The BBC’s outgoing head of news has told LGBT staff they “have to get used to” hearing things “they do not personally like”.

[ChristinaXYZ]

From The Telegraph - looks like there is an attempt by BBC management to assert the corporations duty to report all sides:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/14/get-used-hearing-things-dont-like-bbc-news-chief-tells-gay-trans

Apparently:

"In an “extremely hostile” Zoom meeting with the corporation’s Pride network, Frans Unsworth allegedly told employees last Friday they must get used to hearing opinions they disagreed with."

and also:

"Two sources present at the meeting claimed Ms Unsworth,63, said: “You’ll hear things you don’t personally like and see things you don’t like, that’s what the BBC is, and you have to get used to that.”

Ms Unsworth, who is due to leave her position in January, added: “These are the stories we tell. We can’t walk away from the conversation.”

A BBC journalist at the meeting said: “Fran was totally calm but determined about it. was totally calm but determined about it.

“She was reacting to questions from the network that implied people shouldn’t come across views they disliked. To me, it felt like she was having to explain journalism to idiots.” "

The article goes on further to note:

"Meanwhile, Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, has attempted to reassure staff over the corporation’s recent departure from Stonewall’s diversity champion scheme and that he was concerned about LGBT inclusivity.

However, Mr Davies was reportedly told by a member of staff that he was not in a position to make decisions on the issue “because he’s not trans”, while another claimed the BBC was “institutionally transphobic”."

@Phobiaphobic

How have we got to a point where there is a tranche of society so fragile and lacking in resilience, yet so aggressive and demanding?

Overindulgent, helicopter parenting.

I’m probably what many would define as an overindulgent helicopter parent. I ended up that way because my girls have autism, can’t assess risk and are hugely anxious. I’d rather indulge them with a cuddly toy at a gift shop that will bump them over their anxiety, avoid a melt down and mean they can access the museum of said gift shop- even if just for ten mins- than be strict about no treats. I find we need very firm and clear NOs for safety reasons (including hitting each other or hurting themselves or bed time-as sleep is a safety issue in our house) so don’t worry over other rules that feel more arbitrary to us, so to most they are spoilt.

I think there’s a serious lack of resilience in the generations being affected by gender ideology. I think that’s something that’s true of any young generation, but there’s a balance where we have to suck up dealing with day to day life, with all the usual teenage feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, that builds resilience and coping skills longer term. The extreme of the position of throwing them in at the deep end isn’t helpful obviously, but there’s a need for learning we can deal with it that can only come from falling flat on our face a few times.

I think there’s a mix of going to the opposite extreme and sheltering kids too much, never letting them take risk in the real world, while also letting them take way too many risks on line. Which is permissive parenting not helicopter.

I think there are as many, if not more, reasons for young generation to feel very real fear as there always has been. See ofsteds report on peer on peer abuse for example. I think rather than finding ways to teach children to assess risk and evaluate fear and what it tells us, there’s been a certain amount of ignoring it. That’s true of all generations also of course, it’s nothing new that parents can find a child’s experience of living in a world full of threats of sexual or physical violence something that threatens their own emotional equilibrium, and so they avoid it. And this has always left children at risk- from the new step dad or the friendly neighbour or the boy at school or whatever. But now the threat is in their room with them every night, over social media where predatory adults can infiltrate preteens/teens life so easily and get into the gap left when parents can’t always face or meet children’s emotional needs from fears the world poses them. (No judgement, I find being emotionally present exhausting and draining and that’s with a decent & supportive dh and fuck tone of trauma therapy for my own csa before I had kids. I know that must be so so much more challenging with no support or living with abuse).

So the last couple of generations have been easy prey to the predators. While there’s the social narrative that they are safer now, women have better rights now, people talk about abuse now (as if that has stopped it in any way) because we have #metoo etc. So I expect it’s confusing, to grow up in the same fear any generation has, especially for girls living in the same fear of sexual violence as any generation has, while also hearing that things are so much better now, girls can do whatever they want now, have same options boys do yadda yadda. But knowing instinctively that isn’t true. And how can kids have the language to express that? Even if they did they’d likely meet many parents who are too invested with soothing themselves with the illusion their kids are better off than they were, mothers needing to believe their girls won’t be victims like they were (again, no judgement). It’s a disconcerting, discombobulating juxtaposition or disconnect of what instinct tells them and what the world feeds them as truth. Which leaves them just as vulnerable as any generation has been to predators.

