Daily London
A newsreader who gained attention after she made a face while changing the word “pregnant people” to “women” during a live broadcast has been deemed to have broken the BBC’s impartiality rules.
During a broadcast in June, Martine Croxall overruled her autocue as she introduced a guest who was about to discuss the groups most at risk during heatwaves.
“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,” Croxall said.
The public broadcaster’s executive complaints unit (ECU) has since found her facial expression during the change expressed a “strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter”.
Croxall’s facial expression could lead to the perception of “a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity”.
After the broadcast, the complaints unit noted Croxall received both critical and congratulatory messages which “tended to confirm that the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue”.
At the time Croxall noted on X that she had gained followers after the broadcast.
The ECU also noted “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”.
The unit said 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”.
