At Last: BBC Told To Ensure Balance On Climate Change
The Daily Telegraph, 13 October 2010
by Neil Midgley
Climate change sceptics are likely to be given greater prominence in BBC documentaries and news bulletins following new editorial guidelines that call for impartiality in the corporation’s science coverage.
The BBC has been repeatedly accused of bias in its reporting of climate change issues.
Last year one of its reporters, Paul Hudson, was criticised for not reporting on some of the highly controversial “Climategate” leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, even though he had been in possession of them for some time.
Climate change sceptics have also accused the BBC of not properly reporting “Glaciergate”, when a study from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) saying that glaciers would melt by 2035 was discredited.
But the BBC’s new editorial guidelines, published yesterday after an extensive consultation that considered over 1,600 submissions by members of the public, say expressly for the first time that scientific issues fall within the corporation’s obligation to be impartial.
“The BBC must be inclusive, consider the broad perspective, and ensure that the existence of a range of views is appropriately reflected,” said BBC trustee Alison Hastings.
“In addition the new guideline extends the definition of ‘controversial’ subjects beyond those of public policy and political or industrial controversy to include controversy within religion, science, finance, culture, ethics and other matters.”
However James Delingpole, a prominent climate change sceptic, yesterday said that he predicted little movement in the BBC’s environmental stories.
“It’s highly unlikely that they’ll be more balanced in their coverage,” he said.
“It’s a whole cultural thing at the BBC – that people who don’t believe are just ‘flat earthers’. Whenever they invite dissenters like me on to debates, they surround us with ‘warmists’. On Any Questions, for example, Jonathan Dimbleby does his best to be impartial, but this is a man with a wind turbine in his garden.”
In 2007, a BBC Trust report called Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century said: “Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be unpopular … The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate.”
The BBC Trust is also currently conducting a separate review into impartiality in the corporation’s science coverage, led by Professor Steve Jones from University College London, which will report in the spring of next year.
Professor Jones has been asked to consider whether the BBC’s output “gives appropriate weight to scientific conclusions including different theories and due weight to the views expressed by those sceptical about the science and how it was conducted or evaluated.”
Read these words very, very carefully!
Professor Jones has been asked to consider whether the BBC’s output “gives appropriate weight to scientific conclusions including different theories and due weight to the views expressed by those sceptical about the science and how it was conducted or evaluated.”
Appropriate weight ? due weight? evaluated? by whom? and yes Jones is known to the BBC. The BBC is overrun by …. no I had better not say. but just watch their output it says it all.
Let’s end on a note of praise. I greatly admire BBC nature programmes, especially when they make no reference to climate change!
That’s rare these days. They broadcast 2 country programmes on sunday and they mention Climate change (not global warming) every program twice on the day.
Peter Miller says:
October 14, 2010 at 1:23 pm
“Having said that, it is still one one of the most professional and least biased news organisations when it comes to reporting facts.”
You could not be more wrong. This is an organisation with a garanteed income of £2 – 3 billion. They spent £10m on travelling last year. They send upteem people to the same news event to interview grandma, the milkman, the shopkeeper etc; Their questions are purile and never attack the point. Professionel, mon oeil.
After living in the UK for almost a decade, I have come to see the bias in the BBC as being weighted in favour of the left of the political spectrum rather than being in thrall to views of the government of the day. Since the last general election and the change of government, the BBC’s apparent leftward bias has not changed markedly.
The current government is as ridiculously ignorant of the realities of weather and climate as was the last and the Climate Minister almost personifies the concept of wilful stupidity with his mania for installing windmills, but I suspect that the tide is slowly being turned in favour of the sceptical view by nothing less than the lack of money available to the government to enact the mad Green policies espoused by most politicians prior to the general elections.
And yes, the BBC licence fee is a tax which returns not only very poor value for money, but enables the enormous number of BBC top brass to enjoy salaries and pension packages that are so huge they are a spitefully-raised finger to the fee-paying populace.
MarkR says:
October 15, 2010 at 12:37 am
As long as the BBC sticks to scientific evidence, then everything will be fine. Hopefully this means that there won’t be anything as stupid as most of Delingpole’s articles.
