Media censorship: chapter and verse
How it all plays out, from the inside
I got a fair amount of commentary on my article two weeks ago on Peter Wilby and his stifling of critical press commentary on child-abuse. Great to get so much engagement, but some of it made me realise I didn’t write clearly enough! I certainly didn’t mean to leave any doubt as to whether I have the slightest sympathy with Wilby—for the avoidance of doubt, I have none at all. I was trying to explore his hidden reasons for distorting coverage in the outlets where he had power, and to use that as a jumping-off point for musing about what I think is an unspoken solidarity between (some) men on the subject of men getting their rocks off in whatever way they choose.
The readers’ comments were really interesting, so thank you all. I was struck by some observations in particular—that Wilby wasn’t thinking about protecting paedophiles as much as not having their depravity directly in front of him, because it would make him think about his own actions; and that people with depraved desires may believe that other people share them but are too hypocritical to admit it.
Feelings of desire seem immune to rational analysis, at least when they’re our own: statistical patterns and evolutionary thinking seem so thin, somehow, in comparison with the experience of lust. When you are turned on by something, the only explanation that makes sense to you is that whatever it is simply is sexy. I’d speculate that this doesn’t change merely because whatever it is isn’t supposed to be sexy—because it’s a child, or torture porn, or whatever. I can see how it might feel that other people can all can see it too, but that they lie in order to be socially acceptable. And I’d guess that people who have to deal with child-abusers, whether in prison, treatment or prevention programmes, are well aware of this psychological twist.
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Anyway, what I thought I’d do this week is complement last week’s newsletter, which was about structural reasons why trans issues are so poorly covered, with some chapter-and-verse stories of censorship. Writing this has been slow because I’ve had to go back to everyone who told me their story in confidence, both to pin the details down and to get consent to repeating it, and whether with their name or without it.
The first is one that happened to me, and so I can write what I like—and explain why I haven’t told it previously, which is part of the broader censorship story.
In spring 2022 I was approached by the producers of a new Sky show, Common Ground, which was going to be hosted by Trevor Phillips. Each week it would bring together “two protagonists with different opinions on an issue making headlines, working to see what might unite them”. The episode I was asked to appear on concerned the inclusion of trans-identified men in women’s sport, and the other guest was Joanna Harper, a trans-identified man who argues, in my opinion sophistically, that such inclusion can be managed in such a way as to allow competition that is “meaningful” if not quite “fair”. (Here’s a demolition of Harper’s ideas by Jon Pike, a philosopher of sport at the Open University.)
We recorded the episode in the studio, and it was awkward. I had told the programme researchers in advance that I was willing to avoid “misgendering” Harper, but that I wasn’t willing to call him either she/her or a woman. This meant that I would have to watch my words the whole way through, of course, but I thought it was the minimum necessary to enable the broadcast to go ahead. I also said I wouldn’t call transwomen “men”, but that I would have to point out that they were “male”. All of that was agreed to.
After Phillips introduced the show, he asked Harper to set out his stall, which he did. Phillips then turned to me. I don’t remember precisely what I said, but I started with something about the two sexes being evolved, immutable categories that were physically distinct in ways that give males sporting advantages over females. I also said that transwomen were male.
Immediately Harper interrupted. He had been assured that nobody would use the word “male” for transwomen, he said. I replied that I had specifically gained agreement for saying this, which Phillips immediately confirmed, and said that using that word was essential for me to make my arguments. That set us off on an awkward footing, and the entire show was grumpy and uncomfortable—I was genuinely surprised by how hard I found it. Turns out that it’s one thing to write the simple fact that Harper is a man, and quite another to look him in the eye and make statements that clearly reveal that I see him as a man, when his entire self-image is based around denying that fact.
Standard practice for this show, I was told, was to record on a Tuesday afternoon and broadcast on the same Tuesday evening. But this episode was felt to be particularly sensitive, and so two episodes were recorded back to back to give the channel time to think about the trans one. Accepting this was, with hindsight, was a mistake on my part. Because—and I’m sure you’ve guessed what happened—time to think meant time to get cold feet.
