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The BBC’s Nick Robinson Criticises GB News For Not Being ‘Impartial’. But Just How ‘Impartial’ is the BBC When it Comes to Climate Change and Gender Woo?

by Toby Young
19 August 2023 9:00 AM

Charles Moore has written a brilliant column in today’s Telegraph in which he responds to Nick Robinson’s peevish complaint that GB News doesn’t have to satisfy the same ‘impartiality’ requirements as the BBC. He deftly demonstrates that when it comes to trans issues, reputable media companies that shout about their ‘impartiality’ from the rooftops are uninhibited about taking the side of trans rights activists.

A small but interesting example has come my way. Over the past decade, fierce disagreements have emerged among feminists and gay activists about aspects of the trans question. While many have been happy to associate trans ideology with lesbian and gay activism, others have not, disagreeing with the idea that, as they put it, you can “get rid of biology”.

In 2019, the LGB Alliance (note the absence of the “T” from the name) was formed because of this split and is now a charity. Some of its leading lights are former trustees of Stonewall, frustrated by what they see as a refusal to discuss the issues involved.

The LGB Alliance naturally tries to advance its work with the media. One important media player is Thomson Reuters, which describes itself as “the world’s largest news and information-based tools to professionals”. Thomson Reuters has a philanthropic arm, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which works, it says, “to advance media freedom”, identifying disinformation and “the resulting erosion of public trust in news sources” which “undermines accurate and impartial journalism”. It is part of the Trusted News Network.

An offshoot of the Thomson Reuters Foundation is Openly, which describes itself as “a global digital platform delivering fair, accurate and impartial LGBT+ news to a world that isn’t”.

The LGB Alliance has for some time felt frustrated by the lack of coverage it receives from Openly. At the beginning of this year, Kate Harris, co-founder of the LGB Alliance, wrote to Hugo Greenhalgh, the editor of Openly, asking for a meeting to establish a better news relationship. (An earlier attempt at engagement in 2020 had failed.) Mr. Greenhalgh initially agreed to a Zoom call but then fell over a pavement slab and postponed. He then postponed again, explaining that his boss was sending him to Ukraine and that he had a lot of other things to do.

With Mr. Greenhalgh’s latter reply, the LGB Alliance also received a presumably unintended extra. It was an email to Mr. Greenhalgh from Yasir Khan, editor-in-chief of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. It said: “AZ almost never interferes with editorial … This is more about risk reduction … Now that we’ve de-escalated and bought ourselves a bit of time, let’s … work out a plan to retain editorial independence AND manage the risk.”

“AZ” is Antonio Zappulla, the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The Khan/Greenhalgh email would seem to imply that Mr. Zappulla had forbidden any meeting with the LGB Alliance, and to hint at some embarrassment in an organisation that claims to believe in editorial independence. “Risk reduction” would appear to mean how best to keep in with LGBT+ groups hostile to any contact with the LGB Alliance.

The LGB Alliance chair, Eileen Gallagher, a former managing director of London Weekend Television, knows about media. Armed with Mr. Greenhalgh’s accidental leak, she wrote to him (copied to his bosses) to ask what risk there was in a “get to know you” meeting with a charity active in the field covered by Openly. She said Mr Zappulla’s intervention to prevent it was “quite astonishing”. How could it fit with Openly’s declared mission of being “the world’s most trusted destination for impartial LGBT+ news”?

The Thomson Reuters Foundation’s final response was a letter to Ms Gallagher sent on April 25th. In it, Mr. Khan said that the LGB Alliance’s purpose of establishing a “potential news relationship” with Openly was illegitimate, because “we do not explore news relationships or news partnerships with interest groups and will not be pressured into doing so”.

As a former editor myself, I find this strange. All sensible media outlets need relationships with relevant interest groups. These are not to control news, but simply links so that information can be shared on a basis of trust. A news organisation with no such relationships would be very short of contacts and therefore of news.

