Tim Davies Resigns - Can Gender Critical Movement take some credit?

[YouCantProveIt]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15274537/Tim-Davie-RESIGNS-BBC-director-general.html

Yes a lot of fighting talk rather than self reflection. How does that help?

Perhaps - well meaning liberals who are in such fear of the changing world around them that they have pulled up the drawbridge, shut the curtains and firmly stuffed their fingers in their ears?

"If a politician, public figure or journalist cannot state that men do not give birth and lesbians do not have penises, they cannot be trusted to tell the truth about 👏 anything 👏 else 👏."

Again, the BBC was in lock step with Conservative policy on this issue under May.

It is entirely engrained and reinforced in hiring and promotion. They can’t see it so how can they fix the problem?

Yes, indeed. It's not confined to the left, by any means. Cross party - just as the 'gc' pushback is cross party.

As understatement goes, Tim Davie appeared to have mastered it as he presented the BBC’s annual report. Questions poured in over whether he had ever considered his position as a succession of problems landed on his desk this year. In response, he acknowledged he and the BBC had faced a “tough period”.

The failure to cut a Glastonbury livestream, missed opportunities to address the behaviour of former presenter Gregg Wallace and criticism over its handling of two Gaza documentaries have seen a huge amount of opprobrium heading the BBC’s way in recent weeks.

Guardian - 15th July 2025

The BBC is here for good reason…

Anyone read Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed? Maybe the BBC could employ him as a consultant to reorganise around a culture of transparency and learning from mistakes instead of one of cancellations and defensiveness.

Everything that @ThatBlackCat said.

This. They’re too arrogant and sure of their righteousness. There will have to be some element of coercion involved.

This – and it really saddens me. TBH I can see why the bbc fell for trans activism in such a major way. A bunch of hugely privileged people who can’t comprehend their own privilege. A need to indulge in conspiracy theories about ‘sinister coups’ and alliances being out to get them, rather than reflect on whether their critics may have a point. They have a lot in common.

I know the Evening Standard isn't the Metro but it has a Comment article entitled
"The BBC Trump falsehood isn't an aberration but a symptom
(subheader)
BBC groupthink goes beyond Trump to transgender issues, migration and Hamas"

and including the sentences

"As for the trans issue, a report by an independent BBC adviser, Michael Prescott showed that the Corporation’s very own LGBT desk exercises quasi-censorhip over coverage of the trans issue. It warned that the BBC is not only risking bias in its coverage of trans issues, but is confusing viewers by failing to make it clear that transgender women are biological males, or even transgender at all."

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/bbc-bias-coverage-donald-trump-immigration-trans-b1257582.html

Decrease in fee payers might help.

Also...

There's been a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the Darlington nurses employment tribunal on the Six O'clock News on the BBC this evening After deafening silence throughout the hearing.

I wonder why tonight of all nights

Actually, no I don't.

now that’s a book I feel I want to read

Today I've been half-listening to podcasts while trying to work.

In The Rest is Entertainment, Marina Hyde gave a clear summary of the trans component of the story. That was good.

In The Rest is Politics, Rory Stewart introduced the story by saying that the DG was brought down by two issues, coverage of Trump and Gaza. Later, Alastair Campbell briefly mentioned the BBC's trans coverage along with some bluster about how young people think it's transphobic. Obviously no other viewpoint counts. 😠

SEEN in Journalism said that the immediate cause for the DG's resignation is unlikely to be the Panorama prog, as other heads could have rolled. They reckon the DG had just had enough of the poisoned chalice, not least the impossibility of making any progress with the trans issue. I'm going to listen to them again tomorrow, to make sure I've understood that bit.

Delusional is quite strong, becoming captured by the state or a special interest is clearly a real issue, we can see that it has happened. If a country like New Zealand or Canada began to move toward some kind of dictatorship (and who's to say it couldn't happen,) t's very likely those institutions would become the kind of government tools we see elsewhere.

An interesting thing with the PBS is that unlike the BBC or some others, it relies a lot on direct donations from members of the public. It doesn't seem to have made it more resilient in this case, so maybe that doesn't count for much, I don't know.
From my observations, having a healthy and varied variety of media seems to be the most important thing.

I don't think anyone is "cheering" the demise of the BBC or public broadcasting as such.

There are a few differernt things going on imo:

Some think change is possible and hope this is the wake up that will change their course.

Some think change is not possible and there needs to be a clean slate. I think many of these people believe that without all new staff the rot can't be scraped out.

Some think that this has revealed that public broadcasting is not more robust than private and so shouldn't be getting state funds.

None of that is cheering, they are all pretty reasonable conclusions that seem to fit the evidence.

I think this is it.

Despite all the emphasis in sex, gender, and racial diversity, there is actually almost no real diversity among the staff.

What they are typically, regardless of those other things, is from university educated, urban or sometimes suburban, middle class or upper middle class families. And their worldview and politics reflect that more than anything else.

A healthy media depends on people coming from really differernt perspectives which in this case would mean people who did not come through journalism studies and universities, people who are not all rural, and people from differernt kinds of economic backgrounds.

Which should be easy, because no one needs a degree to be a good journalist.

It's not just the BBC. Look at the NHS. Consultant class and the army of under educated over paid HR bods more likely to come from white middle class backgrounds. They have been letting men change with women, no questions asked.

Nursing staff, lower paid, much more likely to be from working class backgrounds. They have MUCH less power in the overall structures and have had to sue the fuck out of everybody to simply get changed with no men in the room.

Ack, should have said, "not all urban" above.

Rural and village perspectives are very underrepresented.

Yes, exactly.

This is an example of whatabouttery.

Stop it.

I once worked at a broadcasting organisation that ran an annual internship programme for BAME people. (BAME was the fashionable term then.) The people they chose were literally all public school, Oxbridge, Ivy League types; not just middle class but rich. Most of them came from families who had worked and travelled around the world and some of them had already done internships at big American media companies. The internship was paid but not one of them could have afforded to live in London without some kind of parental help.

I also knew an Oxbridge graduate in the BBC's Talent Pool (for 'Talent Pool' read 'entry level jobs on a zero hours basis') who could only afford to do that job because her parents already lived in London. I know someone from an ordinary lower-middle class background who did the BBC journalism trainee scheme but even he said he could only do it because his parents gave him a few thousand pounds towards his living costs.

They have no idea how un-diverse they are.