“I am not your friend.” Imagine the feeling. You’re a teenager. A sensitive and well-behaved one at that, and the person you love and look up to more than anyone else in the world tells you this. “I’m your mum,” she continued. “And I’m going to tell you things you don’t want to hear; things your friends won’t say to you. Because I love you.”
My mum was right. Sometimes, parents have to do or say things their children don’t want to hear, things that might upset them or make them angry. It’s done not to hurt them, but to keep them safe, to equip them for life, and to help them flourish.
Sometimes journalists have to say things people don’t want to hear too. Not for reasons of maternalism — journalists are not parents — but in the pursuit of knowledge and truth. These matter. And can be deeply uncomfortable.
When I began looking into the care being provided to gender-questioning children and young people for BBC Newsnight in 2019, I had no idea that this would come to be seen — rightly or wrongly — as one of the most controversial topics of our time. I didn’t know what I would later find. Together with my then-colleague Deborah Cohen and editor Esme Wren, we simply felt this was part of the NHS, involving often vulnerable children and the use of off-label medication, that was receiving relatively little detailed attention. We should look into it.
It didn’t take long to recognise the strength of feelings involved. As a team, we received criticism, complaints and came under external pressure not to pursue this as an area of inquiry. Yet the programme remained convinced of the public interest value of our journalism and we continued to investigate, carefully but undeterred. This wasn’t brave. It was doing our job. And under the leadership of a new editor, Stewart Maclean, Newsnight continues to report on this story when there is merit.
Where there are those who are willing to report important stories, there is hope. And all it takes is one
If what has unfolded at the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) teaches us anything, it is that even with the best of intentions, good, professional people can go wrong and make mistakes; it’s how they and others respond that is important. We rely on politicians, regulators and the media to scrutinise, care and — in the case of the former — intervene if necessary when the need for change is apparent and vulnerable young people are involved.
All of these institutions and organisations were absent for too long. When people turn a blind eye and do not ask difficult questions, harm can be done. I have spoken with young people delighted with the care they received from GIDS, who have called it life-saving and who are living happy lives. But this is not true of everyone. And just as the voices of happy trans people should be heard and are valid, so are those of young people who have been let down and, yes, harmed.
That is why we must be allowed to ask questions — on this topic and others. Neither I nor Newsnight’s reporting has ever questioned the identity of young people or the right of people to transition. But for some, questioning the care provided to a group of young people was not seen as legitimate in its own right.
I write this from the perspective of a journalist, but freedom of speech is vital across society. Perhaps nowhere more so than in our healthcare system. The history of the NHS contains several dark episodes, where clinical concerns have been raised by worried staff and shut down or ignored: Mid Staffs; Thalidomide; contaminated blood; maternity scandals, to name a few. Health professionals are encouraged to speak up. They are told this is vital for improving care and that there will be no adverse repercussions for doing so. Too often, as with clinicians at the Tavistock, this is not the reality.
For a while, it seemed that the full story of GIDS might not be told. My book proposal was sent to 22 publishers, and none offered to take it on. That isn’t unusual. Proposals are submitted and rejected all the time. And as a first-time author, without a high profile, there was obviously a risk. But it was the responses themselves that were most surprising.
Of the 12 who responded, not one was negative. One said that someone would “snap it up”. Just not them. Another truly believed it was a story of great importance, but was overruled by their boss who deemed it “too controversial”. Some had existing authors on their books who would be sensitive to the material. The 10 remaining publishers did not respond to the proposal at all. My agent tells me he would usually expect an acknowledgment and note either declining or accepting a book from the vast majority of recipients — about 90 per cent. This time, it was a little more than half.
While some have learned of these 22 rejections and been horrified, I am not. I was rather dismayed at the time, but this is ultimately a positive tale. Swift Press — the 23rd publisher — did publish the book. And it became a bestseller. They saw an important story, a story about healthcare — not ideology, and thought it deserved to be told. Where there are journalists, broadcasters, publications and publishers who are willing to report important — even if hard to hear — stories, there is hope. And all it takes is one.
Every day that I am in the office, I walk past a statue of George Orwell. It’s a little bit hidden. It’s to the side of the main entrance of the BBC’s New Broadcasting House, underneath a concrete walkway. Visitors might not spot it. To the figure’s left, subtly carved into the wall, are the words: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” I couldn’t agree more.
At the heart of every story are people. It is important to never lose sight of that, even when they have done wrong
And this is fundamentally what freedom of speech is about. It is not absolute. The power given to us as responsible journalists with a national platform is a privilege many do not have. I truly appreciate and recognise that. We must report accurately and fairly, including what we don’t know, as well as what we do. There is no shame in admitting we don’t know everything. Where there is uncertainty, it must be acknowledged. Because that is honest.
We must report without fear or favour, but responsibly, with care and compassion. At the heart of every story are people. And it is important to never lose sight of that, even when they have done wrong. There has not been a single investigation I have worked on which names an individual that I haven’t lost sleep over.
Writing Time to Think was without doubt the hardest thing I have ever done, including the births of my two children. There has, thankfully, been very little criticism. But there are two questions I have heard several times. “Why don’t you give your opinion more?” “Why don’t you just say it’s a scandal?”
Quite simply, it is not my job to tell people what to think. I am a person with opinions, like anyone else, but my book — and reporting more generally — is not polemical. My job is to provide the evidence, lay it out fairly and accurately, and allow people to use that information to make up their own minds. If people disagree with this approach, so be it.
Life is complicated. There often aren’t easy answers, particularly to some of the thorniest issues of our time. There are often many shades of grey. But we must be able to talk, to ask difficult questions and try to understand.
There is, and must always be, a place for impartial scrutiny and robust evidence-based journalism, even if it exposes uncomfortable truths in contentious areas. If we are not prepared to do this, we should not be journalists at all.
Hannah Barnes is investigations producer, BBC Newsnight and author of Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children, which is currently longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
We want to draw on the experiences of a wide variety of individuals in our free speech inquiry. If you have a story to tell please email: freedomofspeech@standard.co.uk