Not that the producers told me that was what happened; when I inquired some weeks later by email why the episode hadn’t appeared, this is the reply I received:
“The discussion you took part in with Joanna was really interesting and I’m sorry if it seems to have drifted a bit, though it’s not uncommon for us to pre-record shows for future transmission.
“After reviewing it, we felt that we weren’t really happy with it—basically our production standards were not good enough. So yes, you’re right that we don’t currently intend to put it out. This is absolutely no reflection on you (or for that matter Joanna): you were engaging and interesting, and we’d love to invite you back on Sky News. We simply felt that our performance as programme makers was below par.”
I have a few things to say about that. The first was that everyone in the studio straight afterwards —Phillips, the technical and production staff—gushed about how good it had been. What a model of polite disagreement; yada-yada; how proud they were to go where other broadcasters were too cowardly to tread. The second is that I have never been invited back on Sky News. The third is that I cannot imagine what was meant by “production standards”. The show was recorded in the studio, and the one that went out that week was recorded straight after. Perhaps the embarrassing disagreement about language? But that was incredibly revealing, and also basically unavoidable if we’re ever to talk about this issue.
I later met someone closely involved in the programme at an unrelated event. I asked what had really happened, and was told that there had been internal complaints about covering this topic as a “both sides” story (needless to say, the side that was objected to was mine). I don’t know whether I personally was complained about, but anyway the recording had been sent right up to the top of Sky News, and watched several times by the most senior decision-makers, and it was they who had decided not to run it. I think that they simply felt it was more trouble than it was worth.
I haven’t told this story publicly before for fear of burning bridges. My journalism is freelance now, and like any freelancer I fear being seen as “difficult”. It also feels unfair or disloyal, somehow: everyone I interacted with on the show was nice, and I know there are good people within Sky News (and every other media organisation) trying to fix this problem without blowing up their careers.
But at this point, I’ve pretty much given up. I’ve still never been on Sky (or ITV or Channel 4, or the BBC since I started talking on trans issues). If sucking it up and playing nice doesn’t work, why bother?
My second story is one I was told by a well-known columnist I recently met in person, and it’s quite short. She has been writing for the same media group for literally decades, with a couple of moves between daily and weekly editions, and from one slot to another. But her columns have always tended to go in pretty much untouched, she has a good relationship with her commissioning editor and the few times her column has been trimmed for space reasons or because of breaking news, she has always been told.
Until, shortly after my book came out, she made it her topic. She filed as usual, got the usual acknowledgment—and then nothing. The column simply didn’t appear. When she asked her editor why, he said that while he personally was “on her side”, the editor-in-chief had decided that trans topics were to be covered from one side only, and it was the other one. He didn’t exactly know why, but thought it was because of a deliberate choice to appeal to young people. Whatever the reason, she was told, there was no point arguing and the column would never see the light of day. (She decided not to be named here because this column is her main source of income.)
My third doesn’t involve me at all, and is even more shocking. I heard it from Patricia Casey, a well-known Irish psychiatrist, who told it to me when I was in Ireland a couple of weeks ago at a free-speech event. Patricia has been writing a column for the Irish Independent since the 1990s, at first on issues related to psychiatry and more recently on anything she likes. Again, she has rarely had any problems getting through the editing process, and has been allowed great freedom in choosing her topics.
Until she wrote a column about the interim report of the review of NHS child gender-medicine services being carried out by eminent paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass. This was an obvious and excellent topic, both because Ireland’s health-care system refers gender-dysphoric children to GIDS, the NHS paediatric gender clinic in London, and because of Patricia’s professional expertise and knowledge.
And again, it was spiked without notice. Her next offering, on an unrelated topic, was declined. Attempts to discuss this were met with silence, and, as a busy woman for whom journalism is a side-line, she let it slide. “I sensed that my contributions were no longer welcome once I had crossed the trans-critical Rubicon,” she says. “People frequently ask me what’s happened to my weekly column.” And when they do, she doesn’t really know what to say.
My last two are slightly different in that they aren’t about completed programmes or articles getting spiked. But they are still examples of censorship, and still revealing of media bias.
