Indeed it has - to people with dark skin, to Jews, to Gypsies, etc.
As a scientist myself, I find the quality of British science journalism depressingly poor. It seems to have been increasingly 'dumbed-down' rather than trying to inform people. This applies to TV news as well as newspapers. In general I find CNN and Euronews more rigorous.
I was appalled by a piece in the weekly BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Health last year which featured an extremely-patronising 'expert in functional disorders' (I wonder how you qualify as one of these?) purportedly curing someone with a unilateral paralysis. As someone who suffered one of these as a child (facial - quite likely due to a herpes virus) and who has done a lot of reading on the subject, I know that these commonly recover spontaneously over time. (Unfortunately mine did not.) So it is easy for someone to wave a magic wand, say 'Abracadabra', pray or whatever else and then claim that THEY have effected the cure.
The programme can be heard here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n65zl?oo=0
Prepare for a rocketing of blood pressure! I emailed the programme to complain at the way this piece was presented as fact, without any supporting information.