Firstly, it’s pretty difficult to stick to science when you wouldn’t know what it was even it bit your arse and when you employ people who utterly believe and worship at the alter of AGW.
Secondly, Mr Delingpole may not express himself very scientifically but he does at least get his fact right.
And they still refuse to answer climate realist emails. (And I am forced to pay for this by weight of law.).
>>Firstly, it’s pretty difficult to stick to science when you wouldn’t know
>>what it was even it bit your arse
Not how I would have worded it, but perfectly true.
The BBC primarily advertises in the Grauniad – and yet the Grauniad is primarily read by those educated in the arts and humanities.
Thus the number of scientists, technologists and industrialists in the BBC is nil, nada, zippo. You watch their science programs nowadays, and it is as if they were made by the kids in a creche.
A BBC producer I know had this very problem, where he would produce a technology piece, send it to the BBC approval board, and it would come back with all of the science snipped out of it (they did not understand it, and presumed nobody else would). He also produced a docu on the founding of the Salvation Army, and was told by the approval board that it did not have enough ‘ethnic diversity’. His exasperated cry was that the Sally Army was created in 1865 London – not a lot of diversity there. But the approval board remained resolute, and the ducu was trashed.
.
>>Bureaucratic Bull#### Channel… and you have to pay.
No, no, no. It has long been the:
Biased Broadcasting Corporation.
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The sinister thing about the BBC is the corruption of young minds on their children’s channels?
Ken Hall says:
October 14, 2010 at 10:16 am
About time, but I will believe it only when I see it. The BBC is stuffed over full of left-wing cultists who are totally in denial about anything not of that left-wing belief system. They literally cannot compute any data that runs counter to their belief system.
—————————————————————————————————-Response.
Sorry Ken, skepticism about climate change science is not a preserve of the hard right in politics. My politics are environmental and traditional European left wing.And I know many many people like me. When people say on this site that skepticism is somehow a left wing plot we score a home goal and give those who would wreck our ecology and swindle us out of billions of pounds an excuse to say that skeptics are backed by right wing fundamentalists in the USA. We know that is not true, don’t give them ammunition.
The newspaper media in the UK is overwhelmingly biased to right wing politicians
(think Fox news as a newspaper journal). If the BBC has a left wing bias ( which as an old lefty I don”t think is that strong given the roasting they gave Blair) at least it gives news in the UK a more balanced feel.You read the right wing rags in the morning, and watch the BBC in the evening. Somewhere between is the truth.
However we must remember that surveys suggest the BBC as a news source is trusted on an international basis more than any other source for it’s objective reporting. They may not agree with our skeptic stance at the moment, but it will come.
“Paul Deacon, Christchurch, New Zealand says:
October 15, 2010 at 12:34 am”
I know all about GST in NZ, after all I was once an unpaid GST collector (Meaning selfemployed). It is entirely possible that after that case, the “law” was changed to allow a tax on a tax (Which of course can be called a levy or a fee and in NZ, GST is applied) and that it could not be challenged.
GST is different to VAT because GST is a consumption tax, which is fair IMO. VAT n the other hand is a VALUE added tax. So, you buy a chook in the UK, raw uncooked, no VAT. Buy a chook, cooked, VAT applied. See the difference. I understand VAT is now being applied across more items, like GST in NZ. Incidentally, GST in Aus is not applied to sanitary products, to mention one.
It is high time for the BBC to give air time to eminent scientists who wish put a
different point of view, and for the daily telegraph to publish more factual material
rather than the usual warmist drivel from Louise Gray.
I haven’t read through all of these posts – but want to pick up on the ‘questions by the BBC are purile’ and the general tone of presumed bias.
Firstly, some of the key BBC journalists have phoned for long briefings in recent months and I have received acknowledgements about ‘Chill’ (my book on climate theories). Perhaps as result, some of the previously anodyne questions like ‘Is the evidence that man is having an impact on the climate conclusive?’ have been replaced by
‘What percentage of the warming is natural and what percentage man-made’ put to John Christy in a BBC programme a few weeks ago – Christy replied ‘About 25% is man-made’.
And Roger Harrabin to Phil Jones, recently obtaining the phrase from Jones ‘there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995’.
