Letter sent to Linton Besser and Media Watch on 31 January 2026
Dear Linton,
The BBC has been criticised for its impartiality particularly regarding its promotion of gender and ‘queer’ ideology above the sex-based rights of women.
The ABC has for years been doing exactly the same- a slow drip feed of trans positive stories, while at the same time framing all legitimate criticism of gender ideology as “anti-trans”, no matter how thoughtful and well considered these are.
Here is just another example of trans/ queer drip feed: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-31/state-library-of-victoria-hosts-lgbtqia-fantasy-ball/106272364
Many people have made complaints for years about this, but these are routinely ignored and fobbed off by ABC’s very strange internal complaints system (a serious impartiality issue in itself).
The BBC has also been criticised for leaving up hundreds of biased and factually incorrect articles- something ABC also does. Ordinary people have made thoughtful and well referenced complaints about ABC bias, as well as heavyweight journalists like Paul Barry, who like you, has seen a lot more of the internal workings that produce and reinforce this ever more obvious bias.
ABC used to have respect as a source of news, but now is one of the last places many of us would go for impartial news coverage. Impartiality is crucial to the role of our public broadcaster and us fundamental to democratic process.
I hope you will continue to hightlight this on Media Watch, and that in doing so the ABC will avoid the worst of the integrity crisis currently faced by the BBC.
Yours sincerely,
E. Gillanders