BBC WTF

Yes, the issue for me is that these children are offered no other care whilst they were/are waiting to be seen at the Tavistock/its regional replacement. In a holistic, explorative model they’d be properly investigated.

What’s been going on so far is the equivalent of the patient limping into A&E and stating they’ve got a broken leg, to leave 30mins later in a cast, no xrays or assessment, and no follow up.

❤️ thank you. I went on a 6 week journalism course in the evenings in my 20s when I briefly thought about a career change. Maybe I finally got my money's worth 😂😂 "Find the angle" was the biggest takeaway.

I felt a certain guilt reducing Miriam Cates to "a back bench colleague" but in the grand scheme of news, that's what she is. The big names are the Health Secretary, the Shadow Health Secretary and now (thanks to Mishal Husain.. thank you 🙏🙏🙏), the Chief Medical Officer.

I worked at the BBC in regional news nearly all my working life. Took redundancy during covid. I actually hate them at the moment, they are complicit and they know it hence the the minimising of the issue.
I was proud to work there, now I've lost all faith in them. This must be coming from the top.
Minimise, report the minimum, when it is reported there's always some poor trans women who's suffering sooo much. It's blatant, arrogant and obscene and I want MPs to call them out on it in the house.
And most of the staff aren't raving activists, most are normal everyday people who've been stunned into silence by a few activists, backed up from on high.

That would be amazing if the bbc could do something half a good S this

I'm reposting this from the thread on the Parliamentary debate, because it really sets out how little the BBC has covered it.

This is fascinating and appalling, showing how poor the BBC's coverage of the Cass review has been, even in comparison with the Guardian: https://twitter.com/whtwldbabsdo/status/1780323215618814416

Here's what the BBC tweeted (without the Mishal Husain question):

https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1780166798626738188?t=oaPc4XRJnryJW2Y60cX0Qg&s=19

Apologies if it's already up thread and I've missed it.

And not forgetting the fantastic question to Chris Whitty from Mishal Husain yesterday too. She asked him why he hadn't stepped in on the Today Programme (my bold to reflect her tone):

"These were NHS prescriptions to children. The fact that they were ever allowed.. is it a failure? Did you ever, at any stage, think 'I should be stepping in on this because I'm not sure what the evidence base is?'"

Unfortunately the BBC left this massively important quote off the "teaser" when they tweeted about the interview, focusing instead on the toxicity of the debate.

FFS BBC. He's the Chief Medical Officer. We didn't focus on the toxicity of the debate during Covid, we focused on the facts about the medical issues and the impacts associated with them. It was incredibly toxic. Neighbours were shopping each other to the police. Imagine we'd dominated the headlines with that instead. Yes, there was a human story (we could only have 29 people at my mum's funeral... I will still never forget the lovely people who came and stood outside the crematorium, thank you ❤️❤️ or relatives abroad who listened on the live stream that the funeral directors did, thank you ❤️❤️) but as far as the main headlines were concerned, we needed facts about what was happening with risk etc. Yes, I know covid is a controversial subject but it was a pandemic. It made the news because it should have made the news. This is a medical scandal. Only this time, the majority of the victims are children and young people. It should be in the news.

Which BBC programmes and addresses would be worth writing to to point out that they've been fucking woeful up to now and it's time to start telling the truth? And get Glinner back on and APOLOGISE TO HIM?

Obviously they could legitimately include all the work that Hannah Barnes did when she was on Newsnight but personally I would much rather see the Glinner Newsnight interview alongside it too. It would be a great illustration of the "toxicity" of the debate through the lens of Newsnight itself.

What would be the angle on the parliamentary debate? There was no "news" there, it was people taking their party line. There is no new policy coming out either.

I'm not a journalist but I'll have a go (headline in italics):

Health Secretary acknowledges parents' concerns over social media "gro0ming" and medical "experimentation"

In extraordinary scenes at the House of Commons yesterday, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins responded to questions from across the House about the "greatest medical and safeguarding scandal of our generation", as described by a backbench colleague. Party politics were set aside as Shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, pledged his support to stop more children being harmed in what a 4-year long report is highlighting is widespread use of untested, off-label medication on children which has irreversible, life changing consequences...

