BBC fair and accurate reporting of the judgement

[TheOtherRaven]

Getting increasingly concerned with the way the BBC are covering this story on multiple fronts.

Can we have a quick collation of evidence please from anything you've seen, heard or read just to make sure it's here and listed where it can be easily found?

This is a women's story, based on the long journey of three women to get this to the supreme court. How many women who were actually involved in all this so far have been in the interviews on TV and radio? Compared to how many men?

How much air time and in depth coverage has the issues and women's side of the story been allocated compared to the air time and depth of coverage given to TQ+ issues and side of the story?

What experts actually involved in the legal processes have been interviewed or given explanations of the judgement on air compared to people with opinions? One today actually didn't even know the name of the relevant act. Are facts being challenged and explained on air or are interviewees being allowed to broadcast misinformation unchallenged?

I am increasingly concerned with what the drag queens think about the ruling, though - quick can we have an update?

Meanwhile HIGNFY has ignored the story completely.

Cowards, the lot of 'em!

It's been uneven since the judgment but today has been a classic on Radio 4.

Evan Davis decided it to time to set the record straight so he got on Lord Sumption to analyse the judgment. He came on with fanfare that he only truly understood what it meant. That wasn't convincing to anyone with knowledge because he didn't even know the relevant statute was the Equality Act. Evan Davis acted as though he was seeing Moses come down from the mountain.

Next up was The News Quiz. It's the main satirical comedy show to discuss the big stories of the week. I wondered "will they go there?" and it seemed not as the end of the programme approached. But they'd left the judgment to be the final question. So, the host read out a legal-sounding summary at super high speed rather than a question (all of the rest of the stories were presented to the panel as questions), clearly done to make the audience think it was incomprehensible, and when he finished, rather than elicit panel responses he quickly said "and that's the end of the show" and it stopped there. It was a contemptuous and astonishingly cowardly way to deal with the issue.

Then it was the main event, Any Questions. The positive was that the judgment was the first question. The first person to answer was a Labour peer, from an education union background. Surprisingly, she responded with some solid gender critical elements but as she went on the fear overtook her and she was cut off before she ground to a halt. Then it was Siân Berry. She came out with a load of rubbish with the essence being that the the judgment is unsound because it wasn't based on the fact that sex is a spectrum. Next it was 2 conservative-minded people who both supported the judgment. But over the course of the question being answered, the chair of the programme called in Berry now and then as some kind of diarrhoea hose to drown everything in shit and with that done, the chair shut down the question sharpish to get onto safer territory.

Came here to say the same thing. Utter cowards. Although Julian Clary did make some quip about identifying as Taiwan “because who’s to say he isn’t?” Was nice to see JC on the telly again but no idea what his views are.

That is very interesting. JC is quite a character.

So, that was the PM programme, 5-6pm using Sumption as an unquestionable authority who didn't even know the name of the relevant act.

Then it was The News Quiz, 6.30-7pm whose approach was to present the judgment as gobbledegook and then imposed #nodebate.

Then it was Any Questions which wanted it out of the way sharpish and used Siân Berry as anti-science and disinformation central.

I think there's a contingent at the BBC who in their initial shock at the judgment being handed down didn't know what to do but now are mobilising to undermine the judgment in the minds of the public. This is actually sinister. In terms of where we are in film terms, today is The Empire Strikes Back.

Remembering posts across multiple threads, Women's Hour has hosted rather a lot of men on the subject thus far, has not appeared to cover the women's side of the story much if at all, or hosted anyone actually involved in the case such as the women who took it to court? Am I right?

It's one of those situations where I'd quite like to be proven wrong.

@nauticant wrote Evan Davis decided it to time to set the record straight so he got on Lord Sumption to analyse the judgment. He came on with fanfare that he only truly understood what it meant. That wasn't convincing to anyone with knowledge because he didn't even know the relevant statute was the Equality Act. Evan Davis acted as though he was seeing Moses come down from the mountain.

Indeed, Lord Sumption referred at least 5 times to “The Equalities Act”, and Evan Davis once. At least. Does the “The Equalities Act” exist?

Yes, it exists in The Upside Down where sex doesn't exist and instead there's a gender-fluid Utopia for all.

The BBC have so much skin in the game with their relentless one sided coverage of all this for so long, allowing children's TV to be used by transactivists to push the gender identity / pronoun fiction at young children that they must be desperately hoping nobody ever joins the dots in terms of their bias and culpability.
I can't comment about your specific question OO as I now seek out more balanced sources for news but am interested to hear what others say.

rebmacesrevda · Today 21:31
HipTightOnions · Today 21:28
Meanwhile HIGNFY has ignored the story completely.
Cowards, the lot of 'em!

Yes they are complete cowards. Ian Hislop has spent several decades boasting about how he’s frightened of no one, he speaks truth to power and will take on the Establishment etc.
There’s nothing brave about that as he knows quite well that he can say whatever he wants about the Royal family, politicians and other bigwigs and there will be no comeback.
Thenworst that could happen is a libel case might be threatened to which he’ll pontificate about freedom of speech and start a crowd finder.
However trans activists are a different kettle of fish and would make his life very difficult - as he well knows, and so keeps quiet.
He’s been exposed as a craven coward.

Likewise Alastair Campbell.

I think the progressive grouping at the BBC, being initially caught very badly off-guard by the judgment, are now beginning to move to undermine the significance of the judgment in the minds of the general public.

But they're doing this reflexively without understanding that, possibly, the Overton Window has shifted significantly, and the public might not be as biddable as they were in the recent past. I think they're playing a dangerous game.

I wonder if Private Eye will ignore the story.

Yes really odd that such a big story was ignored by HIGNFY.

I was really disappointed.

Have I got news for you used to be brilliant but has not been funny for a long time, too worried about saying the ‘accepted’ thing. I won’t be watching again.

I think that, rather than being fearful of the TRAs, it is more that Hislop ( and Campbell) just aren't interested in women's rights. He dismissed the Westminister sex pest scandal as unimportant with " it's not as if anyone died" or something similar.
Blind to women's issues.
Fat finger edits.

Radio 1 Newsbeat seemed to be in mourning and the tone was very much pro-trans.

The bulletins will be available as part of the programmes available on BBC Sounds.

A story that was on literally the front page/homepage of every mainstream media outlet in the country, and has been across the airwaves of multiple BBC and commercial programmes for over 48 hours! Unless the show was recorded on Tuesday because of Easter, it is shocking cowardice.

I was just coming here to say that.

Infuriating, but so BBC.

Biased. Belligerent. Captured.

It’s funny because it was a R1 Newsbeat thing that first got me thinking that something was going quite wrong with all of this.

It must have been around 2010. Was the GRA being debated? There was a piece on the news with a vox pop from some moronic teen who said (and I am pretty much quoting this verbatim) “we can choose our GCSEs which are important for our future so we should be able to choose our gender”. I nearly stalled the car.

I started listening to R2 and R4 after that. Same idiocy, just more my age range.

edited for typos.

Yes, I was listening to The News Quiz and felt disgusted by that nonsense at the end. It was disrespectful and deliberately undermining. I was appalled by it.

What is HIGNFY? Thanks :)