Are you gay, lesbian, bisexual or ‘other’, puzzled BBC asks staff: Diversity survey ridiculed, while recipient asks: ‘Can anyone spot the missing option?
- Confused BBC-funded Local Democracy reporters shared the question online
- Blunder last in a series of ranks due to the BBC’s fixation with promoting diversity
The BBC has provoked ridicule among its own staff after circulating a diversity survey that did not include the option of ‘straight’ in the sexual orientation section.
Confused staff from the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), who are BBC-funded journalists working for regional news organisations, posted footage of the question online.
Under the question ‘What is your sexual orientation?’, the options included ‘bi/bisexual’, ‘lesbian/gay female’, ‘gay male’, ‘other sexual orientation’ and ‘prefer not to say’.
“Who can spot the missing option?” Jamie Shapiro, LDRs reporter for Southampton, wrote on social media. It is understood that the question was part of a survey sent only to LDRS staff.
However, despite admitting to the error, the service asked those who had not completed the survey to check the “other sexual orientation” box instead of issuing a modified survey.
Confused staff from the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), who are BBC-funded journalists working for regional news organisations, posted footage of the question online.
Gareth Johnson, Conservative MP for Dartford, said: ‘This is a huge oversight. All that money spent on diversity officers and they overlook the fact that some people are straight. Remarkable really!
The LDRS eventually issued an update offering “most sincere apologies” for “an error on our part.” The message continued: “When brought to our attention, we had more than half the responses and felt it was too late to resubmit the survey.”
He then went on to ask respondents to check ‘other sexual orientation’ if they were heterosexual.
The mistake is just the latest in a series of rows sparked by the BBC’s fixation with promoting diversity.
In 2021, the Corporation was forced to abandon a diversity program run by LGBT charity Stonewall after its chief executive compared critical gender beliefs to anti-Semitism.
The embarrassing escalation came after details of a BBC course set up with the lobby group were revealed, including a graphic of a ‘gender bread person’, which claimed that gender is decided in the brain. Critics called it ‘unscientific nonsense’.
Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed details of equality and diversity training at the BBC after a long-running freedom of information battle.
It showed that staff were told to watch out for “170 different forms of unconscious bias,” including discriminating against a colleague based on their hobbies.
