The BBC is being criticised by free speech activists, journalists, and women’s rights groups after it upheld 20 impartiality complaints against presenter Martine Croxall who inserted the word “women” after reading “pregnant people” from a script she was reading live on the station’s News Channel earlier this year.
Well-known therapist and campaigner James Esses described the national broadcaster as “a disgrace”, while commentator Alison Pearson said the decision showed that the BBC was “ludicrous” and “woke-captured”.
The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said that it considered that Ms Croxall’s facial expression as she spoke was open to the interpretation that it “indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity.”
Ms Croxall said: “Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people … women … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions.”
The BBC presenter was introducing a piece about research on groups most at risk during heatwaves – and the person interviewed, Dr Malcolm Mistry, an assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, referred to “pregnant women” in the interview.
Clips from the on-air moment went viral in June, with author JK Rowling saying: “I have a new favourite BBC presenter”, while Irish Senator Sharon Keogan (IND) told Gript that she was delighted to see the BBC presenter’s correction, hailing it a “return to common sense and sanity” and said increasing numbers of people were “calling out the nonsense of gender ideology for what it is.”
“Women get pregnant, women give birth, women breastfeed, women have cervixes,” she said. “It was great to see this nonsense corrected live on air on such an influential media platform. We need to see more of this here in Ireland too.”
However, in its ruling, the BBC unit noted the “congratulatory messages Ms Croxall later received on social media”.
The ECU said that those messages, “together with the critical views expressed in the complaints to the BBC and elsewhere, tended to confirm that the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue”.
The complaints body said ECU said Ms Croxall’s facial expression after she said “pregnant people” had been “variously interpreted by complainants as showing disgust, ridicule, contempt or exasperation.”
It also noted that BBC News management said that “Ms Croxall was reacting to scripting, which somewhat clumsily incorporated phrases from the press release accompanying the research, including ‘the aged’, which is not the BBC style, and ‘pregnant people’, which did not match what Dr Mistry said in the clip which followed”.
But it said that: “giving the strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter, even if inadvertently, falls short of the BBC’s expectations of its presenters and journalists in relation to impartiality” and that it therefore upheld the complaints.
Therapist and campaigner James Esses posted that: “In June, a BBC teleprompter instructed presenter, Martine Croxall, to say ‘pregnant people’. She, bravely, corrected this term by saying ‘women’. Today, the BBC has announced that she broke the rules because of her “facial expression”. Our national broadcaster is a disgrace.”
Journalists and editors were also critical of the decision, with former editor of the Sun, Kelvin Mackenzie, telling GB News that the person who wrote the script to include “pregnant persons” should be challenged on its inclusion rather than the focus on Ms Croxall.
James Mitchinson, editor of the Yorkshire Post, said: “When individuals can be reprimanded for speaking plain, accurate, informed/informative English, rooted in fact, science, law and good sense, I’m afraid all trust and credibility upon which said organisation is built just crumbles.”
The Free Speech Union said the decision against Ms Croxall was “outrageous” and that “holding gender-critical views should not be a disciplinary offence”.
“The BBC has rebuked a newsreader who corrected ‘pregnant people’ to ‘women’,” the Union said. “This is outrageous. Holding gender-critical views should not be a disciplinary offence, especially following the Supreme Court’s ruling six months ago.”
“The Beeb says Croxall broke impartiality rules by expressing an opinion. But referring to women as ‘pregnant people’ would also have been expressing an opinion and a much more controversial one at that,” they added.
Women’s rights campaigner, Maya Forstater, said that the decision showed what happened to journalists when “they put their hand up”, while commentator Allison Pearson said: “When Martine Croxall lost patience when asked to say “pregnant people” we finally had a BBC News person who spoke for the country. Needless to say, the ludicrous, woke-captured BBC has found Martine was in the wrong. The sooner these morons lose the licence fee the better.”
BBC says that the decision was communicated to BBC News management and discussed with Ms Croxall and her editorial team.
The BBC decision on the complaints against Ms Croxall comes after it was revealed by The Telegraph that one of the broadcaster’s own advisers has warned that ‘the BBC’s trans coverage is subject to “effective censorship” by specialist LGBT reporters who refuse to cover gender-critical stories’.
BBC staff have expressed concerns that the LGBT desk – which is shared by all the corporation’s news programmes – has been “captured by a small group of people” promoting a pro-trans agenda and “keeping other perspectives off air”.
This has led to “a constant drip-feed of one-sided stories … celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity”, a leaked internal BBC memo concludes. It said it reflected a “cultural problem across the BBC”, which treats issues of gender and sexuality as “a celebration of British diversity” rather than a complex and contentious subject, The Telegraph reported.