Newsreader Rapped for Changing ‘Pregnant People’ to ‘Women’

A BBC newsreader who went viral after she changed the script from “pregnant people” to “pregnant women” has been rebuked by the corporation for expressing what it termed “a personal view on a controversial matter.”

The BBC upheld the complaints against newsreader Martine Croxall on Thursday, although she has not been fired by the publicly-funded broadcaster, which is currently under scrutiny for its alleged biases following a leaked internal report.

Croxall was giving an introduction to a brief report from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine about heatwave-related deaths, when she made a face, showing apparent exasperation, as she read out the phrase, “pregnant people,” before quickly correcting it to “pregnant women.”

The Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of impartiality and said her facial expression placed the broadcaster “open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity.”

‘A Personal View’

The newsreader won plaudits after the clip went viral, including from Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who said on X: “I have a new favourite BBC presenter.”

Croxall was reacting to scripting with “clumsily incorporated phrases,” according to BBC News management, which told the ECU this included “the aged,” which is not BBC style, and “pregnant people,” which did not match what was said in the clip that followed.

The complaint was upheld for “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 said critical views expressed in the complaints, alongside the many congratulatory messages Croxall later received on social media, “tended to confirm that the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue.”

The finding was reported to the management of BBC News and discussed with Croxall and the editorial team concerned.

The newsreader has not commented publicly since being rebuked by her employer, but responded to the largely positive attention she received on the day of the incident, writing on X, “A huge thank you to everyone who has chosen to follow me today for whatever reason. It’s been quite a ride.”

The BBC has been asked by the parliamentary committee for culture, media and sport to explain its editorial conduct following a highly critical report, written by one of its own advisers, and published by The Telegraph.

‘Effective Censorship’

Among multiple issues raised in the leaked memo is the claim that the broadcaster’s coverage of transgenderism is subject to “effective censorship” by specialist LGBT reporters.

Written by former journalist Michael Prescott and sent to the BBC board, the 8,000-word memo exposes a string of incidents demonstrating serious apparent bias in the corporation’s reporting on a range of issues, from falsely alleging that car insurers are racist to its portrayal of United States President Donald Trump.

Prescott, who until he resigned in June 2025 was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, found that BBC Panorama “doctored” a speech by Trump to make it falsely appear that he directly called for violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

A former political editor of the Sunday Times, Prescott highlighted multiple problems he perceived with the corporation’s coverage of the debate around biological sex and gender identity, with the BBC appearing not to adjust its policies in line with the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in April.

After a BBC presenter raised concerns, Prescott said he also spoke with a journalist and a producer from the corporation, and all three said that “time and time again” the specialist LGBT staffers would decline to cover any story, raising difficult questions about the trans debate.

“The allegation made to me was stark: that the desk had been captured by a small group of people promoting the Stonewall view of the debate and keeping other perspectives off-air. Individual programs had come to lack their own reporters as a counterweight,” Prescott wrote, referring to the pro-trans lobby group.

His memo refers to a report authored by David Grossman examining the BBC’s coverage of trans issues, which was made to the EGSC in October 2024.

The Grossman Report refers to “a constant drip-feed of one-sided stories, usually news features, celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity,” and points to instances of transgender-identifying males being celebrated for beating girls and women at sports.

Missing Voices

It also notes the absence of many important voices in the debate, such as the experience of detransitioners, who have come to regret the irreversible damage done to their bodies, while professionals raising concerns about the safety and quality of care given to gender questioning children were seldom given space in BBC coverage.

The corporation also failed to give adequate coverage of women and girls concerned about trans-identifying males in their private spaces, by ignoring stories such as the case of the Darlington nurses, widely covered throughout the UK media.

The BBC has been the subject of numerous complaints and investigations previously for the way in which it covers transgender issues, and faced accusations of promoting propaganda to children over the children’s drama, First Day, broadcast on CBBC in 2020, which portrayed a 12-year-old boy who believes he is a girl.

The corporation’s own internal watchdog said it had broken rules around accuracy by not mentioning the transgender identity of a male murderer, Scarlet Blake, who it referred to as a woman when he was sentenced in February 2024.

The BBC is funded by a compulsory license fee payable by everyone who watches live television, governed by a Royal Charter, which is up for renewal in 2027.

The letter from the cross-party parliamentary committee asks the corporation to respond to its concerns over editorial standards by Monday, following calls from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson for those responsible for the Panorama editing of Trump’s speech to be fired.

Committee head, the Conservative Dame Caroline Dinenage, wrote: “The BBC promotes itself as the UK’s most widely used and trusted source of news.

“I am extremely worried that the coverage of Mr Prescott’s report is suggesting the BBC is engaging in precisely the kind of presentation that is associated with less trusted news sources.”

The BBC says it does not comment on leaked internal reports, but issued a brief statement saying that when it receives feedback, the corporation “takes it seriously and considers it carefully.”

The statement added, “Michael Prescott is a former adviser to a board committee where differing views and opinions of our coverage are routinely discussed and debated.”