It's a man, man!

With rare exceptions. the UK's media establishment is too compromised to fulfill its duty of truthful reporting

‘Beth’ Uptonm and Sandie Peggie

We’re now into the second week of the Sandie Peggie tribunal and it’s turning out to be a game-changing case. But the struggle over media coverage started before the hearing began last Monday.

An attempt by NHS Fife to hold it in private was defeated. An appeal for Peggie and her lawyers to be allowed - allowed! - to use accurate-sex pronouns was granted. Crucially, the citizen journalism service Tribunal Tweets was allowed to live post proceedings.

Without these decisions, public access to an accurate account of the dispute between Sandie Peggie and the respondents, NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton, a trans-identified man, would have been practically nil.

We know this because even with public access, and accurate pronoun use permitted, coverage has still veered from misleading to potentially defamatory of Peggie, a nurse of 30 years standing.

Two outlets only, STV and the Scottish Daily Express, used accurate pronouns. The BBC plainly sent staff-wide guidance that neither ‘he’ nor ‘she’ was to be used for Dr Upton: only Doctor Upton, the respondent, or the doctor (it still described him as a woman - a trans woman, but a woman). Their journalists stuck to this guidance resolutely.

Other outlets, led by Sky and the Press Association, decided that Dr Upton is female, and used ‘she’.

Of course, regulatory reprimands for the ‘bias’ of using male pronouns is impossible without similar reprimands for the bias of using female pronouns. IPSO is unpredictable and captured, but if it can’t see the logic of this, it is lost. At least male pronouns have the defence of accuracy. The fact is, outlets were able to choose, and for the most part they chose untruth.

The most egregious error was the refusal by most outlets, except The Times and the Telegraph, to explain that Upton is a man. He was universally described as a ‘trans doctor’. If there is one single fact that’s central to this case, it’s that Upton is a man—it is grossly irresponsible, verging on deliberately misleading, to leave it out.

Readers and viewers are expected to second-guess his sex. Most don’t read down from the headline, and when they do, most only read the top four paragraphs. The result is a misleading narrative that frames Sandie Peggie as transphobic instead of someone objecting to a man in a woman’s space.

The media mentality that brings ‘she’ to the desk for a man applies the same bias to all reporting on cases like this. From the moment you make that choice, it colours your coverage, what you see and hear, what you take away and what you then serve up to your consumers.

---

The first day of tribunal coverage went relatively smoothly. The BBC produced several fair reports, for the national bulletin, for Online, and for Reporting Scotland, courtesy of Lorna Gordon and Steve Godden. They focussed on Peggie’s evidence that she felt intimidated. But we were about to see a classic example of how two journalists can see the same evidence in the same place at the same time and take away vastly different stories.

The BBC focused on neutrality; Sky News focused on ‘trans’.

Sky’s first headline was ‘Nurse denies using 'offensive language’’.

The fact that Peggie felt intimidated, embarrassed and uncomfortable in the presence of a man in a female changing room, the fact she was in a state of partial undress on at least one occasion and suffering a period accident in another, the fact that she was forced to reveal before a court the details of what she now knows was a serious sexual assault by a medic...none of this mattered.

What mattered was a claim - only a claim - of offensive language.

‘Trans framing’ is a mindset and it shapes all your decisions right up to the final ‘publish to platforms’.

The next day was a zinger of widespread and appalling bias, led by Press Association copy with a headline of Nurse who objected to a transgender woman in changing room admits harassment’, with its top par ‘has admitted being guilty of harassment ‘under workplace policies’ - oh boy did this spread like wildfire. Outlets who hadn’t bothered the day before weighed in. LBC, Sky News, the Independent, the Evening Standard and various local outfits.

The disgraceful coverage from The Independent, Evening Standard and Sky News

The PA copy isn’t published online so we can’t link to it. It’s considered the number one reliable domestic UK news agency.

Crucially, PA didn’t link to or describe the workplace policies under which Peggie technically ‘admitted harassment’. Also crucially, it used the word ‘guilty’.

Here’s the NHS Fife workplace policy - making it perfectly clear that not complying with personal pronouns is considered harassment.

• deliberate and consistent behaviours which demonstrate a non-acceptance of aspects relating to protected or personal characteristics, for example, failure to use requested gender pronoun for a transitioning individual

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that harassment is a criminal offence under this Act of 1997. A headline that contains the words ‘admits harassment’ and features the top line ‘admitted being guilty of harassment’ gives the clear and inaccurate impression that Peggie has admitted being guilty of a crime, that she is guilty of a crime. None of this is true.

