Evan Davis

This thread reminded me of my many complaints to BBC Radio, and not all about Evan!, and l went to have a look at my saved letters. This excerpt from a complaint l sent in (about a biography of Ewen Forbes by Prof Playdon interviewed by Amol Rajan, but that's by the by) is from December 2021:

...an example Prof Playdon gave was of historical unfair treatment received by some transwomen convicted of trivial crimes like non-payment of parking fines being sent to "wrong sex prisons" where transwomen were raped. It is particularly galling that in this piece, so full of maddening inaccuracies, I am encouraged to pity the historic abuse of transwomen in prison when the BBC has yet to discuss the fact that female prisoners being housed with male-bodied prisoners now. This is exactly the kind of thing that self-id is facilitating right now in women's prisons: unscrupulous male prisoners some of whom have been convicted of sexual assault and other violent crimes against women are claiming to be transwomen in order to serve their sentences in women's prisons. Why has this not been discussed, and instead we hear about past abuses of transwomen? To be clear I am not upset that the historical mistreatment of prisoners who were gender non-conforming is being brought out in the open; yes it should be discussed and understood. But I am very upset that we are being asked to sympathise with wrongs done to transwomen prisoners in the past, while at the same time the BBC is entirely silent on the very present wrongs that are being inflicted on women prisoners right now.

This was back in 2021. I was enraged that the BBC was amplifying outrage that transwomen might have been mistreated in prison some time in the past. While not reporting AT ALL the current mistreatment of women, right now! Look won't you? Report on it, won't you? Answer came there none.

Oh, they probably responded with something like "So sorry that you are probably old." I used to get that a lot, but wordier. I also would get "this interview was conducted in a fair and duly impartial manner" when my letter of complaint proved that it had not been. Thought l would post for obvious reasons.

The same sacred caste who enabled Saville are still roaming our institutions and we pay them to abuse us, they don't do their job and they never see prison bars.

I grew up in a household where R4 was on in the kitchen and car all the time. The Archers and Womans Hour wEre never missed! All our Jews came from the BBC etc

As a younger woman I did the exact same, saw the BBC as the born and a trusted source but a few years ago, I noticed WH just never talked about the things I was aware of, things that my female friends and I were discussing, big news stories affecting women. The women they didn't interview were conspicuously absent. The oriole they did interview seemed odd choices at times...my eyes began to open, the scales fell. The JM thing. Then JG leaving.

Then I realised the news wasn't covering the issues at all. The Allison Bailey trial for example got no discussion. Imagine if they'd done indpeth reporting of the judicial review around women in prisons ...

I can't remember the last time I listened to the BBC on the radio. I now listen to Times Radio - I hadn't come across it before Jane and Fi led me there by ending their fortunately podcast. I know wake up with it every morning where that would have been R4 Today's job before. Mariella had had great feminist guests and discussions.

I feel so let down that "our great institution" literally has nothing to offer me. My confusion on tuning into Newsbnight, and QT and seeing the tumbleweed was the last straw. That said, surely watching a national figure such as Huw Edwards on News at Ten saying "she" and "when she was a man" made me cringe so hard that it surely peaked a lot of others too?

ED has always struck me as a bit of a weakling on many issues. He never asks the hard questions, he panders to people. He is rather wet and is not a patch on the BBC journalists of old. No idea how he got these gigs.

Slightly off topic, but Evan Davis makes Dragon”s Den so frustrating to watch with his constant bloody mansplaining. Deborah Meaden will say something like ‘It’s not environmentally sound enough for me, so for that reason I’m out’ and then up pipes ED “the products lack of environmental credentials has put Deborah Meaden off investing’. I bloody know! I literally just watched her say that!

WhereYouLeftIt · Yesterday 23:14

Yes he is a gay man. And some gay men, having no sexual 'use' for women, see us as as nothing. (Not all gay men, obviously - but some.)

It would seem Davis may be one such

Agreed.

And he may have sympathy with, or even empathise with the idea that, another gay man like himself might well want to be a woman, in which case he’d think men have rights to any womanish state they decide on.

Sex Matters have launched Bad Media Watch - they want to start collating examples of poor reporting. Particularly when sexual violence is reported I assume.

This is genius Christina, thank you. I hope "poor reporting" includes non-reporting. A lot of that going on

That's very useful, thank you Christina. I shall be making use of that, rather a lot I suspect!

