BBC (finally) admits error - Spectator

[highame]

www.spectator.co.uk/article/bbc-finally-admits-errors-on-gender-transitioning-article

How long has this taken and how much the BBC tried to avoid the one sided issues on suicide. Read for yourself, it's not a lengthy piece but looks as though the BBC really did not want to apologise. It tried at least twice to deny bias. Great!

'the head of the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) Fraser Steel admits to one complainant: ‘I think the repeated references to suicide went beyond what was editorially justified in the context.’

He agrees that ‘the article did not meet the BBC’s standards for due impartiality or the requirements of the BBC’s guidelines on reporting suicide or attempted suicide’ and the problematic way in which case studies were framed in the piece, noting expert concerns that ‘when suicide is presented as a reasonable reaction to a situation, people in a similar situation may identify with the individual concerned and consider taking the same action.’'

So irresponsible. Publishing a correction really just isn't enough. This is a serious issue that needs to be handled with care by people who understand all the context and implications.

It's one of those situations where the term 'bubble' is writ large. I think the BBC has found it very hard to accept that it's bias hasn't just run across politics but all areas of reporting. They still appear to really want to accept the poor quality of reporting by Ben Hunte and I would think they will try very hard to maintain bias on this subject where they can

Thanks for posting this.

Ben Hunte…hmmmm, does anyone recall the Radio 4 interviewer who rhymed the then Health Secretary’s surname with another word? I have been reminded of this.

Thank you to those who complained and the Spectator for publishing this. Ben Hunte wrote biased, inaccurate rubbish but this was actually irresponsible and I’m glad they have been held to account.

I'd like to see this more widely reported as news and not in a gossip column.

Ben Hunte made a big splash when he became the BBCs first ever 'LGBT' correspondent.
He left quietly for a 'short term position as West Africa correspondent' a few months after this article was published.

Was there a connection?

archive version: www.archive.is/vsrjU

Far too little, far too late to be useful. But I'd hope that this reversal will belatedly be useful in objecting to other misuse of statistics like this.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4113227-Ben-Hunte-BBC-article-about-puberty-blocker-ban

MN thread when article was published.

@Nonmaquillee

Thanks for posting this.

Ben Hunte…hmmmm, does anyone recall the Radio 4 interviewer who rhymed the then Health Secretary’s surname with another word? I have been reminded of this.

😀 indeed

Agree about the irresponsibility. Writing that children are more likely to kill themselves as the result of a carefully-considered court ruling is just appalling, irresponsible journalism. It beggars belief that an organisation of the BBC's calibre would publish a piece that so clearly flouts editorial guidelines on the reporting of suicide. Makes you wonder if anyone read it before it was published.

previous threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3296433-BBC-Bias-Collecting-Examples-here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3641057-Another-example-of-BBC-bias

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3633078-Typical-BBC-bias

I complained about this article months ago and it’s good for a wrong to be righted but when I saw the original article, it was on the ‘front’ news page of the BBC online news, albeit you had to scroll down a bit. Apologies should be given equal prominence.
It all feels a bit flat as the damage in terms of statistical lies and dangerous language has been done.

Also see:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4254348-Elliot-Page-undergoes-lifesaving-top-surgery

Glad to see this admission. Even if the correction doesn’t get the prominence it deserves, I hope the BBC and other publishers will stop this lazy and irresponsible reporting.

And there’s more…

www.spectator.co.uk/article/bbc-s-curious-christmas-day-message

An odd email to be sending out on Christmas Day to what has now been accepted as a justified complaint.

The only way I can make sense of that email is to suppose that the BBC man incorrectly believed that he'd been sent it on Christmas Day, rather than him just reading it then. Even so, and even supposing he thought so, it would still be an unjustifiable response. (Not everyone celebrates Christmas, and even someone who has sent a complaint at an odd time cannot reasonably be asked to wait a few days then re-send it!)