And predators are very skilled manipulators. So while it’s insanely frustrating that people trained in safeguarding can’t see the misogyny and threat to children in gender ideology I think the reality is those that want to retain women and girls as the second sex, who want to keep their entitlement to our bodies, will always find ways to assert this. Currently it’s by sacred caste and most oppressed group rhetoric and #nodebate.

I think this is way way bigger than different parenting styles though, even if they intersect with current lack of resilience that’s meant teens and young people can’t bear to hear facts.

Its also interesting what he says about identity in that interview and how the more he thought about who he was, the more unhappy he was and he only found happiness after he let go of seeking that.

At the time he was doing a lot with bowie.net and it was fascinating how he envisaged it and what it could do. He was at least 5 to 10 years ahead of the rest of the world and actually the technology too. But it was a world I was heavily invested in myself and I already had real life relationships from meeting people on the internet by 1998, through a common interest in music.

I have said this before on MN but I do feel Ive been 10 to 15 years ahead of the curve on a lot of how the interest has shaped wider society and saw a lot of deeply unpleasant stuff a lot earlier than others. Its intoxicating and addictive though and I think thats its one of its most alarming and worrying traits.

Seeing things that were anticipated and warned about play about is something that makes you feel utterly powerless and is the total antithesis of what is lorded as 'the power of the internet' though.

I don't know where things are likely to go in the next 10 to 15 years.

I think a lot of attempts to regulate it will fail simply because the ideas driving them dont understand the technology nor the culture and what you will find is it disempowers and enfranchises a lot of groups - particularly women as it goes. We are seeing a lot about how the internet will enable women to work from home and juggle childcare and how this liberates them and gives them opportunities. I think it will probably go the other way in isolating women, restricting them to the home and stunting careers further as they are passed over for promotion by people who are able to be 'present' and form social relationships as well as professional relationships for example.

There is a distinct lack of people from technology going into politics. And money is a factor here - if you are a good developer who can earn £100k plus why go into politics and take a pay cut? If you are mortgaged up to the hilt, taking a pay cut to go into politics isnt an option. And its people from this band with the relevant skills and knowledge to share with parliament which are needed desparately. They also unfortunately also happen to be usually white and male. However we have a lack of representation from this industry in politics still. Instead politicians are coming from fantactial groups, career politicians, ultra rich backgrounds or industries which are less well paid (but often do provide essential life skills and knowledge). We dont hear much talk in terms of representation about life skills and knowledgeable areas of specialist interest which we should perhaps be considering.

If you look at that Bowie interview its clear his experience and position put him somewhere which allowed him to see things sooner than most others - he was at the very front of cultural change and had an indepth knowledge of art and art history and was able to apply that forward.

Humans have this nasty habit of not being able to learn lessons from history because of arrogance and cultures of fear. They don't heed warnings early and only take action at a point where things have already gone badly wrong. It will be the undoing of humanity eventually.

I also think we will see a rejection of technology being a cultural choice in years to come.

Kids who grew up with it, may recognise whilst it has its uses, it also has socially destructive forces.

You might find deliberate attempts to live without being so emersed in social media. There is kick back against instagram and facebook as stuff is published on how we know it can be harmful to kids / girls etc.

We know that the kids of the social media and technology barons have been kept away from it more than you'd expect. Theres a reason for it.

In the same way that we now know cigarettes are bad for our health, I think we will see people 'giving up social media' (more partially or actively limiting useage) and going on 'reconnection socials' or camps to 'get back to nature' as a phenomenon. Thus meaning regulation is less important as people see the toxicity of the internet anyway, without government intervention. (This does still live large groups vulnerable to deliberate exploitation though).

But yes. I dont think things will go the way the government wants or anticipates they will.

It not healthy however you cut it. You immediately set up the stereotypes (or reinforce certain ones) when you complain about bbc journalism hurting your feelings too. The lack of self awareness and the drive to force people to have the same political views as you in the workplace is nuts. Especially when you woork somewhere that it is essential to rise above your own political beliefs and be aware of and give airtime to opposing views because its literally part of the job!

Maybe this started when they began to confuse eliminating things like harassment in the workplace with people's thoughts and feelings.

It's totally legitimate for a workplace to tell their employees that certain behaviours that affect others directly, like making jokes about Jews, or putting up pin-ups of scantily clad women, are out of bounds. Those are concrete actions.

