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

@RedToothBrushi very nearly tagged you to find out your thoughts about that article! Thank you, will read in a while x

Apologies for the x, I was getting an in depth assessment of a ‘nerf Xshot insanity smoking Barrel’ from afar as I typed

there’s a witty correlation there somewhere but I’ve not had my coffee yet

Thanks @Igneococcusfor the Sonia Sodha share token. I’ve been waiting for her to write about it and, as usual, she says everything I’d like to say but more eloquently.

I don’t want this to be the end for the BBC. I believe in a public service news broadcaster. (I’m less persuaded of the need for publicly funded game shows but I’ll park that for now.) But only if the broadcaster is impartial. Right now I’m still hoping and choosing to believe this will turn out to be the kick up the arse the BBC needed to sort themselves out. I am very aware that I might be wrong.

Excellent post @RedToothBrush

Yes - it’s where balance and truth comes to a head

it’s peak cognitive dissonance

The BBC has been branding itself a "trusted news source" for years.

It has an entire section on "Trusted News" o its website:
www.bbc.co.uk/beyondfakenews/trusted-news-initiative/

It's been showing its "The fight for truth is on" trailers ad nauseam for months.

(Though oddly enough, "The fight for truth is on Trailer (short)", sub header "We pursue the truth, so disinformation has nowhere to hide", is no longer available on the BBC website.)

I'll give them some advice. Want to be trusted? Stop broadcasting obviously biased news stories and programmes. Want politicians and commentators to stop attacking you? Stop making bullets for them to fire at you, then.

The levels of denial are fucking EPIC.

Just stepping back a little. For the army of activists who have infiltrated every aspect of public life, the law, the police, our schools, the NHS, our political parties, our unions, our news rooms, what have they managed to achieve?

We left the European Union

We are likely to have Reform as part of the next government.

Trump is in the Whitehouse

Racist and anti immigrant sentiment is in the rise

Palestine is in ruins

Committment to the environment is in tatters

The law has been made crystal clear, men can't be women

We have had some major scalps, Wee Nicky Sturgeon, now Tim Davie.

When will they see that their tactics aren't working. Having only one set of acceptable beliefs that seem to come out of some undergrad common room, and then brow beating anyone who dares to question them in even the mildest way, is not how to persuade people of anything.

I'm am socially centre left and fiscally further to the left again. I am so fucked off that those people who I should probably be aligned with are so blinkered that they are a total fucking liability, and as much of the problem as Trump and Farage are. But they will never, ever admit this. They will go to their graves convinced this is 💯 down to being a right wing conspiracy theory.

Chickens always come home to roost - always.

Talk about a bonfire of the vanities.

It’d be interesting if they could sell themselves as this with a subscription service.

There’s demand for a trusted news source, I’m not sure they’d deliver.

This. Sadly.

Tone deaf and completely in denial….

A minister has claimed the BBC can “absolutely” still be trusted despite the bias scandal of the past week.

On whether people could still have faith in the corporation, Louise Sandher-Jones, the veterans minister, told Times Radio: “Yes, absolutely. I think it puts out a huge, huge output every day across a huge, huge range of topics and I know many people go to it for their first point of call.”

Pressed on criticisms levelled at the BBC over its coverage of Donald Trump, the war in Gaza and the trans row, Ms Sandher-Jones added: “Of course, we have to make sure a broad range of views is reflected.

“I know in my work as MPs I speak to many people, I know there’s a huge, huge range of opinions ... On the whole the BBC is one of the most trusted institutions across the country.”

“Pressed on criticisms levelled at the BBC over its coverage of Donald Trump, the war in Gaza and the trans row, Ms Sandher-Jones added: “Of course, we have to make sure a broad range of views is reflected”

And yet, part of the criticism is that the beeb didn’t give voice to a range of legitimate views.

Yep.

I think it's really well summed up by the paradox of being an institution with a statue of Orwell outside, with a quote warning of the dangers of left wing authoritarianism being unable to identify all the things that Orwell warned against within its own institution.

The irony couldn't be stronger.

Journalism is founded on the notion of being able to hunt down and explain the truth as people experience it. The irony here is that we have Nick Wallis in the mix here now - a journalist who has a reputation for doing just that - who found a home at The Telegraph. He simply couldn't work for the BBC because he'd be tied up in knots like Katie Razzle displays because she's hampered by the institutional dictact that she must report both sides. Both siderisms is destroying the BBC. The BBC has got caught in the trap of thinking impartiality means you shouldn't seek the truth because it will upset someone. The BBC needs to understand that somethings you can't do this with because the entire point is the destruction of the truth.

You need to be able to see your own weaknesses and be able to speak truth to power by understanding the priority is how these stories affect the viewer, the person on the ground, the person who is a nobody. They should be the central focus of all your reporting. Now how one political group or leader is going to throw a tantrum if you don't describe reality and get to the nitty gritty.