Sex Matters have launched Bad Media Watch - they want to start collating examples of poor reporting. Particularly when sexual violence is reported I assume.

"Bad Media Watch lets Sex Matters keep track of bad reporting on sex and gender and helps readers and viewers through the process of making a complaint. "

There is an easy form to fill in and below that expandable boxes with detailed advice about making initial complaints and the escalting them if you get fobbed off and covers a range of media including the BBC and print media. You do have to complain yourself as well as reporting it to Sex Matters but it will give them an extremely useful database and let media know that receipts are bing kept as well as encouring more of us to report.

sex-matters.org/bad-media-watch/

Woman's Hour.

@2023username
I said influence not control.
As I said earlier, I used to work for the BBC, and PM was one of the programmes I worked on. Woman's about too oddly enough. So I know how a news programme is put together.

*Kissin!

Konstantin Kissing was on Question Time last night. He's just said on Triggernometry that he asked the producers why they were not discussing this rapist case, and he was told it's because there were no LGBT people on the panel. Clearly the opinions of the women on the panel don't count for the BBC.

He does have control. It’s not like a newsroom it’s more like women’s hour, they (he) get to curate the content.

On the other hand Nick Robinson and Justin Webb are exemplar on this issue.

To think we pay for the bloody BBC to push propaganda at us. The BBC is so captured

It's shocking isn't it.

People are scared. I know someone who was working in diversity programmes, first thing someone said to them at a meeting - whatever you do don't do anything on trans issues, it's a minefield. And I know of colleagues who've been reported for things they've said by younger 'woke' colleagues. It's just like the NHS, civil service, we just need to get to that tipping point and LGBTQ+ groups need putting back in their box. They're not editorial staff ffs!

@Mollyollydolly also ex BBC here. And wondering what some of my former colleagues (now in higher eschelons) are thinking...

I've just posted a thread about women's sport and whoever runs the BBC Sport twitter account if anyone wants to complain about that as well. I'm ex BBC a lot of people thinks its bollocks but they're too scared to say owt. Complain every time, management do look at them.

"Teenage oppositional defiance disorder from adults does my fucking head in"

Great line KK!
There are those at the bbc pushing back. I was told by one there, especially on balance.

I do think there's been some small headway in this with Nolan and progs like anti social etc.

And Justin is definitely having none of it.

I have made a number of complaints to the BBC, and some of them have been about Evan Davis. I just went looking for a copy of one and can't find it, but l found the draft. Discussing an interview he had with K Stock/ I Willoughby, from 2021. This is part of my letter to the BBC:

"...The reason it's so divisive is because those two world views clash in policy making. But Evan specifically didn't want to talk about the policy clash. The clash is the issue. I found the fact that Evan really didn't want to talk about the practical implications of the ideology really revealing. Basically he articulated his 'lalalala not listening' stance. Do better, Evan.

One of the other reasons it's so divisive is that people like Evan have been engaged in #nodebate for at least four or five years. They should have been curating this discussion so that it could happen in a sensible way. Instead it's been allowed to happen in a completely dysfunctional and unregulated way. Why would that be (hint: Stonewall)? Instead we have had a very clear signal from Evan that anyone who questions gender ideology ("Trans rights") is transphobic. Listen to his interview with Harry the Owl again. He clearly had a side and it was not Harry's. Another PM tactic is simply to stay stum, so important events have not been covered and they may as well not have happened. This is not the answer. Discussion is good and many will applaud this. Journalism is also about asking the right (not the safe) questions, Evan."

Still complaining about lack of coverage, in 2023. Another PM tactic is simply to stay stum, so important events have not been covered and they may as well not have happened.

Yes. Justin Webb does an icily excellent job.

I agree it isn't everyone at the BBC, and l have heard the rumour that there is a group of BBC employees trying to fight back. But this is interesting from Kisin talking about the BBC agenda, it's not long but the BBC stuff is from about four minutes in:

Exceptions to prove the rule. The BBC is incredibly captured by trans ideology, first through Stonewall, and post the Nolan expose, through their internal Pride organisation. They are our national broadcaster, responsible to all the citizens of this country forced to pay the licence fee. They have allowed, through their silence and/or complicity, through their failure to hold truth to power, trans ideology to take a grip on every single public institution in the country. That a few journalists are now talking about trans incursions of women's rights, that e.g. Woman's Hour will give it the occasional critical going over, is simply not enough to counter their years of silence and unquestioning acceptance, and their continuing complicity.