Aunty must heed warnings from the BBC’s blatant bias | The Australian | Julie Bindel

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Last week, BBC director-general Tim Davie and news chief executive Deborah Turness announced their resignations in the wake of an impartiality scandal. Michael Prescott, a former journalist, had compiled a dossier highlighting serious breaches of neutrality. These included edits to the speech of US President Donald Trump for an episode of the flagship program Panorama that warped the meaning of his words. Other examples used referred to coverage of the ­Israel-Hamas conflict and the issue of gender ideology.

The ABC is widely considered to be Australia’s equivalent of the BBC, and was originally modelled on it. Therefore, what is happening at the BBC should be considered a stark warning to the ABC.

The Prescott dossier outlines a broader failure in terms of impartiality, but what’s absolutely irrefutable is that the most consistent and long-term problem with bias at the BBC is on sex and gender. Many male journalists, for whom the issue is not one of importance, have ignored transgender ideology as the dossier’s key issue, focusing on Trump above all else. Those of us who have been appalled at the BBC’s lack of coverage on the dangers of gender ideology couldn’t even think of suing the BBC for $US1bn (as Trump is now threatening to do). Nevertheless, the chickens are coming home to roost – as they inevitably will for the ABC, unless it wakes up and treats this as a massive warning sign.

Take the ABC coverage of the Tickle v Giggle case, which had, says Sall Grover, “a very obvious positive side to Tickle … they covered the decision when it was in his favour. They didn’t so much as mention the appeal. There are no articles about Giggle v Tickle”.

There is also the South Australian case of “Katie” – a young female inmate who was sexually assaulted in her cell by a biological male prisoner identifying as a woman, who had a history of violent offending. This case clearly highlighted the dangers of placing males in female facilities, but the ABC did not report on it – though both this newspaper and Sky News did. The ABC claimed the cases were covered elsewhere, which is irrelevant. Yet they continued with their monolithical reporting from the “queer” perspective, arguing these cases of women being assaulted in female facilities were “not essential” to the story. Clearly this is inaccurate and biased.

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