We know the issue with the whole trans issue is this unspoken point that WE ALL KNOW. Trans issues rely on us recognising and seeing sex even while sex is denied. It is fundamental to trans identity. You can't be trans without knowing your own sex. Transactivism is about this power of knowing sex and trampling all over boundaries of sex - even if this causes other problems and is unwanted. Those problems have to be made invisible to appease this power. Journalism should be identifying problems and how they affect people without power hence why it's such a sticky point for the BBC. It's failing to do this.

Katie Razzle certainly knows about these - she is a regular newsnight journalist who has reported on the subject. And as such she will be well away of the discontent and why so many heavy duty BBC journalists have left the broadcaster in recent years PRECISELY because of the BBCs policy on trying to suppress the subject rather than supporting journalists trying to get to the heart of problems.

In a way Katie Razzle therefore in writing that article almost becomes the poster girl of everything that's wrong with the BBC and why it has such a crisis right now.

Surely she MUST know and be able to see the problem, just as we all know that's a man in a dress but aren't allowed to say it out loud. And if she REALLY REALLY can't then she exemplifies why if the BBC can't get to grips with this, it's doomed on these type of issues because it will be shown up and dragged over the coals by journalists elsewhere who will identify the problem and will drag it kicking and screaming to account or will bring it down entirely.

I don't ever understand the decision to revamp newsnight tbh. It was a show that had few viewers but it was a cornerstone in upholding key issues which cut through and it's small viewership were influencers in their own right. Instead the BBC decided to go for popularism to try and dumb down and get bigger viewer numbers. As a rule the BBC should go for viewers but this was one show that ultimately broke the rule and they didn't understand it's importance to the corporation - because it championed quality journalism for the people even if the people didn't tune in. Again it almost represents paradox within the heart of the BBC in not understanding the importance and value of high quality journalism to its brand and reputation.

It is very much an existential crisis for the BBC. That's the point.

Totally agree.

“As the CEO of BBC News and current affairs, the buck stops with me. In public life leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down.”
Deborah Turness

Starmer and Reeves take note.

hopefully seen in journalism and outspoken journalists such as Sonia and Nick won’t let them.

these people will be able to publish on other, very loud platforms. The bbc will have egg on its face.

for example, Sonia and others are now regularly in the times

Nick could quite easily chase the tails of the post office scandal, write a book, and get it televised on channel 4 or Netflix

just like Labour, and he bbc, have GOT to ‘get with the programme’ here, literally

for me, the bbc is like the nhs in the uk.

calls for defund are pointless as so very many people just listen without much awareness of All This Shit.

for example, CBeebies features on my lesson planning as the bite sized and even some cbbc / CBeebies programmes are so useful.

We use number blocks - national numeracy schemes include number blocks now as part of their own programmes.

colour blocks is also excellent and iirc they’ve launched a coding related one.

a new joe wicks programme is great for short hitt routines for younger kids.

they’ve got relaxation routines . They even now have Pokémon which has helped bring kids back to cbbc. So they have a duty of care tbh

Bluey is practically circle time.

everyone I know watches traitors and race around the world, kids included —whilst I rock in a corner listening to GC podcasts, hence only on episode 5 of celeb traitors, no spoilers please

From yesterday morning.

Nandy said she retained confidence in the handling of the issue by Shah and Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, who has yet to speak about the matter.

Nandy not looking too good is she?

Nandy’s mother worked for ITV and Nandy ALSO really needs to get a grip here ffs

Her father helped create the first incarnation of the equality act.

I think what gets me, is that it's been a long time coming in terms of this coming to a head.

A lot of people have seen this coming for a long long time. And have warned.

Whether the BBC survives or not depends on whether it can work out the cognitive dissonance or not. If it can't, it will fail.

I love the BBC. I really think it's great. We still shouldn't underestimate it's value to us as a nation. It has a huge amount of soft power throughout the world. It remains important.

We should be worried though - Mr Bates versus the Post Office was made by ITV. It wasn't a commercial enterprise. It was hugely important in the UK but it couldn't make money overseas. It was a economic white elephant. We have ITV in the process of considering a bid from Sky to take over at the same time as this BBC crisis.

So we should all be fully aware of what's at risk here - and the danger of ending up with a situation like the US where every channel is a source of mind numbing rot that has no interest whatsoever in the concept of the public interest.

This will feed up to Starmer too

Nandy thinks men can become women. And that anyone who says differently should shut up.

This is all you need to know.

Spin off/cut out news and politics.

The bias is systemic and institutional - it will never be able to reform.

It has been buried under several long running cases of bias - we are here for a reason.

I contemplated that, and am looking forward to his wider comments.

I disagree and am more optimistic. But it will take courageous leadership and and unfailing commitment to journalism.

There are journalists out there who are evangelical enough about that to pull it off if they get the chance.

It really is. I listened to a top BBC journo give a talk recently. It is both these things.

When distortion and misinformation is thought to be and is presented as fact there’s a major issue with a state broadcaster.

Leadership. If only it were that simple.

The bias is deep-rooted - if you cannot see that now, then I don’t know what to say, frankly.