By Fiona Parker
London: A newsreader who went viral after she made a face while changing the word “pregnant people” to “women” during a live broadcast has been found to have broken BBC impartiality rules.
Martine Croxall made the expression as she changed her script in an introduction to an interview with an assistant professor about groups most at risk during British heatwaves.
BBC presenter Martine Croxall.Credit: BBC
Croxall won a legion of fans following the live broadcast, including author JK Rowling.
The broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit, however, considered her facial expression expressed a “controversial view about trans people”.
The decision comes during a difficult week for the corporation, following revelations by The UK Telegraph of a damning memo written by one of its own advisers.
Among multiple criticisms was the claim that the broadcaster’s coverage of transgender people was subject to “effective censorship” by specialist LGBT reporters who refuse to cover gender-critical stories.
The complaints unit said Croxall’s facial expression laid it open to the interpretation that it “indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans ideology”.
Overruling her autocue during the broadcast in June, Croxall said: “Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people … women … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions.”
Following the presenter’s introduction, Mistry, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, then went on to use the term “pregnant women” during the interview.
The complaints unit added that “congratulatory messages Ms Croxall later received on social media, together with the critical views expressed in the complaints to the BBC and elsewhere, tended to confirm that the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue”.
It noted that “Ms Croxall was reacting to scripting, which somewhat clumsily incorporated phrases from the press release accompanying the research, including ‘the aged’, which is not the BBC style, and ‘pregnant people’, which did not match what Dr Mistry said in the clip which followed”.
It went on to say that “giving the strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter, even if inadvertently, falls short of the BBC’s expectations of its presenters and journalists in relation to impartiality, the ECU upheld the complaints”.
Croxall received no reprimand from managers at the time, and some BBC insiders said they believed the tide was turning in favour of “common sense” after the Supreme Court ruling.
The Telegraph has approached Croxall for a comment.
The Telegraph, London
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