Besides, Mr. Khan’s words are inconsistent with his own organisation’s behaviour. It is bound to have news relationships with various interest groups. On its website it also mentions numerous “partnerships”, including ones with several commercial companies, to help pay for the Openly platform.

I sought to discuss all this with Mr. Khan but was told he was away. My request to talk to Mr. Greenhalgh met with no response. The Thomson Reuters Foundation gave me a statement that repeated much of what Mr Khan had already said to Ms. Gallagher, adding: “The matter was escalated to the editor-in-chief and the CEO, whose responsibility is to protect the impartiality and integrity of our journalism in keeping with Foundation’s mission. It is on this basis that the CEO advised against such a meeting.”

So the CEO, who supposedly does not interfere in editorial independence, did intervene to prevent the editor seeing a bona fide group in the area on which his title reports. Where was Thomson Reuters’ foundational impartiality?

I fear this story illustrates a real difficulty. Many powerful media organisations today regard LGBT+ and some other issues, such as climate change and aspects of race, as matters about which the normal idea of impartiality is suspended. There can only be one right approach, they believe. This is clearly the attitude of Openly, which may well provide a useful service to people interested in these matters, but is emphatically not impartial, invariably following the line of LGBT+ lobbies.

So long as such organisations think this way – and that is how Nick Robinson’s own BBC thinks – projects like ‘Verify’ will be more like vigilantism against rivals than the disinterested pursuit of truth. What they see as “disinformation” will often be little more than their preferred word for attitudes they dislike or stories they wish to suppress.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: BBCKate HarrisLGB AllianceNick RobinsonOpenlyThomson ReutersTrusted Media Initiative

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74 Comments
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varmint
varmint
7 months ago

This article appeared last week then was deleted. Is this the final draft then?

7
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soundofreason
soundofreason
7 months ago

In particular, as many articles on this website have attested to, it will be impossible to rely on renewable sources of energy without a constant power backup. As fossil fuels are ruled out, that leaves only one currently viable source at reasonable price levels: nuclear energy.

But, as many articles have pointed out, if we have nuclear power as a ‘constant backup’ we will not need ‘to rely on renewable sources’ (if by that we mean wind and solar). So we can save money and the environment by scrapping the wind and solar farms and just building nuclear capacity.

Let’s get on with it if we’re going to.

16
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
7 months ago
Reply to  soundofreason

The problem with this ample logic is that it reduces this government’s ability to fleece us via our energy bills. Some work arounds will be needed in order to continue our impoverishment which is the sole purpose of “green energy.”

I wonder if the requirements for electricity on tap 24 / 7 in their coming wholly digital world are starting to percolate through the mini brains of the executive?

10
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
7 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Imagine the outrage if DWP were unable to make the millions of pounds of weekly benefit payments to those of the claimant community retired to such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and the rest. The fall out would be enough to bring down a government.

4
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soundofreason
soundofreason
7 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Might cause massive economic hardship in Pakistan.

2
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Jack the dog
Jack the dog
7 months ago
Reply to  soundofreason

Pass me the world’s smallest violin.

1
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
7 months ago
Reply to  soundofreason

I thought that in the late 1960s!

While we have Arts and Humanities graduates in charge, especially PPE and History graduates, there’s little hope. They don’t know how to use a Project Plan.

0
0
Steve-Devon
Steve-Devon
7 months ago

”AI and nuclear energy are a marriage made in heaven it seems.” or possibly a Faustian pact of darkness?

5
-1
soundofreason
soundofreason
7 months ago
Reply to  Steve-Devon

Perhaps we could have the AI run the nuclear power plant to supply its own power? Then of course it would not be possible for puny humans to interfere or turn it off… I feel a SciFi film plot coming on.

5
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A. Contrarian
A. Contrarian
7 months ago

Catastrophic climate change… very visible climate crisis… Turn your lights off for an hour every night to save power… Everyone’s got to be forced to have heat pumps and electric cars and power outages when the wind isn’t blowing…

But we need AI so much, it’s so essential to human life, that we can move heaven and earth to supply the power in any way possible and it’s not contributing to environmental issues AT ALL.

