Tricky

Catching up with the past week's typically turbulent BBC-related news [and, as ever, thank to you for keeping us up to date on the open threads]...

That Daily Telegraph story about how the BBC's ultra-worthy 50:50 equality project is going wrong and leading to complaints from within the BBC that the corporation is “disappearing women” by allowing the female side to be filled “by those who self-identify as female” included some fascinating details. 

As the BBC itself might say, I've not been able to independently verify the Jeremy Vine discussion about women’s sports on BBC Radio 2 where the voices on air were four men and three trans people with no women, but I have checked out the edition of Radio 4’s Moral Maze a year ago last June where two men and two trans women discussed women’s sport. 

Which does seem odd.

The Telegraph quotes “a senior BBC insider” saying that the BBC presenter behind the 50:50 equality project, Ros Atkins, “has gone along with” redefining the word 'woman' - “a word which we all understand”, something the BBC has done “without any public debate”.

As for the whole 50:50 equality project, it is interesting how one [male] BBC presenter, such as Ros Atkins, could have such a massive impact - for good or for ill - on the BBC's behaviour. His agenda has pretty much consumed the BBC since 2017.

This is something Radio 4's Media Show, or the BBC News Channel's Outside Source, or the BBC's Analysis Editor might want to tackle...

...if only the man behind the 50:50 equality project wasn't also a main presenter on Radio 4's Media Show, and the main presenter on BBC News Channel's Outside Source, and the BBC's Analysis Editor.

And called Ros Atkins.

Tricky.