Placeholder for Complaints about BBC Bias

[NotAGirl]

The BBC is a public broadcaster which means it is answerable to government and to us.

The BBC has editorial guidelines explain how they are supposed to be impartial and how they she report on issues on which there is a debate www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/impartiality/

Ofcom can also get involved in complaints - there’s a relevant article here www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2022/bbc-must-transform-the-way-it-serves-audiences

I’ve never actually got a satisfactory response from them for any complaints I’ve made to them but we must continue to make those complaints of bias in how they handle womens rights issues so I thought it might be useful to have a thread to highlight where they have shown bias and any responses we get from them.

You can make a complaint to the BBC here www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints

Thank you OP. James Kirkup has a depressing article in the Spectator about Ofcom's one sided research into the sex-gender debate and how their intrinsic bias against women continues to influence the BBC to back trans rights and ignore women's rights:

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-bbc-gets-new-orders-back-trans-rights-ignore-women

The headline on this article shows a bias, ‘Sarah’ has repeatedly said this is about womens sex based rights for a space without males

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61958346

I've just complained to the bbc about bias against women again today. They don't seem to care but at least we try!

BBC using ‘child’ ‘they/them’ in this article not ‘girl/girls’ ‘she/her’ besides showing a clear bias and making the article inaccurate it ‘misgenders’ those girls

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-61983584

Please use this link www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints to complain

I don’t see your point on this one, the reason the case has been raised is that a transwoman was in a space the female victim of sexual violence (rightly) should be for females only.

The article gives quotes from both sides to be impartial, I’m not being goady I can’t see what the issue is?

Took me less than 10 mins to make a complaint, you need to verify your email address after submitting the complaint. I don’t remember doing that before

A transgender row would be if Sarah objected to Transmen in a female space which she didnt

The person she objected to was Trans, so calling it a ‘transgender row’ works to include a transwoman though?

Are you also going to use this thread for accusations of bias at Sky News, Channel 4 News and ITN? They are also required to abide by Ofcom's Broadcasting code.

www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code

It does say girls, in the first sentence, and in other places in the article. It does also say children. They is used for plural children. When referring a to an individual girl, it says "she" and "her".

The report found the most common way children were exploited was through a "boyfriend" model, where a child would meet a man, who would persuade them to become his girlfriend.

In this paragraph the men get ‘his’ as a pronoun but a girl, who they have referred to a child (boys were not exploited in this case only girls) is ‘them’

I think the use of "children" is powerful in highlighting the nature of the exploitation involved. I don't think this is negated by the example you give, particularly because "girls" is used also used to describe the victims, from the first sentence.

But it says girls in the opening paragraph so it’s clear that all the children in this story are female.

Always interesting to see when new posters pop up to try and persuade us not to do something

The next step derail

after that some posts that get deleted if there’s enough the whole thread gets deleted and thats happened to many a thread of useful info

means we’ve hit a nerve and it’s not always entirely clear why

In answer to the question upstream about why BBC and why not other news outlets the BBC is a public broadcaster and answerable to government. The others aren’t. Is this why this thread is getting more ‘interest’ from new posters?

I've been on MN for 17 years.

Apologies, new to FWR

I'm assuming you mean not a regular FWR poster? Anyway... not wanting to derail, obviously...

No nerve was hit (until I was accused of being a new poster 😮), I was merely disagreeing that an article that uses the word "girls" several times, including in the first sentence, shows bias against women by not using the word "girl".

I’m not a new poster.

I just query whether these articles are ones that are an issue.

Happy to have a debate, and plenty of articles do get plenty of stuff wrong that needs pulling apart I simply can’t see the issue in these particular ones.

Also - new posters opinions are as valid as anyone else’s, having neon here longer doesn’t mean other people can’t join the discussion.

Oh, and no nerve has been hit, I’d just like some clarification on the thinking behind your issue with these two articles, because I feel like I’m missing something.

ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 are also public service broadcasters, answerable to Ofcom.

Please see page 4 of this document from the House of Commons
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, on the Future of Public Service Broadcasting: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/5243/documents/52552/default/

Since that is so I would say it really should use "she". If it was an unknown boy or girl they would be fine.

But the singular they for a known individual of a known sex is become a more and more common grammatical use, so that's probably what's going on here.