BBC WTF

[ArabellaScott]

The fact the BBC have not reported on the Commons debate, or generally on Cass bar a couple of very weak, short pieces is absolutely outrageous.

The silence is stretching.

They have two members of staff whose sole remit is to report 'LGBT' issues. Where are they? This seems absolutely deliberate omission.

Scarlet Blake.
WPATH.
Cass.

We used to get propaganda, now we get silence.

What do we do, here?

BBC complaints seem to go nowhere, and the hoops to get to an Ipsos report seem virtually impossible.

How do we hold our public broadcaster to account?

https://twitter.com/whtwldbabsdo/status/1780323215618814416

Pasting without comment:

In the same year, the BBC’s drama commissioning team spent a delightful day with trans activists at the London Aquarium. Why the London Aquarium? Who knows. But I suspect they lingered at the Clown Fish.

I hadn't seen anything either - thanks. When you compare this to some of the things they do deem newsworthy on the LGBTQIA+ etc. front, it's difficult to see this omission as anything other than strategic. I'm so sickened by them.

The idea that our national broadcaster is so in thrall to a powerful pressure group that they are keeping quiet about some important stories, whilst filling out their webpage with inconsequential non-stories designed to show that group somehow in a better light: that would be an appalling state of affairs about which there'd be debates in Parliament, surely?

Come on, now.

They've not done the hate crime at the LGBA conference, because this devastating news item obviously was far more pressing:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8yd4l7k53o

The BBC has approached Guernsey Police for comment.

And presumably even Guernsey Police thought, nah mate, can't be arsed. 😄

PBS over here is equally sold on the trans cult. There was an item on the news today about suicidal ideation among youth whose states have said "gender-affirming health care" mustn't be given to minors. It turned out to be based on a "study" using a survey which people self-selected themselves into, but this was never questioned by the interviewer. I was shouting at the telly but luckily DH is used to that.

Despite the lack of interest from the police, I'm sure the story could be kept in the news.... Perhaps Crystal the drag queen has been on holiday to Guernsey in the past and could be interviewed on Newsnight to talk about how distressing and invalidating it is that a postbox she [sic] once used to send a birthday card to her [sic] late [elderly relative, sadly now passed away] has been destroyed in this way.

Too far fetched? Not really. Here's Crystal being wedged into a story about Israeli and Palestinian tensions in what appears to be a similarly contrived way by the Newsnight team:

https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1788692478540779634?t=X6VSu0doCmLXmPdg-qwasg&s=19

And sticking with Newsnight, here's a complete lack of journalistic curiosity from Sarah Smith when interviewing Graham Linehan regarding the use of unevidenced medical interventions like puberty blockers (perhaps if Graham had appeared in drag she'd have focused more on the story itself rather than on sticking the boot in to him?):

It's entirely possible that she finds Graham Linehan too crass when he tweets/speaks in short form - I avoided reading any of his stuff for ages for this reason when I first started looking in to all of this. I'm happy to accept that I had completely misjudged him. But it's the BBC news team's job and purpose to be curious, to investigate, to push through and find and then tell the real story. It's clear that Graham didn't want to be the story: the moment you listen to him in long form, or if you read his book, it's abundantly obvious that he's been trying to raise awareness about what Miriam Cates rightly describes as one of the biggest safeguarding and medical scandals of our generation (and would far rather been known for his comedy career). I'm so glad I pushed through and listened to what he has actually been saying, along with JL and the contributors on his substack.

In contrast to JL (the main substack writer), the BBC is failing the British public with its lazy journalism and the impact of the directive from the top down that "it's [more] important to be nice" than to investigate the story.

My own experience with the BBC has been mixed. I've already given up complaining as it just feels like a wasted effort. I tried a different approach at one point, because I really do (did?) value their place as our national broadcaster. I had some positive dialogue, by phone and email - the news team were briefly interested in what's been happening to thousands of children from an autism angle (and were certainly considerate regarding my family's situation) but ultimately it felt like there really is no desire to investigate this at all.

Instead, I'm sure we'll just see more of the same: an occasional great piece of journalism that's somewhere isolated, which is lost in a sea of emotionally charged "news" about lack of access to "gender affirming care" and literal-genocide type stories about the fight for acceptance and validation... told through vandalised post boxes etc. And of course plenty more pushing of gender identity belief as fact in its programming schedule - for children as well as adults.

Thank you for the Linehan article.

Ha! Comedy timing.... After writing the above, I opened the news headlines on my phone. This was the first one:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg4q6prkgz0o.amp

It almost feels like balanced journalism... until you get to that dig at the end (my bold). Also adding a screenshot in case they decide to rein it in a bit in an update:

and if she found the time to attend sessions, she would have a say in the work of Parliament's second chamber, considering draft laws and potentially participating in select committees.

Of course she would have a say. Like every other member of the House of Lords does. That's how democracy works. I'm no expert on impartiality but I'm guessing that giving away your own personal derision (and fear?) in such an obvious way shouldn't really qualify.

Screenshot ⬇️

and if she found the time to attend sessions, she would have a say in the work of Parliament's second chamber, considering draft laws and potentially participating in select committees.

So petty, so unselfaware (the journalist).

I find the majority of that sentence petty but I'm not so sure about the lack of self-awareness. I guess it could be.

It's either a) I really can't stand that woman but I'll do my best to write a balanced piece or b) let's see if I can get away with sticking this bit in at the end.

