What the hell is wrong with the BBC?
Would Vodaphone customers tolerate a commercial environment that required them to pay a fee to O2? Would diners at MacDonalds be happy to pay a fee to Kentucky Fried Chicken if they wanted to eat a hamburger? Would drivers wishing to refuel at Shell stump up cash for Texaco before they access the fuel pumps?
Unlikely.
But we are all required to pay the BBC for the privilege of watching any live television programme regardless of the broadcaster because the BBC are deemed to be providing a public service.
This huge financial advantage handed to the BBC comes with the responsibility to be impartial and accurate.
And yet, in recent years, the BBC has repeatedly failed in this endeavour. Let’s look at the latest example – Barbra Banda.
The BBC sports team tells us that Banda plays professional football in the USA for Orlando Pride and was “the second-most expensive women's signing in history - behind her Zambia team-mate Racheal Kundananji”.
“Already the first female player to score successive hat-tricks at the Olympic Games, having done so in 2021, Banda once again dazzled on the Olympic stage this summer” they gush. She certainly sounds like an impressive athlete.
But she is not, because Barbra Banda is another male – most likely a male with a DSD (Difference of Sexual Development) – who is playing sport in the female category.
And so, by the way, is Racheal Kundananji. You can make your own inferences about the statistical likelihood of 4 Zambian players in their national squad of 26 having failed “gender” eligibility tests.
“BBC Sport Africa understands that three other Zambian players were affected by gender eligibility but chose not to feature for the national team, whose squad features 22, rather than the permitted 26, players.”
But back with the BBC, their fawning article doesn’t just make the claim that these men are women, which I dare say they would argue is a political or identity claim. It makes the claim that they are female which is an objective claim of biological fact.
A claim which is not only false, but which the BBC knew to be false as long ago as July 2022 when they reported that:
Zambia captain Barbra Banda has been ruled out of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) after failing gender eligibility tests.
Despite being allowed to play in last year's Olympic Games, the 22-year-old forward has failed to meet the criteria required by global governing body Fifa, whose gender rules the Confederation of African Football (Caf) defers to regarding Wafcon.
"All the players had to undergo gender verification, a Caf requirement, and unfortunately she did not meet the criteria set by Caf," Andrew Kamanga, the president of Zambia's FA (Faz), told BBC Sport Africa.
Despite all that, the BBC nominated Banda for the Women's Footballer of the Year award, and thereby deprived a woman of her place on the nomination list.
And guess what? Today he won.
Yup - Banda was voted BBC Women's Footballer of the Year in part because the BBC promoted him, but mostly because they didn’t disclose that he is male. This is not unbiased and accurate, it is misleading and another example of the BBC signalling their adherence to the cult of gender identity ideology.
This is where you can complain.
It is like they are laughing in our faces! Infuriating.
The joke will ultimately be on them. When they've finished trashing their reputation.