The cass review, as its called, came out last week, and it recommends a new approach for clinicians. This is a Polarising Subject for some people. So, what mightjournalism do differently in how it covers it . Hannah barnes is a former bbc producer who investigated some of the uks gender Identity Services for the corporations newsnight programme. She went on to write a book about it. I asked her when she first started her investigation. First came across it at all in 2017. I was off on my first Maternity Leave and there was a piece in the times Byjanice Turner Which was talking about this really rapid increase in the referrals of Teenage Girls to gids the gender Identity Development service and she had spoken to two clinicians who worked at the service. It wasnt really a Big Sort Of Whistle blowy piece but they had talked to her and said what theyd seen and itjust i thought it was very interesting, but i was off and, you know, spending time with my baby. And there was also a documentary that same year on bbc two about a Gender Clinic a childrens Gender Clinic in canada. And then, it was really a leak of a report in the autumn of 2018, going into 2019, that really got me interested in this, which was a report where ten members of staff from gids had gone to a doctor called doctor david bell hes an Adult Psychiatrist at the tavistock and they had relayed some very serious concerns and ijust thought, we dont often get nhs Whistle Blowers. To have ten from a tiny service, something must be going on. And thats what started it. So, what were you doing . Were you approaching them at that point . Were you trying to find out who these Whistle Blowers were or they were in the Public Domain and you were trying to get access . What were you trying to do . Ijust started trying to speak to as many people as possible both those who had written about this very early, because there wasnt that much around about it at the time. I spoke i was talking to a couple of clinicians. I met them face to face in that spring. And i spoke with a 0xford Associate Professor called michael biggs, whod found some unpublished data on a study that gids had done on Puberty Blockers. And thats where our first film, myself and deborah cohen, who was Health Correspondent at the time, thats where it started. Yes, because i was going to say, you know, as you mentioned, i was working with you at newsnight at the time. I remember you and deb cohen doing this series of reports. How would you so, that was for newsnight. How would you characterise Media Coverage of this story more widely . Pretty woeful, i think. In what way . It just. It hasnt. I dont think the media has done itself has not really its not had a good episode here. I think there are exceptions but, really, the running has been done by generalists predominantly by female journalists and all of the health and science specialists have been absent. There really wasnt the support from the wider bbc. And, rebecca coombes, if i could bring you in youre Head Ofjournalism at the British Medicaljournal. Would you agree . Would you say that science journalists avoided this subject . Im afraid i would, actually. Why . Why did they . I think there was a real hesitancy, and im hopeful that post cass, the hesitant might be more courageous in stepping into the silence. I think there was a real mishmash between evidence and advocacy, and that became a problem. So, i can talk from the Bmj Perspective that when you get that kind of were very Evidence Based at the bmj. Were a medical research journal. And, you know, when doctors are involved, its a bmj story, so its natural for us to take an interest in this and approach it from an Evidence Based perspective and i think what we had to do is do what cass did hilary cass did which was to remove the political framing and focus on what is the evidence and not to be sort of blindsided by some of the backlash we got from the stories that we ran. And we were very aware of the work that deb and hannah was doing. We previously covered the interim findings of the cass report. Hilary cass came to us. She wanted to talk directly to the profession. So, we ran an Opinion Piece by her~ but when we got involved with investigations is looking at the fact that in the us, the Transgender Health guidelines, they changed, so that it would leave the age of initiation up to the clinician, so there was no minimum age of treatment. And so, we got very interested in that and decided to look into the actual guidelines and look at the evidence that was being used to build up the guidelines which were being used by doctors. But when you say you were aware of what deb cohen and Hannah Barnes were doing at newsnight, were these the kind of conversations being had . I wonder whether its the kind of conversation which was, theyre doing it. We dont really want to touch it because its so polarised. Or is that unfair . I think at the time, it wasjust an editorial decision. I mean, we have there was no reason why we wouldnt have done it and, certainly, we covered some of the work that you were doing. We did the piece on the american guidelines, we went to Evidence Based Medicine Specialists and got them to opine on what they saw as the quality of the evidence and, actually, what they found is very similar to whats come out in the cass report, which is threadbare evidence. I suppose the issue is exactly what cass was talking about weak evidence. You know, this was new medical territory. You know, how do you approach stories when youre reporting on this kind of medicine . Well, the same way that you would any story, you know youd speak to the people who are experts, you listen to them and its really. I think its a really unique feature of this story compared to anything ive done before. Im a generalist. Im