It seems the BBC is tearing itself to pieces over a throwaway line by Justin Webb, one of its most prominent journalists and who regularly presents Radio 4’s Today programme. The Telegraph has the story:
The long-time presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, was discussing new rules banning transgender competitors from taking part in women’s international chess tournaments and said “trans women, in other words males”.
A zealous listener picked up on Webb’s words and lodged a complaint, accusing Webb, 63, of compromising the corporation’s strict impartiality rules. The BBC complaints procedure whirred into action and, a couple of weeks ago, delivered its verdict. Webb, it decided, was guilty as charged. His words, the Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) decreed, “gave the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial area”.
Not surprisingly, some of the BBC’s female employees, in other words women, a term which the Telegraph has taken the risky decision to use, are up in arms:
Senior BBC women have written to Tim Davie, the Director-General, in their droves to express dismay at the way Webb has been treated. They claim that Webb only stated a fact: although gender identity is largely a social construct, biological sex is immutable and cannot be changed.
One wrote: “Clear statement of fact is not ‘one viewpoint’ and the fact that it is ‘a highly controversial area’ makes it more important to be factual, not less. If the BBC is to censure journalists for being factual we are slipping into very dangerous waters. Once we’ve decided to dispense with public trust we have nothing left.”
Needless to say, the ECU threw itself in with the lack of objectivity that plagues these furores, even though according to the BBC, “Justin accepts it would have been more accurate to use the term biological male”.
The ECU did not interview him about what he had said, nor allowed him any direct input into the inquiry it conducted. Webb is seeking to learn from whom the ECU took advice on the issue. The suspicion, sources suggest, is that the views of trans activists were given undue weight.
Anya Palmer, a barrister at Old Square Chambers who successfully represented tax expert Maya Forstater when she was unfairly sacked from her job at a thinktank for believing that people cannot change their sex, says that part of the BBC’s approach to Webb was unusual. “It seems really odd he wouldn’t even be given the chance to respond to the complaint before they reach any decision. As a matter of basic fairness, he should be able to respond,” she says.
The Telegraph incidentally estimates that only one in 65,000 complaints about a lack of impartiality to the BBC is ever upheld. Yet this time there was unseemly haste to dive in:
The ECU’s verdict in its damning judgement of Justin Webb is telling. Its statement reads: “In relation to impartiality, however, the ECU considered it could only be understood by listeners as meaning that trans women remain male, without qualification as to gender or biological sex.”
A senior BBC News insider says: “Does this ruling mean that the BBC now considers that sex and gender are independent of each other? If so, that is an important point and if the BBC is going to report these matters from that standpoint it should definitely make that clear to the audience.”
It has also highlighted the generational tensions in the BBC newsroom, with some senior journalists alarmed at how newer recruits seem oblivious of their obligation to be even-handed in their coverage of the transgender issue, among others. One says that there may be “a failure in the way BBC journalists are trained”.
Surely not.
Worth reading in full.
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