She simply didn’t use a man’s preferred pronoun, and was only forced to ‘admit’ that this was a breach of a policy which itself is under the microscope and will almost certainly be challenged in the tribunal when NHS Fife witnesses are questioned.

You get the picture. ‘Denies offensive language’ ‘Denies comparing trans doctors to rapist Isla Bryson’ - ‘Admits being guilty of harassment’.

Any natural reader unfamiliar with the background to the case would draw the impression that it is Dr Upton bringing a case for harassment, not Sandie Peggie. His claimed ‘victimhood’ has been placed front and centre of coverage by the premier UK news agency and from there, across dozens of news platforms.

If you see a line repeated across outlets that aren’t well-resourced enough to devote a reporter to a court zoom - it probably comes from PA. If it’s dodgy, you should complain.

After the extremely visible outrage over the potentially defamatory ‘admits harassment’ line, PA has toned down the activism. Friday promised fireworks, with the prospect of Naomi Cunningham cross-examining Beth Upton. That didn’t happen, but reporters got over their disappointment to produce pretty straight reports on the failure to disclose by NHS Fife.

Which brings us to Scottish outlets - notably the Scottish Daily Express and its refreshing commitment to accuracy. It made its intentions quite explicit in this comment from the Editor:

‘A preliminary hearing ruled Dr Upton could be called a man, which is how the Scottish Daily Express will be referring to him’.

It was the only outlet to do this.

Unbelievably refreshing. Perhaps more outlets will follow.

The Courier is another title that did well - responding to anger over the inclusion of female pronouns here by apparently taking them out.

STV also chose accuracy in its broadcast reports. But when it picked up its online copy directly from PA - she/hers all over the place. PA can be an absolute menace.

Covering court cases will always look unbalanced because there’s only one person giving evidence at a time, and reporters are restricted to writing about what happens in the room. Some perception of imbalance will come from that.

Some outlets knew this was going to be a huge case - the BBC stands out on that. Others didn’t - they missed Monday, started to realise through the week, and were toning down the affirmation towards the end of it. By Friday morning, nearly three hundred observers were waiting in the lobby to be admitted to the hearing. They know this will be significant whichever way the ruling goes.

So where are we now after the third day of the second week? Days which saw the most jaw-dropping and infuriating evidence by Beth Upton?

Well, we’re at the point where the BBC is actually changing its stories to suit a more activist narrative.

‘I’m not male’ says trans doctor Beth Upton’ became - through the magic no doubt of an evening sub sensing an opportunity - ‘I’m only asking for basic respect’.

What was a largely accurate and fair representation of the bulk of the exchanges became an activist plea for sympathy for a trans-identified male who wants to share changing spaces with females.

Upton’s evidence was almost unbelievable - a male doctor who says he’s not male, who says it’s not necessarily true that only a sperm and egg can make a baby and says biological sex is a ‘dog whistle’. It went on and on. This was newsworthy. Not the emotive whining that a trans person ‘just wants respect’.

With their emphasis on the emotive nonsense of “basic respect”, the BBC undid all the good work they put in during the first week. Sky News simply didn’t bother with what must have been an uncomfortable day for them. Till now it’s only produced three headlines, all of them geared against Sandie Peggie - ‘denies offensive language’ - ‘admits harassing’ - ‘denies comparing trans doctor to rapist’.

Prize for the grimmest take goes to the Courier - ‘Nurse’s lawyer compares trans doctor to 1984 torturer’. This was a misinterpretation of a throwaway comparison with the dystopia of being asked to deny what you know to be true - ie that this man is a man. The evidence on the reality of sex was clearly anathema to the reporter Josh Bowie.

And an update on PA - it must have been stung by criticism of its mistake on ‘guilty of harassment’ last week, because it’s back to neutral reporting and neither male nor female pronouns.

This ends with a paean to Tribunal Tweets. No journalist worked as hard or produced the quality of material they did. Any sensible journalist would have checked their copy against their incredible stenography.

They have to be accurate, they have to be impartial (or they get kicked out), they have to type at the speed of light and they have to understand the court process and background. If news outlets would link to their threads at the bottom of every report, then the bias would be visible to all, not just those of us attuned to it.