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

Goodall, as always, misses the point. Yes, the BBC gets criticisms from both right and left (and I know sex/gender doesn't fit neatly into this, but in BBC groupthink the GC position is right coded). He should be asking himself why it's criticisms from the right that stick.

Criticisms from the right are usually, not always, about content, like splicing together two Trump quotes to make him say something he didn't say, or giving undue weight to statements from Hamas, or only covering trans issues from an "affirm and celebrate" perspective.

Criticisms from the left tend to be much more vibes based, like Laura Kuenssberg isn't explicitly left wing, or Nick Robinson did a hostile interview with Corbyn, or Farage is on QT too often. The complaint is that the BBC isn't biased towards them.

You also get a sense of this with ex-BBC types who start podcasts, where they aren't bound by a corporate line any more, and they can express their opinions, and it turns out they all have more or less the same opinions, and exactly the opinions you'd expect.

I'm sure Goodall thinks he's an independent thinker calling things the way he sees them, and it never even crosses his mind that he's a regime mouthpiece. That's how bubbles work.

Thanks for following up - so not an external documentary maker then - curious I am sure that (perhaps early on) the claim was made that it was an external documentary maker.

I'll have to go digging too

I am sick to the back teeth of hearing "but you know, the BBC gets criticism from both the Left and the Right so it must be doing something right".

Maybe. Or maybe it just has a number of agendas, mostly metropolitan smug liberal left but with other stuff too and gets criticism for multiple types of bias. The utter complacency drives me up the wall.

It's a useful approach, though. The more accusations of bias the BBC receives, the more it proves itself to be free of bias.

Rory strikes me at the modern equivalent of the Victorian eccentric - brilliant within a narrow field, but with an intellectual apparatus that doesn't quite work on any subject outside of it.

Rory, as generalist commentator, is wrong about practically everything he weighs in on. It's really quite amazing.

I think this WAS true. I would say that in the past.

It's changed.

It's when you have highly respected and professional journalists leaving the corporation saying they can't get high quality hard hitting and crucial journalism through AS WELL AS accusations of bias that you should be sitting up and taking notice.

The issue is that these pre decided values and guidelines are over riding journalist practices and principles. That's what the change is.

There is a difference. And it's noticeable to anyone who understands the two

I thought this was really good from Alex Massie. He discusses the Goodall post too. Well worth a read.
https://alexmassie.substack.com/p/the-art-of-news?r=6hi6l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

Rory Stewart reminds me of a lot of Foreign Office types with dreams of being the new Lawrence of Arabia, forgetting the Foreign Office period was the least happy part of Lawrence's career.

He's an odd chap, Rory. I don't really know him, but we have close friends in common. He's always seemed better at burnishing his reputation than doing whatever it is he's supposed to be doing.

Which is a political skill, I suppose.

BBC insider "Charlie Walsham" writes in the Spec:
Inside the BBC’s impartiality meltdown | The Spectator

I firmly believe in and support the old BBC. Middle of the road, conventional, reliable and trustworthy. High quality and the default broadcaster for Big National Moments and sporting occasions. Excellent local news and radio. I don’t know if there’s still enough of an appetite for this to ensure its survival but I hope so.

I’m old enough to remember when the BBC really was the instrument of the government (dubbing Gerry Adam’s voice, misleading editing of the footage “battle of Orgreave” in the miners strike). Controversy isn’t new for Auntie, but the cumulative effect of decades of scandals means the crisis gets bigger with each new scandal.

Yep. Middle of the row.

Middle of the row is NOT having an editorial policy which replaces 'pregnant women' with 'pregnant people'. Middle of the row is following ordinary every day common usage of English used by the majority of people.

It's not trying to lead. It is to reflect. And be representative.

Pregnant people just isn't what the ordinary person would say. And there isn't a move to erase the word man from other common phrases.

Perhaps this middle view gives somewhere for people with other view points to anchor their opinions.

Without this sort of anchoring does the debate just polarize into opposing camps?

If the BBC is really truly impartial it should be playing to the bland majority.

It should not be trying to push boundaries (we have C4 for that). It is to represent - that means reflecting - not pushing agendas. The BBC seems to have forgotten this.

The BBC is utterly desperate to 'stay relevant' and attract younger audiences but you don't do this by alienating parents! And this staying relevant stuff by promoting trans every five minutes doesn't seem to be connecting with audiences anyway. You promote family viewing and viewing for a broad market - this is somewhat out of fashion but this is what the BBC did well. Shows you'd watch together. That's hard when kids live in separate rooms and screens. But honestly put something good on and families will still watch together (Hello Traitors).

I dunno. It's like the BBC have forgotten who they are and what their strengths were - those strengths will attract viewers if you stick to them even now.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/11/13/bbc-news-boss-admits-we-havent-got-our-trans-coverage-right/

'BBC News boss admits: We haven’t got our trans coverage right
Director of news content tells journalists to consider all views when covering gender debate'

'A senior BBC News executive has admitted the broadcaster made mistakes in its coverage of transgender issues.
Richard Burgess, the corporation’s director of news content, told journalists in an all-staff call on Wednesday that they must cover the gender debate impartially and consider the views of both sides.
He said he “did not think any of us would say” that the BBC had got its coverage of the issue right over the past decade.'