not a healthjournalist. But, generally speaking, if you ask questions or you critique an Evidence Base and, really, we have known for a very long time that the Evidence Base is practically non existent when you do that, you wouldnt usually be accused of hating or wanting to kill the Patient Population who are being treated by that. But youre saying thats what happened to you . Well, yes, it does happen. You know. I guess the question is. To ask questions, youre then accused of being transphobic and you know, which is silly. And i think whats happened here i mean, ispoke with doctor cass upon publication of her report in a short interview, and it is normal. Its part of nhs, isnt it, to listen to the voices of Service Users . Of course it is. And she said to me and this is a quote but obviously not to the point where youre not following the evidence, which is whats happened here. I suppose theres a question, isnt there, around quite often with journalism, youre looking for a case study particularly when its complicated. You want an individual who typifies whats going on and its the human voice behind the story, if you like. And was that the instinct here . And was that the wrong instinct . I think its the right instinct but i dont think theres one case study that typifies it. I mean, when i was researching. But maybe there never is. Well, no no, youre probably right but, you know, i dont doubt that, you know and weve heard many of these voices in the past week and ive spoken to them myself that some people feel that Puberty Blockers and hormones have been life saving for them. And, similarly, ive spoken to people for whom it has been absolutely disastrous and harmful. Now, what all this is saying is we cant go on anecdote. We just dont know. We havent got long term data that supports this. But if you approach this like you would any other area of health care, the evidence isnt there to support this intervention. I agree with that. I dont know how much truth youre going to get at. I think that every Patient Experience is a different one and that, in turn, is completely normal, so its very hard to capture an average Patient Experience. Right. And if we look at what cass, you know, another thing that cass writes in her report, she says, one of the major challenges for the review has been the difficulty in having open, honest debate as people with differing views can find it uncomfortable to sit together in the same room or on the same stage. That slightly points to the sort of culture wars conversations or feelings around this subject. Rebecca, did you feel under any pressure from any groups as to how you cover this subject . Yeah, absolutely, we did. And im Notjust Talking about the, you know, the online retribution that we got after we published our american story. I think we had there are factions within the profession, obviously, who have very strong views on this and i think that we to deal with it, you know, we had to hold a line and say, you know, just because youre a professional society doesnt mean that you have the appropriate skill set to appraise the evidence. You know, at the bmj, weve been focusing on the Evidence Based Medicine Movement for many, many decades, and particularly around too much medicine. So, whether that be for, i dont know, Gestational Diabetes or thyroid cancer. So, what we had to do is treat this as part of that, so that gender based care for adolescents, was it an issue of too much medicine . And, jake kanter, if i could bring you in, from deadline, i wonder what your assessment of how the media reports on trans issues is. And i suppose, you know, whether the media has a role to play in polarising opinion when it could actually be bringing people together potentially. I think it is polarising opinion. I think what this shows is that newsrooms are treating this l as a culture war story, rather than a health and science one, and its testament to newsnight that the story was pursued in this way. And i think its a real shame that, you know, originaljournalism is beingl gutted from newsnight now and we may not see stories of this Ilk In The Future from that particular show. And whats your sense, as somebody who previously worked at the times, of whether how those newspapers, how places approach theseissues and the impact they have . They embrace these issues. They want to write about them because they drive huge l engagement and interest and, you know, iwas encouraged to pursue stories where the media and these debates intersected because they were controversial, because they stoked opinion. And for the bbc, | it often finds itself at the centre of these storms when its reporting on these issues. People on both sides of the argument criticise the coverage. It has often had to make apologies. I mean, for example, it has apologised to jk rowling twice in the past year or so because shes been accused of being transphobic on air. | and its an incredibly i delicate balancing act, ithink, for the bbc. And, rebecca coombes, just to bring you in at the end, youre Head Ofjournalism at the British Medicaljournal. I mean, one thing i should say is that and cass says it too you know, in the absence of evidence, dont we have to, as journalists, listen to the voices of people in pain . Um, yes, we do. But i also think this is a call to improve sort of Scientific Literacy amongst health notjust healthjournalists, but against politicians because what we saw was a real sort of mishmash of a kind of activist blogger might be placed as a highly placed source in a story alongside a research methodologist, whichjust didnt really make any sense. So, i think that this should be a call for the media to, you know, step into the silence and just be more confident about asking those questions. It feels