BBC breaching impartiality

[DdraigGoch]

Nolan Show has exposed the way that the BBC has been allowing and encouraging their journalists to become political lobbyists:

order-order.com/2022/06/16/bbc-training-journalists-to-become-trans-rights-activists/

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9c9a8fce-ed84-11ec-b47a-cf598c451bbb?shareToken=2b6daa61e292317c15a5ce5acb5f14ad

I don't think the BBC have any integrity left. They're just seedy propaganda merchants now.

Stephen Nolan has done outstanding work on the issue of corporate capture by Stonewall et al.

I don't understand how this doesn't breach basic journalistic ethics.

It's generally considered unethical for journalists to do work that means they somehow benefit financially through their work - there was a radio show host here who was making some money on the side selling paintings to peoplle he knew through his work connections at the CBC. He was fired.

Isn't lobbying actually worse than that?

Of course it breaches impartiality, and senior management are entirely to blame

Comes as no surprise. The licence fee needs to be abolishes ASAP. Sadly Auntie Beeb has eaten herself from the inside. No longer relevant in this day and age

Great work by Nolan Show.

It's the idea that journalists can now become campaigners which is the worrying element and tends to be prevailing viewpoint of millennial journalists.

We saw how during Covid the media were essentially lobbying the government and could quickly create campaigns that the public got on board.

ITV have recently done it with Emily Bridges (although I think that was more related to finding another criticism of the PM, rather than a campaign for trans rights).

Too many Millennial journalists don't know how to separate their job from campaigning. Half of them think that their job IS campaigning.

Anyway unusually this was a young journalist blowing the whistle, at great personal risk. The fault lies with management very high up in the BBC. They could have stopped it but chose not to, they forced a young journalist to risk his or her career just to make sure the BBC is impartial. Hundreds of thousands of pounds is spent on the salaries of ppl whose LITERAL JOB is to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. It's their literal job and they failed spectacularly *

*none of them will be reprimanded in anyway I would put hard cash on that

For anyone interested, here's the link to the Nolan Show report and discussion. It starts at 1:03 in: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cf0rqf

Interestingly, Ben Cohen from Pink News says (12:10 minutes in) that they use the same outside provider, Global Butterflies, for their own trans and binary training sessions.

Useful link, Nolan and Thompson are doing great work

The BBC got Global Butterflies in when they dropped Stonewall. I expect this was due to a hysterical reaction by the staff LGBT+ network, and management not being able to stand firm.

This is a problem not just in the BBC but in many private companies. Young graduates set up identity-based groups to campaign for ‘social justice’ for these ‘marginalised’ groups. They believe that the world is full of injustice and campaign with righteous zeal to convert everyone to their cause. They declare Safe Spaces, to protected against heresy and dissent.

It is very difficult for management to refuse to have an LGBT+ staff network, or to refuse the recommendations of these moral crusaders, as who wants to be accused to homophobia/transphobia?

Nolan is doing such a good job on this. I can think of few U.K. presenters who would be able to raise the questions he has without being cancelled.

This is horrendous. If they get rid of Global Butterflies as they did with Stonewall then some other group will come in and this will never end. The BBC needs fixing with legislation. I know people mock Nadine Dorries but at least she sees there is a problem with the elitist ivory tower attitudes. BBC management do not seem to see this however.

After all the problems with Stonewall why did no BBC manager attend this training to see what was being delivered? Or did a manager attend and not see a problem with it? And if so why is that not being addressed?!

A diversity and inclusion manager DID attend. And raised no objections.

There are people with the power and the salaries to say no to this kind of thing. They don't do it. They choose not to.

@Tiphaine post, the link just took me to the front page, not a criticism I appreciate the attempt. However, while on their I notice a headline about a group wanting to give irreversible gender drugs to under 14s. I can't read the article, does anyone know anything about this? Sorry, for any derail but I don't want to start a new thread with such limited info.

On thread, I'm going to complain about this nonsense at the Beeb. It has to be against their thingy.

Do complain. Obviously they will fob you off but they still read them and count them

Charter?

Global Butterflies' website is down!

I've been trying to Tweet Tim Davie, Director General, about this but can't find his handle. Journalists shouldn't be encouraged to be lobbyists when working for an organisation that's grounded in impartiality. It's fine to go off and establish a career as a crusading journalist independently, as someone like John Pilger has done but not under the 'impartial' banner of the Beeb.

Presumably at least one of the new intake being trained by Global Butterflies knows this and leaked details of the training to Stephen Nolan. Cheers to them.

The BBC really needs to sack their D&I team and start again. They are bringing the organisation into disrepute. I notice that the Global Butterflies website is currently unavailable. I have a vague recollection thet Bobbi Pickard is involved, but may have that wrong. Anyone else know?

Interesting background on the founder of Global Butterflies giveout.org/spotlight-rachel-reese

It goes back years at the BBC. Before GB there was Mermaids who tag teamed with Stonewall and before Stonewall there was All About Trans and now there's something called INvolve. Endless gender identity training. The managers must all be so afraid of upsetting transactivists . Thereve been threads about it here for years and it can't have all happened by accident

The obvious concern is that the BBC is vulnerable to any group seeking to influence its journalists. In this case it's a transactivist lobbyist (disguised as a 'training' company) but it could just as easily be a group trying to influence BBC journalists to encourage slanted articles on behalf of say, Russia, China, North Korea, or a group promoting particular household products for large manufacturers, or a lobbyist trying to help an MP get-off-the-hook from a scandal (say The Prime Minister) or a pro-child-rape lobbying organisation like NAMBLA.

The precedent appears to have been set in allowing Global Butterflies the opportunity to mangle the BBC's impartiality rules and ethos. And that can only be because senior BBC managers don't really have an interest in the impartiality rules, and therefore have no issue when staff are being invited to attend 'voluntary' training the BBC has financed, that encourages them to flagrantly ignore those rules and their previous training.

BBC's trans rights training 'breaks its impartiality guidelines': Insider reveals trainee journalists are told to 'become allies' and 'influence the media' on transgender and non-binary issues in breach of corporation's editorial code

There are some previous threads about Global Butterflies. I thought we had more as I thought I recalled that they were behind a number of groups

www.faircop.org.uk/winging-it-with-butterflies/

Putting the following into a search engine should retrieve threads.

site:mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights "global butterflies"

The BBC's Editorial standards are Here and it is clear that the BBC is paying for external lobbyists to break those guidelines.

This section is being specifically and deliberately broken;

Campaigns and Initiatives
4.3.17 The BBC must remain independent and distanced from government initiatives, campaigners, charities and their agendas, no matter how apparently worthy the cause or how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial.

Based on that alone, there would certainly be grounds for the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (that'll be Nadine Dorris MP) to appoint an independent inquiry to scruitinise how widespread the BBC is breaking its impartiality code by financing the encouragement to break that code amongst its staff.

I don't reckon this on its own is sufficient to see the BBC lose its position as a State-funded broadcaster (the 'BBC Charter') but it would certainly be enough to justify a widespread clear-out of managers who don't comply with the BBC's ethos and stated ethics.