What's Auntie for, exactly?
Impartiality and the BBC
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Beeb Week Recently, we discovered that some of the evidence in Al Gore's film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, was fictional. But was this the result of a classic exposé from Panorama, or from Newsnight?
In fact, the Gore revelations followed from the persistence of a school governor from Devon, who mounted a High Court challenge to the distribution of the film in schools. In this case, the BBC was the watchdog that didn't bark.
For Auntie, maintaining a reputation for impartiality is a far more intractable task than shrugging off fraudulent phone-in shows. Forget complaints from the Murdoch press, or from blogs devoted to BBC bias. At stake is something deeper.
Take an issue like Sudan. Whatever Mia Farrow and George Clooney say, there's room for controversy here. But that isn't what BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds thinks. When Gordon Brown gave a speech to the UN at the end of July, Reynolds wrote that it "coincided with a welcome development over Darfur in the form of a pending Security Council resolution approving the despatch of a UN-led peacekeeping force – at long last".
Plenty of balance there.
If we all know for certain and agree that genocide is actually going on in Sudan, then we all know for certain and agree that UN action is long overdue.
As for climate change: although environmentalists feel the BBC isn't doing enough, the only criticism the BBC gives of Gordon Going Green is that... he isn't doing enough.
Here, in trendy style, the Beeb plays the cynical oppositionist. But there's a further twist. In practice, the Beeb's campaign to get us all to stop emitting is now so ceaseless, even the BBC Trust is worried. In a summer discussion of the corporation's role, From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel, the trust fretted:
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. They cannot be simply dismissed as "flat-earthers" or "deniers", who "should not be given a platform" by the BBC.
Yes, even a discussion of balance must be balanced. On the one hand, there's a consensus in climate science, so it must have most airtime; on the other, there are of course consensus-opponents who must be allowed their moment.
Two things escape the Beeb.
First, any consensus about climate change by no means implies that there's a cut-and-dried political consensus on exactly what to do about it.
Second, climate science - like research into cancer - has come a long way, and pretty fast too. Yet – again like cancer research – there's still an enormously complex mountain to climb.
COMMENTS
BBC airtime : Madeleine McCann vs Iraqi civilian deaths
It reminds me of what Stalin said "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic", roll on the Pravda Broadcasting Corporation...
Caveat: the one man rule doesnt apply to official enemies of the state, e.g. Dr. David Kelly, random people shot dead by our brave warriors in Blue as "suspected terrorists" etc
@Darren7160 and the rest
"Note the rabid way the anti-global warming proponents attack, belittle and try to dismiss any research."
It looks like the only rabid attacks on here are from people like you. That's why some of us have a problem with those rabidly obsessed with climate change and the "End of the World (Tm)".
Your "evidence" and "factoids" come primarily from models and sensationalist reporting (is there any other kind). Although models for weather prediction have been refined for 50 years prediction beyond a couple of days is still a dream. Hold on here comes the model of the Earth that after 5 years development can predict 100 years into the future - erm yea right.
A couple of months ago I was at my nieces house and the subject of a school trip to London came up and she didn't want to go. I asked her why not and she showed me her "climate change" project from school and explained that London was very dangerous and you could drown. She even had a photo of London under 60ft of water to prove it (no doubt ripped from the BBC). This is what you want us to teach young children in school? This to you is Science?
I remember having to do a similar project at that age - Overpopulation, armed with my cut out and keep guide to starving to death in the year 2000 with the 25 billion other chumps - seems some things don't change.
(except the climate obviously)
@Gary Moran
Of course glbal warming isn't causing current climate events and most of the commentators know it, but there is a clear undercurrant that it is better to scare people and not trouble them with the complexity of the facts. I 've listen to enough R4 interviews where we roughly get:
BBC: "So the flood/drought/storm can be attributed to glabal warming"
SCI: "Well if action isn't taken on GW, then we will see more of these events"
BBC "So people should act now and [Buy Lexus hybrid-SV, Organic-microwave-meal, etc]
SCI "Um, yes, we all need to ..blah"
I would like to hear some enviromental campaigners that don't feel the need to treat us like morons.
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