Our letter to the BBC. A statement.

As many of you will have noticed, we were active at the weekend calling out the BBC for a story they published on Friday and then republished.

The issue we had, still have, is not so much the precise
content, but the process and the way in which that content was arrived at, which bears little resemblance to actual journalism.

The initial story was a straight up "they said/she said" piece.

Cross party groups of LGBT MPs did something very unusual: they came together to criticise Liz Truss' proposals around Trans people's safety.

Simple enough: MP's condemn Truss; Truss rejects claim. Or no comments.

What raised an eyebrow was the inclusion of Joan Smith as source for additional comment in this piece.

Not because we have any issue with Joan per se: we think she does excellent work. But because it was out of place in editorial terms.

An insistence on introducing spurious "balance" when the actual balance was whatever Truss had to say.

Still, that was not enough to generate a complaint.

What changed was the fact that overnight a large number of gender crits swamped the BBC with complaints and the piece was then updated again, now to include commentary on the statement by the LGBT Groups.

This was a step too far and as far as we were concerned, evidence of an explicit agenda in some parts of the Beeb never to allow trans-related news to pass without some critical comment.

It is also in sharp contrast to the way the BBC plays it with its darlings, such as Laura Kuenssberg.

Often, Laura is accused of acting as mouthpiece for the government because she releases statements uncritically.

And we sympathise with her: because that is, in part, her
job, to report what is said. Not to comment on it.

Except now the BBC seems to want to have it both ways. On the Government their reporter must be left to report.

On Trans issues, nothing is allowed unless it is commented to Hell and back.

So which is it, BBC?

We would add that this is far from finished. Over the last few weeks we have received evidence of an organised group of anti-trans campaigners in the BBC working to subvert editorial guidelines and spin stories against trans people, or introduce anti-trans angles when they can.

We are now pulling this into a dossier which we will put forward to the appropriate authorities as and when it is complete.

And in the meantime, if you have any evidence you feel might be relevant, please drop us a line via info[at]transmediawatch[dot]org

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