'The intervention by Mr Burgess is the clearest sign yet that the corporation has taken on board criticisms made in the dossier, which was sent to the BBC board by former standards adviser Michael Prescott.
Mr Burgess addressed staff in the corporation’s news division on Wednesday and admitted the broadcaster had not got everything right on the issue.
The Telegraph has been told he said: “Have we got everything right on it? No, I don’t think any of us would say that, but I am also pleased with the progress we have made in terms of covering that story.”
Mr Burgess told staff they must cover sex and gender impartially and represent a range of perspectives, and pointed out that all views should be considered in editorial meetings. He then outlined the changes the BBC had made in covering the subject.

You promote family viewing and viewing for a broad market - this is somewhat out of fashion but this is what the BBC did well. Shows you'd watch together. That's hard when kids live in separate rooms and screens. But honestly put something good on and families will still watch together (Hello Traitors).

We don't watch traitors but this kind of family viewing material is really missing from a lot of the apps and channels and we really value it when we do find it.

Last few things we all watched together one was channel 4, one netflicks and one apple TV. There was someone in chat on a thread a while ago they'd got hold of a 90 or early 200O TV sehcudule and in early evening the was a much bigger varieity of show styles in 30 minute chunks than you get today.

Even when they have a family hit - Dr Who loved by three generations in this family they've turned a very loyal fan base who were surpsingly forgiving of ropy espiodes and seasons into one that only watch older seasons. DD2 friends all rewatch the newer reboot - one stops at end of Tennat season other end of Matt Smith - DD2 does most of Peter Capaldi - none of them watch past that at all. That part of a much wider issue around poor writing and contempt for audiences.

The intervention by Mr Burgess is the clearest sign yet that the corporation has taken on board criticisms made in the dossier, which was sent to the BBC board by former standards adviser Michael Prescott.

That good - though it's only taken 6 months - it leaking and there being a public outcry for them to take on board critisms.

"Richard Burgess, the corporation’s director of news content, told journalists in an all-staff call on Wednesday that they must cover the gender debate impartially and consider the views of both sides."

He still hasn't quite got it.

You can have a debate on which services should be single sex and which should be mixed sex, but there aren't two sides to the question of 'should medicine be evidence based?' or 'should the news be reported accurately?'.

It also does nothing to undo the harm of suppressing one set of facts and events and voices for years while intentionally promoting and exaggerating the other to intentionally create the desired public opinion and generally accepted 'norm'.

Saying whoops we'll do better now does nothing to fix it.

I'm very impressed with this right wing conspiracy to fool left wing journalists into 'adjusting' footage to misrepresent what President Trump said and then get it past the fact checkers at Panorama (it was a commissioned programme.) After that, they gagged and blindfolded the whole board of the BBC and no one noticed.

If it was a right wing conspiracy then that doesn't say much for highly paid journalists, does it? And if only the BBC had had an organisation dedicated to fact checking then it might have been avoided. Oops, they did, didn't they?

I’ve not seen anyone saying Burgess’s statement means it’s all over. But before anything can change, the BBC has to admit that they’ve got it wrong and this is the first time I’ve seen them do that.

I’m not celebrating but I think this might just be a start and I’m happy to acknowledge it as such.

I think the only grounds for calling this a right wing conspiracy is that the leaked memo just happened to find its way to the Telegraph, which is politically motivated to make trouble for the BBC. Otherwise the programme could have been brushed under the carpet, as only about three people still watch Panorama and none of them are Donald Trump.

But that's no excuse for shoddy journalism. I'm pissed off that there are apologists trotting out the "conspiracy" narrative while refusing to acknowledge the wider issues.

The way the Darlington nurses tribunal was reported the other day is a good start because it used factual language that is relevant to the case. The nurses don't object to Rose in the changing room because he is trans, but because he is male.

The leaked memo was doing the rounds in various parts of Whitehall before being sent to the Telegraph. It wasn't exactly top secret, and TBH it could have gone to any paper except for the Guardian, which is joined at the hip with the BBC.

The problem will be getting them to admit they got things wrong, and be upfront about what went wrong and how, not just a passive voice "mistakes were made" thing, and then follow through. The follow through will be the most important part and will show whether they've learned any lessons.

They're not very good at learning and implementing lessons. If left to their own devices, they will just default to "mistakes were made". That's largely what happened over Jimmy Savile, and it was repeated in endless evening news bulletins, many of them presented by Huw Edwards.

Somewhat tangential, but The League of Gentlemen has suddenly appeared on iPlayer. I don't remember it ever being there before. Something is afoot...

The last time I saw that on iplayer it had a content warning, something about reflecting attitudes of the time? 🤐