If you’re shocked, you’re lucky, I am not.
This kind of thing is what you come to expect from an institution where only the most vicious TERFism passes for “neutral” and incoherent rambling about muh blockers passes for “science”, using taxpayer money to shut off all care for under-16 trans folks in the UK.
Just to note that Richard Tice, quoted here as saying “The BBC must investigate its appalling climate change bias”, is something of an expert on bias in the news. He is a presenter on GB News, who have been investigated by Ofcom and found to have been in breach of their licence on 7 occasions - one involving an interview with him. There are currently 14 more investigations ongoing.
GB “News” is a blight on the media landscape. Calling itself “News” but says it is just “entertainment” so doesn’t have to follow news standards. That needs to drop them in a world of trouble. They need to be made an example of so we don’t get more of that.
Facts don’t have bias.
Those who deny science without both reviewed data, from multiple sources and an alternative hypothesis. Are not expressing bias. They are lieing.
My contact with the BBC is fairly limited but on R4 they seem to pretty consistently use preferred pronouns and interview trans people and take their accounts seriously. They don’t demonise or mock them. They do interview people who do not respect those norms, but I think it behooves anyone to realise that the UK public is not of one mind on trans issues and that, for example, the correct way to address a trans person or the correct definition of woman is not a matter of scientific fact, but a moral and social question.
So quite unlike climate change, which is established fact, and the BBC seems to have worked out that denialism does not warrant “balance”, trans issues do require a measure of input from people on the other side of the debate. That does not mean giving a platform for people to spread hatred - and maybe this happens in coverage that I haven’t seen or heard, in which case, forgive me - but it does mean allowing people to express the opinion that “I want ‘man’ to mean an adult person with a penis”. Since that’s the kind of “anti-trans” position I’ve heard on the BBC it seems OK to me.
We should also be careful about buying into what is essentially a right-wing attack on the BBC with accusations of rampant bias designed to dismantle it. If they succeed, fueled in part by the apathy of left-wingers due to overreactive accusations of anti-trans, anti-Palestine bias (and the rest) then you can guarantee that it won’t be replaced with anything better. We’ll get a Fox News to replace it.
BBC’s idea of non-biased reporting is if they get complaints from both sides it must be fine. On one side you get people complaining that BBC literally platforms hateful terfs who call for lynching trans people and on the other you get claims that “the BBC [failed] to cover the Darlington nurses” even though the article literally exists and tries incredibly hard to paint the nurses in a good light and doesn’t include a single quote from the person they’re harassing. That’s a complaint from both sides so BBC is unbiased.
Why can’t people just leave our BBC alone. They haven’t done anything wrong except from getting rid of the BBC Radio 4 UK theme and Radio shoutcast streams. Jimmy Savile was also pretty bad tbf
They have been under attack from the right since 2010. Well long before, but 2010 on the Tories were successful at embedding biased leadership.
But. The panarama editing thing was wrong on their part. And unnecessary to make their point.
The current attracks from all angles is hardly a suprise when the BBC itself opens itself for such calls of bias.
The delay in the attack is the only strange issues.
Radio 4 literally has a “feedback” programme where they air criticism of the BBC on a weekly basis.
You realise this in no way argues against the bias argument right.
