January 24, 2007	Wednesday	Muharram 04, 1428

LONDON, Jan 23: Channel 4 found itself at the centre of another race row on Tuesday following comments about slavery by a former boarding school pupil in its latest reality TV show “Shipwrecked”.

Viewers tuning into the programme during the weekend heard contestant Lucy Buchanan saying she was “quite for the British Empire ... and quite for slavery and things, but that’s never going to come back”.

Describing herself as a “traditional girl” with “traditional values” the 18-year-old from York shocked fellow participants in the first show of the series by saying that black people were “like, really bad”.

One of the shipwrecked contestants, who have to tough it out on the South Pacific’s Cook Islands for five months to win a 70,000-pound jackpot, said she “hated racists” only to be told by Buchanan “I’m afraid you have one here.”

The outburst follows remarks by Jade Goody and some of her fellow housemates against Indian Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in the “Celebrity Big Brother” reality show.

Media watchdog Ofcom received a record 40,000 complaints about alleged racist bullying from viewers after Shetty was referred to as “the Indian” and “Poppadom”. Questions were asked in the House of Commons, Chancellor Gordon Brown became embroiled in the issue during a trip to India and a key sponsor withdrew its backing for the show.

Now Channel 4 has been accused of being a “repeat offender”.

The 1990 Trust, which monitors racism against black people, has written to the Press Complaints Commission, saying that Buchanan’s comments put remarks by Goody “in the shade”.

Karen Chouhan, a trustee of the trust, added: “I am shocked that yet another Channel 4 show is giving airtime to such appalling attitudes, and it is high time that the station’s bosses are now held to account.”

The Channel 4 board, which met on Monday said it took “the views of our audience very seriously and profoundly regrets any offence that may have been caused” by the Celebrity Big Brother show.

In response to the latest furore, Channel 4 said Buchanan had given “some very extreme views”, but pointed out that she had been “immediately criticised by the other contestants”, and that during the course of the show – which is not going out live – she completely changed her views.—Reuters