The first is from a friend who worked at the BBC until recently. One day, during the monkey-pox outbreak, she was running the scrolling news ticker. In response to the evidence that gay and bisexual men were disproportionately affected and that they were catching it during casual sex at commercial venues, LGB Alliance had called for venues such as saunas, bathhouses and clubs with dark rooms to be closed for a month. This was criticised as “homophobia” by LGBA’s haters.
My friend simply made a short, factual statement on this disagreement on the ticker tape, writing: “LGB Alliance has also raised concern about the spread of monkeypox.” Two colleagues, one with a name very well-known to the public, told her to take it down, having received texts about it from friends outside the BBC. When she refused she was reported to HR for allegedly “lowering the standards of the newsroom” by simply mentioning LGBA. An investigation was opened, and only suspended after she put in a grievance. As the criminologists say, “the process is the punishment”.
My final example is one I was told on my recent trip to Ireland. It concerns a story in the Irish Mirror, a tabloid that has been notably good at covering gender-related news. It was a short, factual news item about a primary school that is part of Educate Together, which operates progressive, non-denominational schools intended to provide an alternative to Ireland’s overwhelmingly church-run options (the great majority of such schools are Catholic; others are run by the Church of Ireland or other Protestant denominations).
The story starts with what is happening—a school telling eight-year-old children that they must refer to their female class teacher as they/them rather than she/her. It sets the story in context—that this is “believed to be” the first time a school has accommodated a teacher’s “preferred pronouns” like this. It then seeks comment from “both sides”—gender-critical therapist Stella O’Malley, who says the demand is silly and harmful; Paul Murphy, a TD (Irish MP), who says it’s a great idea to get kids used to preferred pronouns in school, since they’ll have to cope with them outside. It quotes parents, the Department of Education, INTO (Ireland’s biggest teachers’ union) and Educate Together, and mentions that it sought but could not get comment from the school or principal, instead citing what it has been told about their communications with parents. And then it mentions a loosely related development, the teacher Enoch Burke who has got into legal trouble as a result of refusing to use a pupil’s preferred pronouns.
I cannot emphasise enough what a classic news story this is, both in content and in structure. It doesn’t offer in-depth analysis, take sides, draw conclusions or make policy recommendations: it’s “first draft of history” stuff. Depending on how much news you consume you will have read thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of stories like this: interesting thing happened, bit more detail, here’s what everyone involved says, here’s someone positive about it and someone negative, here’s a related development or two, over and out.
This format is standard for a reason. It’s how you produce news that’s informative, interesting, good-faith—and still quick and cheap. An experienced journalist can churn something like this out in a couple of hours. Add in the picture desk sourcing a suitable picture; a sub-editor getting it into house style and cutting to length; and perhaps a fact-checker confirming quotes, the spelling of names plus any facts and figures (lots of outlets don’t bother with this bit any more), and you might get up to five or six paid hours. If a journalist visited the school to interview parents, I suppose it might absorb a full day of labour—but in these cash-strapped times for journalism, that is heading towards more time than most outlets are willing to spare for a single story.
And yet the estimate I was given by someone at the paper was that this single story took several weeks’-worth of work. That was largely because it was so difficult to get anyone on the “pro” side to give comment, and the Mirror’s sense that running it without such comment would not be right. Around ten politicians who frequently run their mouth on the wonders of gender ideology were contacted: by phone, by email, via their advisors and any office numbers the journalist had, with none willing to be quoted (amazing, given how sure they are they’re on the right side of history). The school and principal were also contacted repeatedly by phone and email, but gave no response. Until Paul Murphy (who has spoken publicly about how he and his partner are bringing up their baby boy, Juniper, “gender-neutral”, whatever they mean by that) obliged with a quote, the story was stuck in limbo.
Dealing with all this, and with complaints after publication—including from the school and principal, neither of which offered comment before publication, despite being asked repeatedly—took up yet more time. Although the person who told me this story assured me that the Irish Mirror isn’t going to allow itself to be bullied out of covering the spread of trans ideology in Irish schools, it would be naïve to imagine that such entirely disproportionate delay, cost and hassle will have no influence. Or that other newspapers and broadcasters won’t take note of the difficulties of covering such stories: even though this one was the most-read on the Irish Mirror’s site for more than a week, no other mainstream Irish outlet has even mentioned it.
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