like a good moment to end it on, im afraid. Rebecca coombes from the bmj British Medicaljournal and Hannah Barnes, now at the new statesman, previously of newsnight, thanks so much for coming on the media show. Thank you. Now, hugh grant has settled a legal case he had against Rupert Murdochs news Group Newspapers. The actor was one of a number of people, including prince harry, who are suing the publisher of the sun in the civil court. And Jake Kanterfrom deadline is still here, and will be through the programme. Whats happened . Ithink, you know, we dont know the terms of the settlement but hugh grant has made very clear he did not want to do this. No, he talked about i reluctantly settling. He said that he had been paid an enormous sum of money. To put these claims to bed and that he would be using that cash to i well, repurposing it through his mission at hacked off, which is a Campaign Group against. You know, some of these excesses in the media or the allegationsl of these excesses. Because hes explained, hasnt he, why he felt he had to do it . Which is quite an interesting thing that people wont necessarily understand to do with how our legal system works certainly in the civil court which is, he says that, you know, hes offered this amount of money, which is an enormous sum, as you say. Then, hes told if he proceeds if he turns it down and proceeds in the civil court, then if he loses, even if he ends up being offered less than the settlement that was made pre trial, even by £1, that means he has to pay all the other sides costs, as well as his own. And he said his lawyer said that would probably amount because news Group Newspapers, you know, have very good lawyers to about £10 million. And he said, you know, im shying at the fence. He just didnt want to do that. Yeah. Hes clearly got a limit to what he is prepared to do in terms of his fight and this is a fight, as far as hes concerned. He is, as i said earlier, hes a thorn in the side of the tabloid newspapers. He has settled twice previously, so perhaps its notl a massive surprise. He settled phone hacking claims against the news of the world. And he also had a similar claim against mirror Group Newspapers both of which he settled recently and so, well, in the last. Decade, at the very least. So, you know, i think for, for the newspapers themselves, this is a stink that stubbornly refuses to lift and. I mean, it is worth saying, by the way, news Group Newspapers have obviously issued a statement saying, you know, they apologised unreservedly in 2011 to the victims of hacking, voicemail interception by the news of the world. Since then, theyve been paying financial damages to people with proper claims. Hugh grant had made the claim that it was £1 billion theyve already paid out i think thats lawyers costs and settlement. But what they say is there are a number of disputed claims still going through the civil courts, some of which seek to involve the sun. The sun does not accept liability or make any admissions to the allegations. And they point out that a judge recently ruled that some of mr grants claim that was a bit about hacking was out of time and theyd reached agreement on the rest of it without admitting any liability. So, thats what theyre saying. I suppose, what the question is ive covered these cases a lot, mainly because they involve, you know, prince harry. Theres quite a lot of them coming down the tracks and that have been coming down the tracks i guess the question is is prince harry going to be The Last Man Standing . Is he the only one who has pockets deep enough to keep going with this and not accept a settlement . Or do you expect that he might settle at some point . Well, i mean, this suggests that news uk might be trying. To pick people off and to settle individual claims. Theres still about 40 claims unresolved and heading to trial injanuary alongside prince harry. But this is a this is a vendetta for him and he has shown. That hes got results. He got results against the mirror In Decemberlast year in a Landmark Ruling L and my instinct. Is he wants to get the biggest scalp possible and that would be rupert murdoch, i think. Taylor swift is permanently in the headlines. Shes a massive driver of traffic for the media even bigger this week as her 11th album, the tortured poets department, is out on friday. Disney paid a ridiculous amount of money to start streaming her eras tour and the british broadcaster itv has hired a taylor swift correspondent. Joining me is laura snapes, guardians deputy music editor, who writes a weekly taylor swift newsletter called swift notes for the guardian. And Augusta Saraiva, bloombergs Economics Reporter who coined the term and this is a good claim to fame � swiftonomics. Laura and augusta, thanks so much for coming on the media show. Laura, if wejust start with you why did you start swift notes . Theres so much coverage of taylor swift in the newspaper, especially at the start of the year in the run up to the grammys, and also when her boyfriend, the Football Player travis kelce, was headed to the super bowl, that it made sense to have a sort of one stop shop to contain it all and also sort of zoom out and do some slightly more sober analysis of her but also of the coverage itself because i do think shes of a scale where its very easy for people to sort of lose their heads about it and sort of be wowed by scale as opposed to going, whats actually going on here . Lets analyse it. And what is it like covering taylor swift . I mean, its very varied. You know, you can write about anything from Music Industry things to, as well talk about swiftonomics, to her potential impact on the upcoming us election to, you know, gossipy things. But then, also the actual art of the songwriting, which i think is something that can get lost in the wider discussion of her. So, its yeah, its very varied. Her new album is called the tortured poets department. � poets doesnt have an apostrophe on it. Ive read whole articles about what that means, you know even grammarians are getting into it. And which camp are you in . Are you furious about no apostrophe . Or are you waiting with bated breath to see why it has no apostrophe . Um, i think its supposed to be like dead poets society, you know its like the name of a department, as opposed to a possessive. 