It starts to get into a different territory when you are telling people they can't be against Zionism, or even have weird conspiracy theories about Israel and the Pope, or they shouldn't have a subscription to whatever legal magazine they want, so long as they keep these things out of their workplace. We have to accept that no one is obligated to accept our ideology, even if it is mainstream or we think it's the only moral position.

And then, in journalism or some creative industries, or the university, there should be an expectation of real maturity because sometimes what people write or projects might reflect ideas everyone doesn't agree with.

People seem to have become confused, because the think something like, racism is bad. Therefor the workplace should stamp it out. Well, no. That's not really the role of the workplace.

Having been emersed in internet culture since 1998 what i found was community and liked minded individuals who lived a long way away. They were great and I made some wonderful friends.

BUT

You do reach a point where you settle down in the real world and your local community and the need for support and interaction from that becomes more important. Largely driven by having kids.

Your mate in Los Angles isn't much good for supporting you when you've got a screaming baby. And you haven't the same common interests and time to invest in those type of online relationships.

Instead you make more based on your locality and community.

The internet has done a lot to destroy that type of community but we still have a need for that type of community.

I do think we will almost have a generation who grew up with the Internet who also grow out of the internet when they reach the next life stage too.

Those who don't settle down and have families are less likely to experience that grounding of reality and can continue to live in and demand their fantasy land of living online.

It will be fascinating to see and see if it has different ways it plays out for different groups.

On the same note, privileged and educated people have children later in life than those who are working class and less well educated...

... If the theory is right you'd expect the privileged generation to live in fantasy land longer than less privileged again echoing and emphasising social fractures.

But I also think they are finite and once worked through there will be some sort of natural calming of social instability associated with technology.

You've just got the wave of one to do with climate change coming up fast behind to worry about then...

I’m really interested by your analysis @RedToothBrush and would love to comment in more depth but haven’t enough time today - agh. But I wanted to add first of all that I notice that my former students (at a so-called “elite” university), who were all big adopters of social media in the late 2000s/early 2010s (and unwisely friended me on Facebook, Instagram etc ), have all almost universally stopped using it or use it only very minimally. Far less so than people of my own age even (40+ Gen X)).

For a good 10+ years now that’s been the trend. They do keep up with me so I’m aware that their reduction in social media use coincided with them getting and becoming more advanced in professional jobs, having babies and so on (they all seem to be having babies a bit earlier than my cohort, in fact). Of course they have a lot less time than they used to have, but they have also very definitely deliberately rejected social media. It’s a small sample, but reasonably indicative of a Millennial trend, I think.

I never get friended by the Gen Z students (I’m sure these days they think I’m a crusty old bigot mum-figure ) but I’m aware that they are constantly on social media as they do like to talk about it constantly. They don’t seem to have the same scepticism about it as the previous Millennial cohorts and are often quite credulous about what they read and view on social media as being a valid research source, for example.

Even back when I was a student, the CBC was obsessed with chasing the youth listeners. It led to them putting huge amounts of money into shows headed by people like Gian Gomeshi, or George Strombolopolous (sorry I've likely slaughtered that spelling,) who were seen to appeal to the young hip crowd, and also the American market.

Which seems unrelated to the other issue, but here is an interesting parallel, I think: one of the results of this is huge chunks of the (shrinking) budget were going into producing these show that were coming out of Toronto (think London,) and featuring huge bands and stars, often not even Canadian. While the regional studios, which are quite far flung here, were left behind. It's also worth noting that the CBC in Toronto is very much an urban, lefty, kind of place, as opposed to where I am for example where it's always tended more to small-c conservatism and had a much more rural focus, or the North where it is different again. So, you have this extreme narrowing of representation and viewpoints.

I know that local radio people who are older fought against this and some who chose to retire early.

But the question - why don't the older people in charge remember what they are supposed to know about freedom of the press - it seems like this can only be part of it to me. It's not just about being cool. I wonder if these people somehow assumed that freedom of thought would take care of itself? That all these young anti-authoritarian free thinkers could never be conformist authoritarians.

Its intoxicating and addictive though and I think thats its one of its most alarming and worrying traits.

Sometimes quite literally. I have a friend whose son, in his 20s, is a full-blown addict, particularly with relation to online gaming. He escaped for some time, with very strictly staying away from the internet, but as soon as he went back to it everything fell apart again.