• Then on to the Cass Review basic facts
• Then the Lia Nici (have I got the name right?) quote about the gro0ming

Then a Wes Streeting quote (without the "trans child" bit). Then a Joanna Cherry quote about Mermaids and Stonewall.
Then a Nick Fletcher quote about schools, and an observation that the Minister for Schools, Damian Hinds, was seen listening with acute interest.
Then a bit about the draft government guidance for Gender Questioning Children and a quote from Stephanie Davies-Arai about the risk in schools and the pipeline to medical intervention.

Would that work as an angle @AdamRyan ?

Although a quick google tells me he is denying sexual harassment, and has not been found guilty in a court of law

Oh sorry the other one I'm sure Russell Grant is an honest citizen and I apologise for maligning him.
Russel Brand is the one

What's the story with Russell Grant?

It's really not been covered. This was front page news everywhere else.

Yep , this is the same BBC that didn't do anything about Saville, Russell Grant and probably others we have no idea about

What would be the angle on the parliamentary debate? There was no "news" there, it was people taking their party line. There is no new policy coming out either.

Meanwhile the Iran/Israel situation was and is looking very hairy and Sunak wants to pretend he's globally relevant. There's also Rwanda craziness and Liz Truss' book, not to mention the burning issue of Angela's House.

So I'm not all that surprised it hasn't had that much coverage. To be expected really.

Misinformation fills a vacuum.

Other news sources which should be less trustworthy gain ground.

And other misinformation gains credibility whilst distrust is sown.

Round and round it goes.

Oh well. At least they have octonauts.

They really need to drop this "both sides" obfuscation and stop making the human angle all about the waiting list.

I have no doubt that it will be incredibly distressing for all of the children and young people who don't feel they are getting fast enough access to "life affirming care". The diagnostic overshadowing that Dr Cass calls out means that it is considerably more likely than not that they are demanding access to long term physical harm and to be removed from a treatment pathway that addresses their underlying condition (most likely mental health issues associated with autism-related puberty distress or similar).

This is a medical experiment on thousands of children and young people. That's the story here, BBC News.

Always worth a listen, particularly episode 2 when it comes to the BBC. Never broadcast, but still available on BBC Sounds. Episode 5 with Dr David Bell is great too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p09yjmph

I have always turned to the BBC as my principal source of accurate unbiased news. Which is why I knew bugger all about this issue until about two years ago. It was only after hearing the marvellous Helen Joyce deliver a searing, precise explanation of the issue on The Triggernometry podcast I became aware.

Of course, I had heard of trans people and knew to be kind. I too had huffed and puffed at the stupidity of “chestfeeding” and other bastardisations of language. But I didn’t KNOW. Some frantic research confirmed Helen was not a bigoted conspiracy theorist loon but was in fact the excellent journalist she is.

I kept looking at the BBC. Every fucking day. Nothing. Every day I looked. All the things that happened over the past two years, big things with wider implications for society - either not reported at all or covered in the most minimal way (but only if absolutely unavoidable). As already mentioned BBC has a couple of full time LGBT journalists - this is their sole remit.

It seems obvious there has been an edict from very senior management that this is a verboten topic. I do think it is more than political correctness or people buying into the dogma. Helen Joyce commented that many senior executives in all sorts of businesses have trans identified children and as a result are ferocious about silencing any questioning or dissent. I think this may well turn out to be the case for the BBC.

Yes I agree.

The BBC bias on this issue is completely grotesque. It is not an unbiased organisation and it bloody well should be. At this point I would be happy to see it be a subscription service and think that this is the way it will probably go.

They had no idea of how damaging the fallout was going to be. Government and Opposition welcoming it and showing every sign of acting on it immediately and enthusiastically? The level of condemnation and contempt, so eloquently expressed? They never thought that would happen. They literally can’t bring themselves to report on it, because it goes against all their beliefs.