by Rob Burley, The Times
What started as a desire to ‘be kind’ became a failure of impartiality — a former BBC veteran says his findings are tough reading for the new director-general
When the new director-general of the BBC, Matt Brittin, introduced himself to staff last week it wasn’t long before he found himself addressing the handling of transgender issues by the corporation. “I’m not an expert,” he confessed, aware these were treacherous waters. “I’ve seen comments in the press over the weekend from Fran Unsworth [the BBC’s former director of news]. I’m not going to go into that. I don’t know the history.” Well, if you’re reading this, Matt, you’re in luck, because I do.
Unsworth’s incendiary interview — part of my 10,000-word investigation into the capture of the BBC by trans activism, published by Unherd — was the first account of life at the top of the BBC during, for want of a better phrase, peak woke. Fran opened up about the way “progressive madness”, especially transgender rights, consumed the BBC and ultimately led her to end her 40-year BBC career.
It’s been almost five years since I left the BBC but the corporation’s struggle to cover trans rights properly goes on. After the Supreme Court ruling in April last year which reaffirmed that in law “woman” meant “biological woman”. I suggested to the editor of Unherd that I could write a piece gauging the reaction in the BBC, which was bound to be mixed. But it became obvious quite quickly that something much bigger and comprehensive was required and that the true scale of the BBC’s capture by trans rights activists still hadn’t been exposed.