By Rob Jessel, LGB Alliance Press Officer

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It’s one of the oldest cliches in journalism: the irascible proprietor, stalking the newsroom and firing reporters who don’t toe the paper’s editorial line. The truth is more interesting, as we’ll see from a recent story which shows how activism can infiltrate even the most impartial media outlet.

Last Wednesday saw the publication of the UK government’s draft conversion practices bill. The BBC could have chosen from over 5,500 journalists, yet they didn’t pick a Whitehall reporter, or even a health correspondent to cover this story. It was Josh Parry, the corporation’s ‘LGBT and Identity’ reporter, who got first dibs.

Factually, Josh’s write-up is impeccable. The problem is his none-too-subtle attempt to suggest any opposition to the bill comes from faith groups. He quotes Andrea Minichiello Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, who speaks of her concerns that the Bill would restrict freedom of speech. For balance, Josh includes a Baptist minister who thinks the proposed law is a jolly good thing because he underwent ‘gay conversion therapy’ in his youth.

This sleight of hand won’t go unnoticed by anyone who’s following this issue closely. For those who still think of electrodes and forced injections when they hear the dread words ‘conversion therapy’, however, Josh’s framing is misleading and irresponsible. In reality, opposition to the bill comes from many quarters, including from LGB people who argue it provides statutory protections for that sinister new form of conversion therapy: ‘transing away the gay’.

Controversial topics demand serious and specialist journalists who can, at the very least, appear disinterested. No tricks with the angle or framing; they must explore every side of the story, and reflect the breadth of opinion and the complexity of the issue. Punishing parents for trying to stop young, often LGB people sterilising themselves is not just an ‘LGBT and Identity’ issue, but a health, politics, social affairs, and crime story too.

Sadly, the BBC has form. In 2024, when LGB Alliance was leading the campaign to ban puberty blockers, our press officer called up the BBC Health team to offer them a briefing. Their response: “Puberty blockers? We’ve heard of them…”

No prizes for correctly guessing who did write the story.

It was a shame Josh was allowed to write the conversion practices story, because the BBC has been moving in the right direction recently. Following the Supreme Court judgment last year, the BBC swiftly changed its style guide; it now refers to transwomen as “people born male but who identify as women”. Moreover, the BBC has given much more of its reporting to the excellent and impartial social affairs team.

Even so, a major problem remains. By even having an ‘identity correspondent’, the BBC is automatically taking a side on a contentious issue. This makes a two-fold assumption: first, that a subjective ‘gender identity’ is an actual thing, and secondly, that it’s important enough to warrant its own correspondent and producer. This is fairly harmless when the subject is Pride or drag queen story hour. It’s much less benign when that journalist nabs stories that affect a huge swathe of society.

In this way, the BBC is doing exactly what this new bill is trying to do: begging the question by taking an assumption (gender identity), and enshrining it as an undisputed fact.

Josh will be Josh, and we can’t fault his energy in being first to a story and defending his ‘patch’. But the newsroom is meant to be guided by the BBC’s Editorial Standards, which state that stories should reflect “a wide range of subject matter and perspectives…so that no significant strand of thought is under-represented or omitted.” We’re still waiting for Josh to quote LGB Alliance. One day, maybe!

The bigger point is that media bias is rarely as simple as a single editorial eminence grise pulling the strings. In the long run, it’s the organisation’s culture that dictates how stories are covered.

There are lessons here for any business, not just media companies. Trust is like virginity: once it’s lost, it’s gone forever. The BBC’s multiple and serious failings on gender in the last ten years have done irreparable damage to its reputation. It makes us forget how unbelievably lucky we are to have a broadcaster owned by the public and (in theory) accountable to us all.

Regardless of your politics, you’ll miss it when it’s gone.