Mick Hartley

This is absolutely damning, on Cath Leng in the Times – ‘I was forced out of BBC News over gender critical views’::

A BBC News at Ten editor “deferred” to a junior reporter on what language he should use when reporting transgender stories, a veteran BBC broadcast journalist has claimed.

Cath Leng, a former chief writer for BBC News, also alleged that she was “forced out” in 2023 over her gender critical views after 25 years of working for the corporation.

She claimed that journalists and editors across BBC News were “complicit” in the censorship of stories that reflected the gender critical side of the trans debate.…

Leng echoed [Michael Prescott’s] claims, and said that younger LBGT reporters on the “learning and identity” desk often acted as “gatekeepers” on trans stories. She added: “If it was mentioned that ‘identity’ is aware of this or ‘identity’ say they’re looking at it — that was enough to stop anybody else going anywhere near it.”

Such reporters were also regarded as “experts” on transgender issues by older, more experienced editors, Leng said. She alleged that she witnessed a senior News at Ten editor deferring to a junior LGBT broadcast journalist, “asking him what language they should use, what kind of flag they should use when they’re doing a story about Pride”.

“These people were treated as experts simply because they were believers in the idea of gender identity,” Leng added. “The reason they were considered to have expertise is of course because nobody else understands it.

“So they’re allowed to spout this gobbledegook and they’re treated as experts when it comes to which language to use.”

The old fogeys, desperate not to seem reactionary and behind the times, deferred to the new Gender Red Guards. But Red Guards can only thrive when they’re supported from the top.

The journalist said she began pitching gender critical stories that were being covered in many other mainstream news outlets, but they were continually ignored. These included the high-profile employment tribunal of Maya Forstater, a think tank researcher who was sacked for her views and went on to win her case, setting a legal precedent that “gender critical beliefs” were protected in law.

Leng said: “I just got blanked, completely blanked. Then when you push it next time, you’re accused of having an agenda. That’s how it worked. I was routinely accused of bias and inappropriate behaviour by my colleagues and editors.”

She claimed that when she suggested booking guests from gender critical organisations to be interviewed on BBC News she was stonewalled. “There seemed to be a blacklist on people like Sex Matters, Transgender Trend and LGB Alliance,” she said.

Stonewalled. Ha. Exactly.

Leng alleges that a culture of fear developed among BBC staff, who dared not suggest any stories that threw a negative light on trans activism in case they were unofficially blackballed. “Nobody actually has to say anything to you,” she said. “It’s just that opportunities are denied, you get given crappy shifts, you are stuck on the desk rewriting copy.”

An organisation taken over by a cult.