0k, fairenough. And do you think shes taken seriously in newsrooms . And has that changed over time . Yeah, i think shes taken incredibly seriously in newsrooms. She does huge traffic and so thats something that editors Pay Attention to. And i think specifically since 2020, when she put out the more folky albums folklore and evermore, i think they reached a more adult audience because they were made in part with Aaron Dessner from the national and they featured other members of the national and Alsojustin Vernon of bon iver. And so, i think a tier of perhaps adult listeners who hadnt paid attention to her before suddenly woke up to her and realised that, you know, this is a smart songwriter, not somebody they might previously have written offjust as a sort of superficial pop star. And i think the combination of that and the stratospheric Economic Impact of the Eras Tour Has made people realise, like, this is, you know, a very serious artist and businesswoman. You know, i read a stat that said that the gdp from the eras tour sorry, the profits from the eras tour alone would make her the 36th smallest nation in the world on that alone in terms of gdp. So, theres 35 countries in the world that are not making as much as the Eras Tour Has. And you are rare because you have actually had an interview with taylor swift. Shes a difficult person to pin down for an interview. Ive been Culture Editor for quite a few years now at the bbc news and certainly havent had an interview with taylor swift as yet. What was that like . I think you went to her, well, apartment in nashville, was it . Yes, i did, yeah. So, it took about a year of meetings to make it happen. I had to pitch really hard and, yeah, take a lot of meetings to make it work. But then, you know, for somebody whos so sort of secretive about what she does, i think one thing that was really interesting is that there were no inaudible around the interview. There was nothing i could and couldnt say. There was nobody sitting in the room. There was, you know, a relatively strict time limit i think i got about ten minutes more than what had been, you know, allowed for but it was a surprisingly loose experience for somebody who is so sort of monumental and, you know, where theres, by necessity, such secrecy around what she does. And do you think the media is afraid to be critical of her now . Is she that big . Yeah, i think some elements are. I mean, theres various aspects of it. I mean, youve got i mean, as is always important, youve got to be brutally accurate about everything that you do about her because she is known to be litigious, or her team will respond to things that they think are, you know, particularly egregious examples of inaccuracies or misinterpretations of what shes done. I think some critics are scared to be critical about her because shes got a very vociferous fan base online. But i do think that serious News Organisations are still taking her to account about her business practices, which are not always you know, theyre not always the most favourable to other artists, lets say, you know, as with her music returning to tiktok last week and her being one of the only universal artists who is still on there. And also. Yes, just explain that because that shows her power, right . The fact that shes taken her songs are back on tiktok. Just explain why. Yeah, so shes part of the Universal Music Group label, which is the Biggest Record label in the whole world. Its one of the big three. And earlier this year, they pulled all of their catalogue and all of their Publishing Catalogue from tiktok in a dispute over songwriting royalties. She is the only artist who has managed to get back on there. I think its its believed that she brokered a deal with tiktok independently and that because shes so big, she is allowed to make exemptions, you know, from her umg contract. But its interesting that, you know, comparably big stars like Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish have not been able to do this, so i think its shes previously also made decisions in a way that has specifically benefited other songwriters, and shes spoken out about that quite a lot. 0k. So, i think people are quite intrigued that this decision doesnt seem to be a rising tide lifting all ships. Right. Well, lets bring in Augusta Saraiva from Bloomberg Economics well, youre the Economics Reporter at bloomberg and, as i said earlier, you coined the term swiftonomics. Well done. How did you start reporting on taylor swift . Well, it actually started with a personal question, which was why cant i get tickets . Right. So, when she announced that tour in 2022, i was essentially trying to get tickets myself and they were sold out immediately. So, the next morning and, i mean, i, like you said, im an Economics Reporter, so i cover things like inflation, the Labour Market and consumer demand. So, the next morning, i was actually talking to my boss who has whos a dad to two girls, and he also tried to get tickets and couldnt. So, we did ask ourselves this question what does this say about the us economy, right . Because i dont know to what extent people in the uk were following what was happening here, but back then, in 2022, everyone was sort of expecting a