Now go away and turn your heating down or all your grandchildren will die.

15
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stewart
stewart
7 months ago
Reply to  A. Contrarian

This is absolutely right and I’m amazed it isn’t talked about more by people who oppose climate policies.

If climate change is such a threat to humanity and high energy consumption is the main driver of climate change (it’s not but just for the sake of argument) then why is every last little thing in our lives being electronified?

Here are a few petty but irritating (to me) examples:

Take any appliance. Where before you turned a knob, now you have to scroll through a menus on a screen and digitally give the command.

Where before you raised an lowered the car boot by yourself, why do new supposedly more environmentally friendly cars do it for you electrically at the push of a button?

Where before you switched lights on and off in your house physically with the push of a button, why are they pushing on us techy stuff that allows you to do it from your phone or from a control panel somewhere?

And on and on. It’s like every little nook and cranny of our lives is going to involve some sort of digital screen from which we issue commands and which consumes more electricity. Instead of, you know, pressing buttons which use muscle energy.

5
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  stewart

Good points. Maybe some of the elites like AI because they think it will help them control the world, or they like it because they think it’s cool and don’t care whether it’s “eco friendly” or not because it won’t be available to the masses. I also get the impression that eco loons think the internet is powered by unicorn farts or that electricity is somehow “clean” – and of course we’re told that electricity generated by certain means is much better for the planet than others. But it’s not consistent with “consume less”.

5
0
A. Contrarian
A. Contrarian
7 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I do think lots of people think electricity must be clean and good because of the push for electric cars to “save the environment”.

3
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
7 months ago
Reply to  A. Contrarian

It just comes out of the wall! 15 minute cities but then you get everything delivered from Amazon, whose servers require immense power, and you get all your entertainment from the Internet (powered by unicorn farts).

4
0
A. Contrarian
A. Contrarian
7 months ago
Reply to  stewart

Absolutely agree, I say this to people ALL THE TIME and they largely look at me like I’m mad. We recently had to buy a new washing machine and it was impossible to get one without a stupid big screen that lights up with your options every time you try to use it. Why? A bog standard knob works totally fine. Toothbrushes are another example. Manual works fine if you’re thorough. Zoom meetings for everything. And as for the constant push from mobile companies to sign up to their plans to get the latest and greatest new mobile phone every single year…!! Don’t get me started.

I am hanging on to my 16 year old car as long as possible because almost any upgrade will involve a great big screen through which I will now have to do almost everything I want to do, including turning the radio on… sigh.

Last edited 7 months ago by A. Contrarian
1
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Purpleone
Purpleone
7 months ago
Reply to  A. Contrarian

To be fair, this is private money selecting (and investing) in a solution to suit their demand. It’s not a state energy choice. The fact they have chosen an established and proven energy source is the interesting bit, not some intermittent ‘unreliables’, speaks volumes in itself…

Last edited 7 months ago by Purpleone
3
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A. Contrarian
A. Contrarian
7 months ago
Reply to  Purpleone

A fair point, but why is no one else complaining about it if we’re in such dire straits?

2
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
7 months ago
Reply to  A. Contrarian

The BBC haven’t told them.

1
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
7 months ago
Reply to  A. Contrarian

No money in telling the truth perhaps? Peopl want to ‘believe’ and ‘hope’ it’ll all be fine? Engineering and physics based facts are out of fashion at present…

0
0
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
7 months ago

Nuclear is the answer then, maybe until the next one goes pop.
I mean nuclear power station accidents are of course quite rare –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents

For the life of me I cannot understand why Thorium isn’t used for fuel. Far less nasty by products – for example plutonium isn’t one.
Maybe that’s why.

Last edited 7 months ago by Sforzesca
0
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Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
7 months ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

It’s because it takes a long time to develop a new nuclear design, and build it. And lots of of money to finance it. Then there’s the skilling up the workforce, enhancing their Engineering skills, building up the Supply Chain for the materials, and the support of the politicians and the public who vote them in.