These are important statements. Don’t discount the BBC. They have sharpened up. They are reading the critical literature.
tell the abc australia to do the same thay only report on the global warming side. very sad for our grand kids future
It is impossible to believe the BBC will stop its endless propaganda for AGW. The BBC’s pro-AGW bias spreads across all its TV and radio programming, news/documentaries/farming/comedy/drama/radio talk-ins etc etc.
Just yesterday, there was a full 30-minute programme that demolishes any idea that the BBC understands what journalistic balance means. The programme was unbelievably awful, almost a parody of BBC programming. Seriously – the worst programme I can remember in a long long while.
Please do not listen to it, it will drive you crazy – but Robin Horbury gives an accurate summary of its content :
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/10/heap-of-st.html
…”Delingpole, a prominent climate change sceptic, yesterday said that he predicted little movement in the BBC’s environmental stories.”..
Nuff said!
>>The newspaper media in the UK is overwhelmingly biased to right wing politicians
Nonsense.
Liberal rags include the Grauniad, Independent, Mirror and Times. And until recently, the Sun too. Right wing rags are Telegraph and Mail.
That, is a definite left wing bias.
You might dispute the Times, but I have stopped reading it solely due to it’s left wing bias. And you have to remember that much of the population get their info and education from the TV. Thus UK education has been reduced to soap operas, reality shows and exploitive talent shows. The result of this is immediately obvious.
In Europe, the youth will talk about politics, culture, and world events, but in the UK their knowledge expands no further than Eastenders. It is killing our economy.
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Now, if only the Government would stop using its diplomats for propoganda. UK High Commissioner to Canada Anthony Cary has a dreary piece in a little known publication in Ottawa again raising the alarm bells about climate change. The UK diplomats in Canada should stick to their well known gossip mongering and leave science to scientists.
BBC is the same as Australias ABC..controlled by “science” experts?? who are on the AGW wagon and refuse to allow any differing opionion to get to air.
Its a travesty alright.
Philip Thomas says:
October 15, 2010 at 12:13 am
Amazing given that Johnny is a sceptic, (maybe goes with the surname, ;-))
Johnny was heckled by some essentially left wing crowd when he proclaimed his scepticism, article somewhere on wired. In the crowd were people wanting the libel laws in the UK reformed; they started a petition, which I duly signed (and would do again) but that doesn’t stop me from despising these people for their double standards. Free speech for them but not for Johnny Ball. Disgusting people.
DaveE.
John Anderson says: “It is impossible to believe the BBC will stop its endless propaganda for AGW. The BBC’s pro-AGW bias spreads across all its TV and radio programming, news/documentaries/farming/comedy/drama/radio talk-ins etc etc. ”
You know this might be a little controversial here, but given a choice between a BBC run by environmentally minded people that does tremendous wildlife programmes but has fallen hook line and sinker for the global warming nonsense … and a BBC that can’t produce anything decent at all.
Well … we’ve just been watching life on earth and the quality is absolutely superb and is one inevitably stupid comment about polar bears really too much to bear for something decent to watch?
The Grauniad is traditionally liberal paper, the Indie professes to be Independant, (Though I’m not convinced!) The Mirror supports the Labour ( left wing party)
So who are the right wing papers?
The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch is centre right,
The Daily Express is unashamedly right wing, The Daily Mail is to the right of that, the Sun ( the largest selling paper) wholeheartedly supports the right wing parties, The Daily Star is also right wing. The Daily Telegraph, known as the Torygraph for good reason slavishly support all right wing politics. The Sunday Telegraph is barking right wing along with most Sunday papers. With regard to the BBC biase of climate change, it’s wrong but I can live with that. Lets face it, if you could only have one channel, would you choose the BBC with it’s wealth of wonderful programmes, or Rupert Murdochs channels that go for the lowest cost and interest programmes ? Would you rather watch Blackadder and Richard Attenborough, or Americas next top model and the the dross aired by the right wing media?
You may like to read this essay which I thought was fair.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/the-media-column-how-rightwing-columnists-show-their-flagrant-bias-612922.html
We can but hope.
Simon Hopkinson:
Yes, the emails leaked in the climategate.zip included things posted after the BBC fellow received whatever he received, so I am inclined to believe what you say.