EX-BBC reporter disciplined BBC turns to Iran-backed over gender-critical tweets journalist for Gaza coverage
A FORMER BBC journalist was subjected to a disciplinary process for tweeting that there was no scientific support for the idea that “males can be women”.
Cath Walton revealed that she was called before an internal BBC hearing after she also said that the issue of gender identity was “contested”.
Reflecting on her treatment by the BBC, she said that in discussing issues around people who change gender, “truth has become an emblem of defiance rather than clarity”.
She spoke out after Justin Webb, the Radio 4 Today programme presenter, was found to have breached the BBC’S impartiality rules by saying “trans women, in other words males”.
The corporation’s executive complaints unit (ECU) upheld a complaint from a listener who said that Mr Webb had been giving his personal view on a controversial matter.
His supporters say he was simply stating a fact and clarifying the definition of a trans woman as a biological male living as a woman.
Ms Walton argues that she, too, was simply stating a fact, when she tweeted about the term “cisgender” – meaning someone who identifies with the sex of their birth. She says that using “cisgender”
to distinguish between natal and non-natal women involved accepting that there are two types of women, “male women and female women”, which had no basis in science.
She decided to tweet about the subject two years ago, fearing that the use of the term “cis” was starting to be used in BBC content, even though BBC journalists are taught not to adopt activist language as their own.
She said that within about an hour of posting her message on Twitter, now X, she was told to delete her tweets by her then boss on the BBC News channel, who said they breached the BBC’S social media rules. Another editor was also consulted.
She refused to delete the tweets and she was called before a disciplinary hearing. She was told that she must delete the tweets and also “admit to managers that I’d been wrong and would never do it again”. Again she refused.
The disciplinary process was eventually dropped, and she launched her own grievance hearing against the BBC, which was partly upheld on the grounds that correct procedures were not followed, but which rejected complaints from her of harassment and discrimination.
The BBC was contacted for comment.
THE BBC used an anti-israel journalist bankrolled by Iran as a key source in its reporting on the Gaza conflict, it has emerged.
In a report over the weekend, the BBC analysed video and eyewitness accounts of a rush on an aid convoy in Gaza that led to the deaths of more than 100 Palestinians. The report cited an eyewitness account from Mahmoud Awadeyah, who was described as a journalist on the scene.
But it has emerged that Mr Awadeyah works for Tasnim News Agency, an Iranian outlet with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has vowed to destroy the Israeli state.
In social media posts, the activist praised violence against Israelis and posted photos of himself dining with militant leaders.
Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC Television, accused the corporation of “failing in the most basic of journalistic practices” by not checking one of its key sources.
Writing in The Telegraph, he said: “The BBC has a habit of accepting at face value what they are told by people who present as Palestinian civilians or officials from civic authorities and either don’t understand or don’t care that they are representatives of terrorist organisations. Our publicly funded broadcaster seems to believe that ‘balance’ and objectivity means treating a genocidal terrorist group and a democratically elected government in the same way.”
Mr Cohen said the failure to verify the source was further evidence of inherent bias in the BBC’S coverage.
He added: “It also appears evermore the case that stories BBC reporters receive from Palestinian sources align with their negative assumptions about Israel, meaning that the corporation’s journalists don’t challenge or robustly investigate accounts that come from highly flawed and disreputable sources.”
The report was published by BBC Verify, an investigative arm of BBC News aimed at fact-checking information and countering fake news.
Mr Awadeyah’s social media feed, which was first uncovered by anti-semitism researcher David Collier, features posts that appeared to praise a terrorist attack in January 2023 that left seven Israelis dead.
A BBC spokesman said: “We stand by our journalism and reject the allegations in this piece. The BBC is not allowed access into Gaza, but we use a range of accounts from eyewitnesses and cross reference these against official statements and footage.”