading...

• Veteran investor Vikas Khemani stated at the ET Alpha Wealth Summit that current concerns regarding Indian equities are driven by "recency bias" rather than a decline in market fundamentals. • Khemani highlighted that India has consistently outperformed other emerging markets over a long-term horizon of 10 to 15 years. • The analysis suggests that investors should prioritize structural growth drivers over short-term market volatility to maintain a balanced perspective.

Senior police figures are pushing back against politicians they accuse of stoking tensions over Henry Novak’s murderPolicing could be driven back to the 1960s by false claims officers are biased against white people, the leader of Britain’s black officers has said.Ch Insp Andy George, president of the National Black Police Association, spoke out amid growing concerns that politicians such as Nigel Farage were stoking tensions around the murder of teenager Henry Nowak by making baseless and provocative claims. Continue reading...

Veteran journalist says executives pushed unverified claims and gave politicians a say in interviewsThe longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, who was fired by CBS News on Tuesday after clashing with the network’s new management, issued a public statement accusing the network’s new executives of silencing employees and claiming they instructed him “to inject falsehoods and bias” into his reporting.“‘60’ has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories,” Pelley wrote in the lengthy statement he shared on social media on Wednesday morning. Continue reading...

Terry Pitchford, on death row for a murder conviction, argued that Black jurors were excluded from his trialSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailThe US supreme court on Thursday ruled in favor of Terry Pitchford, a Black man convicted of capital murder and on death row in Mississippi, who claimed that his conviction was due to the jury having racial bias.The justices sided with Pitchford in a 5-4 vote. Continue reading...

US judge says halt of $100m in funds allotted by Congress for scholars, writers and research illegal and discriminatoryA federal judge ruled on Thursday that the terminations of hundreds of humanities grants last year by the Trump administration’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) were unconstitutional and involved “blatant” discrimination. In April last year, Donald Trump’s administration terminated more than 1,400 grants, representing more than $100m in congressionally appropriated funds awarded to scholars, writers, research institutions and other humanities organizations.The terminations were part of a cost-cutting drive that billionaire Elon Musk was leading at Doge. Continue reading...

• The Federal Trade Commission opened a formal investigation into Amazon's AI-powered recruiting system on April 19, citing concerns that algorithms may discriminate against female and minority candidates based on historical hiring data. • Amazon disclosed that its internal testing revealed the system had a 3.2% higher rejection rate for female applicants in engineering roles, prompting the company to halt deployment pending remediation. • The FTC investigation adds to growing regulatory scrutiny of AI hiring tools and could result in significant compliance obligations or penalties affecting how major corporations deploy algorithmic hiring across the industry.

Doug Evans, a former prosecutor, removed nearly all Black jurors in Terry Pitchford’s 2006 trial, raising legal questionsThe supreme court is hearing arguments on Tuesday about racial bias in jury selection in a death penalty case stemming from Mississippi.Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor, removed all but one Black person from a jury that convicted Terry Pitchford of capital murder in 2006. The judge, Joseph Loper, allowed the juror strikes and Mississippi’s supreme court upheld the conviction. Continue reading...

Academics discover black people ‘significantly more likely’ to be identified when compared with other ethnic groupsEssex police has paused its use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology after a study found cameras were significantly more likely to target black people than people of other ethnicities.The move to suspend use of the AI-enabled systems was revealed by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which regulates the use of the technology deployed so far by at least 13 police forces in London, south and north Wales, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Surrey and Sussex. Continue reading...