He might be sexist.
Does this mean he doesn't have a point about class though?
Think about this and actually read the article rather than being dismissive because Humphrys somehow doesn't tick your 'virtuous good' box.
You are dismissive on the basis of a personality rather than the point. That's prejudice. You aren't listening.
Until relatively recently, the overwhelming majority of its output has reflected this educated and relatively liberal world view. The BBC’s critics argued that working-class voices were at best being marginalised and at worst ignored. Too much of its political coverage reflected the concerns of middle-class professionals, particularly around economic policy, Brexit and austerity, rather than working-class lives and values.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that the big bosses acknowledged that perhaps there was, after all, a problem. A report by the BBC Trust in 2016 found that the corporation needed to do more to represent “people from working-class backgrounds” because trust in the BBC was so much lower in poorer and less formally educated groups. Various academic studies highlighted a “class ceiling” in the way many media narratives were constructed, often reinforcing mainstream, middle-class values as normative.
This isnt Humphrys opinion. This is a quote about a report from 2016. An important report.
When the industry regulator Ofcom conducted its own review of attitudes in 2023 it found that only 55 per cent of working-class and lower-income households had a positive opinion of the BBC compared with 67 per cent of middle-class professionals. Its portrayal of working-class characters in dramas could be “stereotypical or tokenistic”. Hardly surprising that Ofcom’s study showed so many viewers thought the BBC was “overly politically correct”.
Neither is this Humphrys opinion. This is a quote from the media regulator. It's a significant observation.
Politics in this country has become increasingly divided on class lines in recent years, so this IS a massive issue for the BBC that MANY MANY people - including journalists with a huge amount of integrity - have pointed in the last decade.
This isn't something that Robbie Gibb has somehow stirred up as a political appointment. If anything May's appointment of him was something of a response to something that was already being noted and accepted in reputable quarters as an existing problem that needed addressing. But this wasn't liked by the status quoists who wants to just carry on as if there isn't a problem.
The EXCUSES and the DETERMINATION to ignore a problem because it doesn't come from 'the right source' is a sight to behold.