SEEN in Journalism
@JournalismSEEN • 23,528 subscribers
A network for journalists and content-makers across platforms who seek to restore accuracy and impartiality to media coverage of sex and gender
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Totally fascinating clip. The 👀 that Jonathan Hinder MP gives Derbyshire, as she actively works to get him to describe ‘trans rights’ as a ‘middle class hobby horse’ - which would be quite a gotcha - followed by her disconcerted silence when he just says ‘men’ instead. She knew exactly what he was thinking of, and he knew exactly what she was doing. But the work on renormalising natural language has paid off. A couple of years ago he would have had to say ‘trans’ in some form, or ‘gender’, to describe events. Now he can just say ‘men’ and the power of that language trickery drains away completely.
SEEN in Journalism398,467 views • 1 month ago
Following our previous post about Chris Buckler's BBC interview with Tristan Morrow - who spoke about leaving the Orange Order and identifying as a trans woman - we listened to another segment from the same edition of The Stephen Nolan Show. The discussion was about Féile an Phobail's decision to cancel a Women's Rights Network panel event on women's sex-based rights. Overall, it was a much more balanced discussion. Buckler challenged both guests, questioned claims from both sides and pushed back at various points. But several moments stood out. One was a claim by People Before Profit's Fiona Ferguson that organisations like the Women's Rights Network wanted "people's genitals to be checked before they're allowed to go into toilets." Buckler then asked WRN NI's Nora Calder: "Do you want people's genitals checked before they go to the toilet?" When a guest makes a highly contentious factual claim, shouldn't the first question be whether there's evidence to support it? Otherwise, an unsubstantiated allegation risks becoming the premise of the discussion - rather than something to be tested. Ferguson also invoked contested suicide statistics relating to transgender people, which also went unchallenged. But there are broader editorial questions too. Tristan Morrow - a young man who identifies as a woman - was given 21 minutes of airtime, during which his perspective was explored with relatively little challenge. Where is the equivalent long-form interview with a woman explaining why single-sex spaces matter to her? Or with someone who says they have suffered discrimination because of their lawful gender-critical beliefs? The BBC also chose to publish Morrow's interview separately on BBC Sounds as a standalone programme, giving further prominence to one side's personal testimony. And prior to introducing this segment Buckler reflected on the response to the interview with Tristan Morrow saying he'd received "lovely messages" from listeners. There is, of course, nothing wrong with telling his story. And due impartiality doesn't require every viewpoint to receive equal airtime. But it does require careful editorial judgement about which voices are amplified, how contested claims are handled, and whose experiences audiences are invited to understand. Taken together, this coverage raises legitimate questions about whether that standard was met. 🎧 We've shared a short clip here. You can listen to the full discussion from on The Stephen Nolan Show (22 July). Tristan Morrow's interview is also available separately on BBC Sounds as a standalone programme.
SEEN in Journalism13,570 views • 2 days ago
On Sunday morning, BBC Scotland broadcast a ten-minute discussion about “queer identities”- with virtually no meaningful challenge to the terminology or claims being made. Presenter Tony Kearney was interviewing Alice Oseman, author of the Heartstopper graphic novels, which centre on a romance between two teenage boys and have been adapted into a popular Netflix series. Kearney praised Heartstopper for bringing terminology such as “aromantic” and “asexual” into mainstream media and “normalising” identities that might otherwise be marginalised. But he didn’t clarify what those terms - or, indeed, the phrase “queer identities” - actually mean. Nor did he acknowledge that some of these labels, and the ideas underpinning them, are contested. When Oseman referred to legal rulings being “fought against”, the trans community being under intense scrutiny and public discourse causing trans people “so much harm”, Kearney didn’t ask which rulings, what scrutiny or which discourse she meant. These claims were allowed to pass as settled facts. In a ten-minute interview, there was just one passing reference to “pushback” before the discussion moved swiftly to countries where homosexuality is illegal - an important issue, but a different one from contested ideas about gender identity. This was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland’s Sunday Morning, described as: “Two hours of music and conversation with a faith and ethical perspective. Taking the week’s events to ask what they say about our values and beliefs.” Just to be clear: the issue isn’t that the BBC discussed Heartstopper. It’s that contested ideas were presented without context or challenge - and without a single genuinely probing question. We've clipped the most notable sections together here. The full interview is available on BBC Sounds - approx 03:48 - 14:23, (19 July 2026)
SEEN in Journalism15,906 views • 5 days ago
Sandie Peggie’s Solicitor, Margaret Gribbon, announcing the appeal
SEEN in Journalism537,880 views • 7 months ago
‘It’s not complex - it’s very clear and straightforward.. the real victory is for the women in prison who’ve been suffering under this policy’ Susan Smith of For Women Scotland on BBC Scotland radio interviewed about the ruling that it’s unlawful to put men in women’s jails
SEEN in Journalism56,810 views • 1 month ago
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Here’s Amol Rajan’s resoundingly negative cue for Mary-Anne Stephenson of the EHRC. The BBC has instantly jumped to gender activist talking points and chosen guests accordingly: the law left enforcement unclear, it’s too hard to police, it will be expensive, the use of ‘female at birth’, something silly about the CQC, men are sad, men are bullied by women, everything is still confusing. There’s no welcome from women and gay people, nothing about how they will be safer, the rights of LGB associations, the relief felt this morning, how egregious the delay was: and they actually picked up a Neon guest of the worst kind. That’s twice in 24 hours the BBC has taken the lazy option and phoned Helen Belcher, whose disproportionate influence on the media is a good part of the reason they’re saying ‘female at birth’ and calling him a woman at all. None of his claims are fact-checked - of course.
SEEN in Journalism85,936 views • 2 months ago
Here’s the R4 Today interview with Max Hill and Shami Chakrabarti on Glinner. The utility of this programme lies its general obeisance to the official Overton window of any controversial story. In this case we are not permitted to discuss the imbalance of response: the /
SEEN in Journalism374,137 views • 10 months ago
Graham Linehan on News at Ten For the BBC, where it is right now, it wasn’t bad, but that’s mainly because Graham Linehan was given enough time to speak. The BBC isn’t used to running the ‘lived experiences’ of women’s rights campaigners, and have been tone-policing them for years /
SEEN in Journalism247,044 views • 10 months ago
Shocking from BBC Radio Scotland . Interviewee seems determined to medically stop his 10-year-old daughter’s puberty after deciding she was a boy before she could even talk. The BBC has policies around raising safeguarding alerts. We hope they are being followed. Clips below.
SEEN in Journalism515,601 views • 2 years ago