recession, all of the Wall Street Economies were really expecting one to come eventually, so the whole taylor swift demand story seemed a little off. So thats why we started looking into swiftonomics or what eventually became swiftonomics tow and understand. So, thats what you meant by swiftonomics . Yes. So, essentially, itjust became a theory about supply and demand and what it said about the us consumer and now, about the global consumer, right, because were seeing the same story. What did it say . What do you think it says . Well, it says something about pent up demand and what the pandemic did to demand, right . Because before the pandemic and i dont want to get too wonky here but before the pandemic, we did see people spending more on services and, of course, when we were locked into our homes during the pandemic, everyone went on amazon and all of a sudden, everyone was buying goods online. So we kind of, like, forgot about experiences. And then the What The Eras Story Said was that in a way, it opened the floodgates for services spending, so its not that taylor swift was the only one Driving Spending in the us, because eventually, we saw barbenheimer and beyonce, but she did accelerate it, that recovery, in a way. So, what do you, as an Economics Reporter, what do you think the Economic Impact of the eras tour is . Oh, its massive, but i think the key word. Is that a technical term . Economically technical term, � massive . I like it. Uh, i wouldnt say that, i think thatsjust my own personal view, but you do have data supporting that, right . So, in a way, i feel like the key word here is reacceleration. Its not that people wouldnt be staying at hotels or wouldnt be travelling if it werent for taylor swift but i feel like, in a way, what she did was that she accelerated that recovery, right . So, in places like chicago, i feel like eventually were going to recover in terms of hotel stays and all of that and tourism. But she did accelerate it. And Bloomberg Economics itself estimated that the impact not only from taylor swift herself, but what they called the taylor swift driven summer, which included beyonce, barbenheimer and all of that Services Demand was responsible for an 8. 5 billion boost to the us economy. 0k. Not bad at all, then thank you so much, Augusta Saraiva. 0h, not at all . And laura snapes from the guardian, too. Thank you both so much for coming on the media show. That is it for today. Thank you to all my guests. Well be back at the same time next week, but its goodbye from me, katie razzall. Thank you so much for your company. If youd like to hear a longer version of todays show, search Bbc The Media Show wherever you get your bbc podcasts. Hello there. Its not a particularly inspiring weather story at the moment, is it . But we still got that West East Divide across the country. On tuesday, we had the highest temperatures across south wales with 16 degrees, and there was some glorious sunshine at times with a little bit of shelter from the breeze. But out the east, it was disappointingly cool. A brisk northerly wind, temperatures struggled only around seven degrees across the East Yorkshire coast. Were going to keep quite a lot of cloud as well over the next few hours that will prevent temperatures from falling too far. Lowest temperatures to start the day on wednesday morning will be in the far north and west of scotland. We could have some thicker cloud and a little bit of drizzle first thing wednesday morning, easing away from south wales and south west england. But again, west will be best in terms of sunshine. A brisk northerly wind feeding in cloud from time to time, few scattered showers, and keeping those temperatures pegged back to single figures. So a top temperature of nine degrees along east coast, further west well see 12 or 13 degrees. Now, clear skies will continue through wednesday evening and overnight, and thats going to allow those temperatures to fall away to low single figures. So thursday morning, perhaps a chilly start quite widely across the country. And temperatures low enough in rural areas further north and west for a touch of frost, so gardeners and growers take note. But into thursday, this little Weather Front here could introduce a slight change. It will certainly bring more in the way of cloud as we go through the latter stages of the morning into the afternoon, and maybe some dribs and drabs of Showery Rain Pushing its way steadily south. So therell be more Cloud A Little Bit further west, and the temperatures really disappointing for the end of april, 9 13 degrees once again. Moving out of thursday into friday, sees low pressure starting to push in from the south. That will introduce some wetter weather across central and southern england, but potentially a little less cold. So as we close out the month of april, perhaps temperatures in the south back to where they should be for the time of year. But dont expect anything dry, settled and sunny. Its going to stay pretty unsettled. But we could see temperatures back up into the mid teens for some. Live from washington, this is bbc news. The Us Senate Passes a long awaited Multi Billion Dollar Aid Package for ukraine. Tonight we make Vladimir Putin regret the day he questioned american resolve. Tennessee lawmakers american resolve. Tennessee lawmakers passed american resolve. Tennessee lawmakers passed a american resolve. Tennessee lawmakers passed a Bill Lawmakers passed a bill allowing the states teachers to carry concealed handguns to schools. And the Usjustice Department agrees a multi Million Dollar settlement with survivors of larry nassar, the former Usa Gymnastics Doctorjailed for six abuse. We will Hearfrom Doctorjailed for six abuse. We will hear from the first woman to publicly come forward