And when the BBC and other Environmental Pressure Groups continually campaign against it, any farsighted project eventually get canned, and sold off to competitors.

And, you don’t really want it, do you?

You just like the idea of cheap power. 🙂

Well you’ve got it: solar, and windfarms.

Didn’t you know, it’s so cheap, it’s almost free. 🙂

2
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
7 months ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

The only reason we had the first wave of nuclear stations was literally to make plutonium… the commercial power was a nice side effect!

Got to hand it to the French, they put their money where their mouth was investing properly in nuclear long term, and now they reap the long-term rewards

0
0
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
7 months ago

Food for thought about AI –

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/04/20/our-entire-ai-revolution-is-built-on-a-correlation-house-of-cards/

2
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
7 months ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

So, AI is no different to Arts and Humanities graduates: it appears to act intelligently, but has no understanding, and cannot explain its decision in simple terms.

I was thinking about the NET Zero policies in particular.

1
0
Dorsetman
Dorsetman
7 months ago

To think we had places like Winfrith opened in the 60’s to research reactor design…
Could have been world leaders in clean, safe, cheap exportable energy. Thousands of jobs, energy security for our homes and industries, AI giants flocking to the UK for their power needs…
Ah well at least we’ve got our windmills in the sea and a place for Chris Packham to do Springwatch from.

5
0
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
7 months ago
Reply to  Dorsetman

Well, he isn’t going to be doing much Spring Watch when his ilk have stamped Bomb Farms all over the countryside he so claims to revere.

2
0
Dorsetman
Dorsetman
7 months ago
Reply to  Richard Austin

Always makes me smile when he broadcasts from Arne bird reserve as literally in the background is the largest onshore oil field in Western Europe. Think the irony is lost on him

0
0
Douglas Brodie
Douglas Brodie
7 months ago

Miliband and the Net Zero zealots spurn nuclear power precisely because it works well and would make their cult of so-called renewables redundant.

It should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that net zero fossil fuels by 2050 coupled with antipathy to nuclear power and “reliance” on short-lifespan, toxically non-recyclable, expensive to construct and integrate, heavily resource-depleting, inefficient, unreliable, weather-dependent renewables will lead to economic collapse and mass privation.

2
0
Cotfordtags
Cotfordtags
7 months ago
Reply to  Douglas Brodie

And there’s no money in nuclear for a person with the suspiciously same surname as millipede, whereas a load of the cash he plans to spaff on batteries in a Field will be going straight into the pocket of a certain resident of New York.

0
0
Jack the dog
Jack the dog
7 months ago

You are taking the proverbial surely?

A f*cking nuclear power plant just to power computerised call centers? And generate illiterate nonsense on fb and linked in?

2
0
Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
7 months ago
Reply to  Jack the dog

It’ll make money!

So what’s your problem?

1
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
7 months ago

It is all doomed to fail because it is predicated on many false premises and it won’t take long to wither but they will make our lives hell in the meantime. On the bright side it has been 12960 years since the last time things got this messed up and so very soon we should reach rock bottom and then the slow climb out of the kali yuga but at least it will be in the right direction and it might start as early as next March. All of this agenda is being massively disinvested by the people in the know.

1
0
Cotfordtags
Cotfordtags
7 months ago

And here we have the problem to the solution. If all the tech companies are protecting their supply, when the power goes, their outputs continue but we will not be able to access the output because we won’t have the power to operate our computers and WiFi.

1
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
7 months ago
Reply to  Cotfordtags

Interesting that they want to close couple this much though – almost like they expect the grid to become less reliable in the future…

0
0
kev
kev
7 months ago

Animal farm anyone

Labour and the Left say Nuclear power is bad, until they say its good.

Had we commissioned something like 20 nuclear power plants at the turn of the century, they would all be online now producing reliable “clean” energy, and we could maybe justify the shutting down of coal power stations, and the older gas power stations.

But the other “renewable” sources – No!
Not at scale. Not now, not ever!

2
0

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