I am approaching my 50th Scullionbait column and in that time I’ve read a lot of #StunningAndBrave content from across the world, from gardeners trying to uproot racist plants, to XY-Chromosome boxers fighting for their right to hit women. As I look back,  I wanted to pay tribute to the unsung heroes of all of this, without which we would remain in a state of bliss bigoted ignorance. I refer, of course, to the journalists who tirelessly wrote up the latest story about trangender women trying to breastfeed and the teachers fighting micro-agressions in toddlers. In this vein I want to give a special mention to the BBC, which heroically manages to avoid the so-called “other side of the story”, which we all know is just code for racism and transphobia anyway.

So, without further ado, I want to present The Scullionbait Awards for Reporting Merit to some up-and-coming BBC journalists who have recently produced excellent examples of grievance copy without any opposing quotes, criticism, or trace of so-called “balance” from the other side.

1. Nathan Turvey, BBC Radio York
Nathan Turvey deserves a special mention for last week writing this brave article about “plus-size walkers” who find it hard to “access” the outdoors and are left behind by FIT people (Fat Intolerant Traipsers). In it, he has included 30 paragraphs highlighting the grievance of POGs (People of Girth) who can’t walk very fast, chided the exclusionary “traditional” walking groups who don’t have the patience to dawdle whilst the fatties catch up, and bemoaned the fact that clothing shops won’t sell anything to the presumably massive untapped market of extremely large people who want to walk for miles. He trips up slightly on the final paragraph: a quote from a shopkeeper suggests in an industry of small margins, there isn’t much profit in elephant-sized walking gear. This is the one crumb of criticism in otherwise flawless copy — he uncritically highlights the grievance of a very niche group, and makes it all our fault to boot. Nathan didn’t need to champion the huge work of fat walking charity Every Body Outdoors, but he did. The BBC didn’t need to give this #GrievanceBait article lots of space on their website, but it did. Well done Nathan and well done the BBC.

2. James W Kelly, BBC London
In September James Kelly adapted this wire story for the BBC website, which was titled “Met Police sets out plans to be ‘truly anti-racist’” which accepted uncritically some ideas pesky conservatives like to call “contested”, but we know are actually facts (just ask any of your friends on Bluesky). Getting the term “anti-racist” into the headline was a plus. I don’t need to remind regular readers that “anti-racist” does not mean the absence of racism. Using the term “antiracist” shows you believe racism is the default state of all institutions and systems and you can only be “antiracist” by always noticing racism, in every person and every situation, even when it’s not there apparent. The police report linked to by the BBC was steeped in the language of Critical Race Theory, but it was good that James didn’t mention this, despite finding lots of examples of the police being awful to black people, because you just know the gammons would have kicked off about two-tier policing and “the woke” if he’d actually explained what terms like “equity” really meant.

3. Riyah Collins, BBC Newsbeat
Riyah Collins is great at writing articles like “Tulisa says she’s demisexual – here’s what it means” with a straight face. But my favourite piece by her last year was called “Climate anxiety: Why we won’t be flying home for Christmas” in which she spoke to lots of young people who were happy enough to go abroad, but now have realised that popping home to see their family would destroy the planet. Activists Aliza Ayaz and Sean Currie won’t get on a plane anymore, and Ayaz told the BBC that thinking about flights brings “the anxiety of ‘Oh my God, I can’t do it because of the carbon footprint’. But also, my parents could really use seeing me because I’m their eldest daughter.”  I loved this quote. It was so raw, and you just know that a lesser hack would have left the second half of it out to stop it being unintentionally funny. But Collins didn’t because she is a serious journalist who has a serious need to get across the huge cost to these poor, poor souls who are tackling the climate emergency by telling their parents that when it comes to Christmas dinner, they can go stuff themselves. I really am hoping for a Where are they now? type article this year, in which we find all the activists in exactly the same place due to their self imposed no-fly-zone. I wonder how many of them have been disinherited because they selflessly put planet before parents? Perhaps Collins’s 2024 offering will be: “Global warming-sceptic parents froze my inheritance” — which Riyah will ironically write up without so much as troubling the press office of the wicked industry body Airlines UK. 

4. The BBC’s tag team
 As reported previously here, the national broadcaster is very good at keeping its “Transgender people”tag free from anything that might upset the idea trans people are anything other than a vulnerable and maligned group. For example, a heartwarming and tragic tale of “The transgender bus driver in 1970s Belfast” gets lots of tags, including “LGBT” and “Transgender people” but somehow “Transgender woman guilty of rape after night out”, was only tagged “Swindon” and “Broad Blunsdon”. Good work!

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Scullionbait Disclaimer: In keeping with the style of the BBC and the journalists mentioned, this selection of articles was not selected as part of a thorough or rigorous process. There are many great examples I may have missed because the BBC literally pours this stuff out all day and night onto our state funded news website and to our eyeballs via push notifications. Long may it continue.