If you were annoyed by last week's side-lining of women's sport by the BBC, and angry at he way they tried to palm all the blame off onto a voting system that they created themselves, be prepared to get even angrier when you read the shameful response of their Director of Sport.
A few highlights (or should it be lowlights)...
- "We stand by the current voting process". Yes, they are going to have a review - because they have been forced to - but nothing will change.
- "Having considered a wide range of alternative mechanisms, we remain convinced that the current system is fair, independent and robust." Review? What review?
- Nuts and Zoo are included because they "have a readership profile which reaches younger audiences" Yes - an audience of exclusively men! "
- Zoo and Nuts "helps contribute to a balanced panel which is representative of all the BBC's audiences."And in what possible way is an audience of just men "representative of the BBC's audiences?? And really do we want awards decided by readers of soft porn?
- Sports editors "chosen because of their expertise in the area, their coverage of a wide range of sports throughout the year and the extent of their readership." But does the writer not realise that they are part of the problem? Anyone who has tried to find coverage of the Black Ferns tour in our press - in the very week of this controversy - will know exactly how much "expertise" these dinosaurs have.
- "We do not include specialist sporting publications given their potential inherent bias to one particular sport nor do we canvas the views of non-sporting publications." So forget it ScrumQueens. Or SportSister. Or any journal or magazine read by women of any age.
Appalling.