But there is an interesting comparison in one of Marshal McLuhan's book about why we find technology so attractive:

The Greek myth of Narcissus is directly concerned with a fact of human experi­ence, as the word Narcissus indicates. It is from the Greek word narcosis, or numb­ness. The youth Narcissus mistook his own reflection in the water for another person. This extension of himself by mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servomechanism of his own extended or repeated image. The nymph Echo tried to win his love with fragments of his own speech, but in vain. He was numb. He had adapted to his extension of himself and had become a closed system.

@BraveBananaBadge

Not a single named source in that article. Hunte could have made the whole thing up for all anyone can tell. Why believe a word of it?

I can well believe that there are people working in the BBC who really think that the world revolves around their delusions.

True DdraigGoch but the fact both Hunte and his editors thought it was sound to run this kind of hit piece, based on the nothing but words of anonymous drama queens, is shocking. I understand there are times when anonymity is necessary in a story but there's how many people quoted here, none of whom will stand by their statements in public? It may as well be a work of fiction.

Just as bad is it's clear Hunte's journalistic curiosity stretches little further than emailing a few like-minded mates and publishing their brain farts without question.

Ben Hunte is not a journalist. Ben Hunte is a propagandist.

@Chersfrozenface

Ben Hunte is not a journalist. Ben Hunte is a propagandist.

This needs repeating and making clear.

Journalists report whats happening - sometimes with agenda and bias - but they have to back it up with credibly sourced evidence.

People like OJ 1984, are not journalists. They are opinion writers who talk about feelings and views. This is completely different.

One of the big things with the Internet is how its caused people to be unable to distinguish or even know there is a difference between fact and opinion.

MN is full of thousands of examples of it.

but they have also very definitely deliberately rejected social media

You have to be a bit careful with this though. I agree, lots of people don't post much and there are age groups where it's dropped off hugely but I went to a marketing talk where the speaker addressed this. He said some businesses ignore FB, thinking it's no longer cool and people aren't engaged anymore or are deliberately stepping away, but actually all of these people not posting on FB are still checking it, sometimes multiple times a day. It's influence and reach are absolutely huge. Social media has played such a huge role in spreading gender identity ideology. That wouldn't have happened if people were genuinely not on those sites. I have quite a wide range of ages on my FB friends list and I post more than many do. Even those people who barely post at all see and like my posts very quickly when I put them up. They are there.

Yeah that is true (I rarely post so just looking at my feed you’d think I wasn’t watching it), but I think that’s also common in my age group. I’m taking about people around 30-39 who have actually eg deleted their accounts, for example - lots after the privacy stuff came out. There’s a certain mid-Millennial demographic for whom it’s fashionable not to social media at all.

*talking rather about

This may have already been posted but Ben Hunte got a mention in Private Eye last month.

Interesting new suggested approach by Ofcom. Maybe regional/class diversity isn't quite the same as "impartiality", but it's certainly more pluralistic.... therefore more chance that different POVs can be heard?
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/693c71e8-464e-11ec-aa43-5cc5157b09b9?shareToken=e2053232b6bd0ffeed46df6ec9d7b97d

[quote RiotAndAlarum]Interesting new suggested approach by Ofcom. Maybe regional/class diversity isn't quite the same as "impartiality", but it's certainly more pluralistic.... therefore more chance that different POVs can be heard?
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/693c71e8-464e-11ec-aa43-5cc5157b09b9?shareToken=e2053232b6bd0ffeed46df6ec9d7b97d[/quote]
That's an interesting article. It seems to me like it has half the idea. Regional diversity creates, in itself, a certain amount of breadth of representation, but at the same time if the programming is top down it's not going to really accomplish that. Regional content has to be really regional, in the sense that it is coming up from below.

I noticed a few of the comments seemed skeptical that they wouldn't just find regional voices that parroted right-on thinking.

I agree, but there does seem to be some sort of acknowledgement of the problem in the line: "Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, has said regional accents don’t “go down particularly well” at the BBC and that a new licence fee deal, which is being finalised, will be tied to efforts to improve regional and class diversity."

Class diversity is tricky, and it's definitely something the "sharp-elbowed middle classes" (ahem) may think to game, but it's good to see that's on the radar.

Yes, absolutely.

If I brought my auhentic self to work, I would not have a job.

@Ekofisk
Love the idea of an authentic elf , so seasonal too ! ( I want one btw)

That Private Eye story really is unbelievable.