I watched a great documentary called Hypernormalisation a few years ago and it really opened my eyes up to the way "impartial" reporting uses language (and image) choices to help shape or reinforce opinion. An example it covers is using the word "regime" to describe a government/leader in a country that is often the "baddy" in prevailing public opinion. It explores how the notion of nations as goodies and baddies in the news bedded in much more under Reagan - obviously it was already there with the Cuban missile crisis and cold war, but it's an interesting idea that he might have brought a little Hollywood with him in to the news reports that pitted him against Gaddafi as individuals.

When it comes to news on issues where there is a greater division of opinion (I'm not sure many Brits were backing Gaddafi), choice of language perhaps stands out more.

By contrast to the JKR report, here's a fawning article about Eddie Izzard:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67745594.amp

Setting aside the she/her pronouns, there is no concern whatsoever about the same points: a) that Eddie might find it difficult to attend parliament amongst other commitments (despite a quote in the article about Eddie having to campaign remotely, ahead of the election) or b) Eddie having a "say in the work of Parliament's [first] chamber, considering draft laws and potentially participating in select committees".

Presumably the BBC thinks that Eddie's "vision of the future" and being "openly spoken about her gender fluidity" are the right kind of values for the British public, so there would be no issue with Eddie having a say in parliament. Not the worrying kind of values that that Rowling woman might bring along 🤦‍♀️

Imagine if they had actively minimised and covered up other health scandals in the same way!

You are naïve to assume they haven't.

Which health scandal(s?) are you thinking of?

The infected blood and vaginal mesh scandals were, to begin with.

Part of the trouble is that we may not know! If the BBC decides what subjects it wishes to report on based on how well they sit within and reinforce and uphold its predecided world view then who knows what other subjects it's failing to report on?

I was particularly thinking of their coverage of Covid, although all media outlets were guilty of that.

Not a health scandal but a scandal nonetheless has been their coverage of the Israel/Gaza conflict.

To loosely quote Donald Rumsfeld there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns. You cannot know what you do not know, so unless you are a specialist in a subject (as I think many of us are in this particular one) you have to take the media's word regarding their reports of 'news'.

It's not an oversight or lack of knowledge. A good example is/was the continuous repetition of the false claim of large suicide numbers amongst trans identified children. We know there is nothing of the sort. I seem to remember many here lodging complaints with the BBC about that false claim and yet they continued this extremely dangerous lie without even the most basic factcheck.

It's a feature, not a bug.

You are naïve to assume they haven't.

I can’t think of any other medical scandals of this enormity, brought about by institutional capture by ideology.

Of course there are other scandals that have been ignored or even minimised. But this is of a different order.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5192181-bbc-happy-to-role-out-a-wife-beater-for-sports-content

Here the BBC describe wife-beating Kellie Malone as 'legendary'.

Not a health scandal but a scandal nonetheless has been their coverage of the Israel/Gaza conflict.

Apologies for the derail, but why is BBC coverage of the Israel/Gaza conflict a scandal? I'm aware of course that the BBC faces many accusations of bias on this issue (and others) but apparently there are roughly equal numbers of complaints of pro-Israel and anti-Israel bias.

Which media provide unbiased, or at least less biased, coverage of the conflict? And can you be confident that your preferred media are less biased rather than simply being more aligned with your own biases?

I'm similarly uncertain about the nature of the purported scandal of the BBC coverage of the covid-19 pandemic.

I'm similarly uncertain..

Exactly my point.

How much did you hear on the BBC about the Cochrane Review of masking that came out during covid? Or the one just recently?

@hallouminatus

Are you aware of the Asserson report? Have you read it?

The BBC dismissed it out of hand & refused to engage with the findings, so totally unsurprising if you haven't. They want it buried.

https://asserson.co.uk/assersonreport/

Graham Lineham also speaks out about this on Twitter.

It's entirely possible that she finds Graham Linehan too crass when he tweets/speaks in short form - I avoided reading any of his stuff for ages for this reason when I first started looking in to all of this. I'm happy to accept that I had completely misjudged him. But it's the BBC news team's job and purpose to be curious, to investigate, to push through and find and then tell the real story. It's clear that Graham didn't want to be the story: the moment you listen to him in long form, or if you read his book, it's abundantly obvious that he's been trying to raise awareness about what Miriam Cates rightly describes as one of the biggest safeguarding and medical scandals of our generation (and would far rather been known for his comedy career). I'm so glad I pushed through and listened to what he has actually been saying, along with JL and the contributors on his substack.

In contrast to JL (the main substack writer), the BBC is failing the British public with its lazy journalism and the impact of the directive from the top down that "it's [more] important to be nice" than to investigate the story.

@BonfireLady Irish people are generally blunt (particularly so when we're angry). Graham himself has often pointed out that this forthrightness is something that does not tend to go down well with middle-class people in England AND he's VERY angry at what is happening to women, children and gay people in the cause of gender identity ideology so he doesn't mince words.

@UtopiaPlanitia his voice (in both its blunt and long form) is important in all of this. Hopefully Ireland will start listening to him soon. His latest article on the substack is about Ireland. Have you seen it?

Unfortunately it'll still take time but I'm assuming that in about 10 years, we'll have gone past the tipping point of detransitioner numbers (😢) and he'll be fully vindicated. Sadly, it'll probably take that amount of time before his use of the word "groomers" is fully understood in its context.

I can’t think of any other medical scandals of this enormity, brought about by institutional capture by ideology.
Of course there are other scandals that have been ignored or even minimised. But this is of a different order.

Fully agree.