BBC upholds complaint against Martine Croxall over ‘pregnant people’ change

The BBC has upheld a complaint against the newsreader Martine Croxall after she changed the term “pregnant people” to “women” and raised her eyebrows during a news channel broadcast in the summer.

The corporation said its executive complaints unit had upheld 20 complaints about the broadcast. It said Croxall’s facial expression “laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity”.

Under the BBC’s impartiality rules, news presenters are not permitted to express views on controversial topics. Croxall and the editorial team involved have been spoken to about the item.

Croxall received praise and criticism over the incident when a clip of it went viral online. JK Rowling, who has made her gender critical beliefs clear, said Croxall was her “new favourite BBC presenter”.

Croxall had been introducing a news story about research on the groups most at risk during heatwaves. It was based on a study and news release by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“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,” she said.

In its examination of the complaints, the executive complaints unit said the phrase “pregnant people” was followed by “a facial expression which has been variously interpreted by complainants as showing disgust, ridicule, contempt or exasperation”.

It said “exasperation” best matched the explanation given by BBC News management, which said Croxall was “reacting to scripting which somewhat clumsily incorporated phrases from the press release accompanying the research”.

Even accepting this explanation, however, it said the facial expression that accompanied her change of wording “laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity”.

“The congratulatory messages Ms Croxall later received on social media, together with the critical views expressed in the complaints to the BBC and elsewhere, tended to confirm that the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue,” it said.

Croxall told a user on X at the time that she was braced to be hauled before BBC bosses.

Responding to the significant impact the clip made on social media that day, she said: “A huge thank you to everyone who has chosen to follow me today for whatever reason. It’s been quite a ride … ”