Suggestion for final comments to the BBC (deadline 26/02/19):
Thank you for your response to my complaint. I understand your response is final and I intend to approach Ofcom, however I would also like to make the following further comments in closing:
The guidelines on Accuracy state that where the BBC is unable to witness events firsthand they should talk to first hand sources and, where necessary, corroborate their evidence (3.4.1), that the BBC must check and verify information, facts and documents, where required to achieve due accuracy (3.4.2) and that when using user-generated content 'should take reasonable steps, depending on how it is to be used and if necessary to achieve due accuracy, to seek verification.' Further, the BBC 'must take special care over how [they] use any material that [they] suspect has been supplied by a member of a lobby group or organisation with a vested interest in the story, rather than a disinterested bystander.' (3.4.3)
The footage from Hyde Park is labelled as having been supplied by Miranda Yardley, yet there is no indication that Yardley was contacted, or Maria MacLachlan - the woman who was assaulted, or indeed anyone else who was there.
The footage from Bristol is labelled as having been supplied by Julie Bindel. Again, there is no indication that either she, or anyone else in attendance, was approached for comment or to verify what the footage showed.
Both groups - the trans rights activists and the women attempting to meet - clearly had vested interests in the events depicted in both clips.
Therefore I do not believe that these parts of the guidelines were followed.
You say, 'The section of the report which caused you concern showed footage of two events. In the first, someone is shown being grappled by an individual in a hood before a second person strikes them. The second shows police attending a demonstration outside a doorway, and people attempting to enter as others with banners appear to impede the entrance.'
This is a more accurate description of the events depicted than has been admitted in previous replies to my complaint. However this is NOT the impression that an uninformed audience member would have got when the very brief footage was combined with the voiceover saying simply that 'Those with opposing views have clashed.'
The guidelines state that 'Commentary and editing must never be used to give the audience a materially misleading impression of events or a contribution.'(3.4.16)
I do not believe that this part of the guidelines was followed.
It was very clear from my previous reply who I was referring to when I said 'the women's side'. Before using the phrase I provided context as follows:
'The footage of both incidents you used - Hyde Park and Bristol - showed women attempting to meet to discuss their rights, and trans rights activists attempting to stop those meetings from happening.'
So obviously 'the women's side' referred to the group of women who were attempting to meet. At both incidents, the group of trans rights activists comprised both male and female individuals and, as I am sure you will agree, it would be thoroughly wrong to assume any of their genders.
You say 'In this context “clash” describes the outcome of a meeting of strongly opposing views', however this is not an accurate description of what the clips showed. Had any of the trans rights activists chosen to buy a ticket and attend the events in the usual fashion then there may have been a meeting of strongly opposing views. Any of the activists would have been welcome to do this and to express their opposition in respectful terms. Instead, they attempted to shut down the meetings altogether and prevent the women from expressing their views (please see above if you need further clarification on who I am referring to when I say 'the women').
You continue by saying, 'it does not assign any motive to those involved or suggest they sought this or any outcome. I think “clash” is a reasonable means of characterising the intense disagreement between the two groups shown and I don’t believe it precludes the possibility that one side acted with more violence (or provocation) than the other.'
One side, the women (please see above if you are still unclear who I am referring to), have acted with NO violence at all. I am sure that you did not mean to imply that by simply attempting to hold a meeting, the women (see above) were acting with provocation.
Of course viewers would have been misled as to what was being shown because it was never even mentioned that both clips showed one group attempting to hold a meeting and another group trying to stop them, in one case with physical violence. Presenting these events simply as clashes was every bit as misleading as Donald Trump speaking of violence on 'both sides' at Charlottesville. I note that the BBC took far more care when reporting around those events and the inadequacy of Trump's 'both sides' narrative.
The arguments around self-ID legislation were not 'fully explored in the piece'. How on earth could they be? The entire report was less than two minutes long!
I understand that the Executive Complaints Unit is separate from the department that handles stage one complaints and that therefore you cannot consider the baseless assertions of your colleagues in that department that there have been media reports of incidents on 'both sides'. Nevertheless I believe those assertions, together with your own failure to properly investigate the wider context of the incidents shown in the clips, illustrate the increasingly obvious biased attitude throughout the BBC to reporting on trans issues, women's rights and child safeguarding.
This is why I have expended so much time pursuing this complaint, about a very short news report, through all the hurdles of the BBC complaints procedure, and why I will also be complaining to Ofcom. I will also be submitting complaints about every other incidence of this bias that I come across from the BBC and will be escalating them all as far as necessary in order to be heard.
I am fed up and I am not the only one.
Kind regards
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We've got a bit more time to work on the Ofcom complaint and it's worth looking at their own broadcasting code properly before we do so.