BBC probes bias in its coverage of science and the environment

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241209/BBC-probes-bias-science-coverage.html

BBC probes bias in its coverage of science and the environment

By Paul Revoir
Last updated at 8:17 AM on 07th January 2010

The body which oversees the BBC is to launch a full-scale review into whether its coverage of science and the environment is biased.

The BBC Trust acted after a string of complaints that the corporation is acting as a cheerleader for the theory that climate change is a man-made phenomenon.

…

Critics have claimed that it has not fairly represented the views of sceptics who do not agree that climate change is caused by human action, leading to a string of complaints over coverage of the issue.

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Last night, Lord Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said: ‘My complaint against the BBC is not about one programme, it is that there has been a relentless institutional prejudice against the very large number of eminent climate scientists who fundamentally disagree with all the major conclusions that we are told inaccurately is the scientific consensus about climate change. It is high time the BBC examined itself.’

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. As usual, Ben Goldacre has a decent take on this

"'Impartial' is a word you use to describe political disputes," Dr Ben Goldacre, Bad Science blogger and Guardian columnist, told Journalism.co.uk.

"We don't want media coverage of science to be obsessed with representing all political constituencies and extreme interest groups, confusing 'balance' with 'accuracy'," he said.

"We want it to be evidence based, to come down and say 'that's nonsense' when something plainly is nonsense, and crucially, we want media organisations to give enough proper technical details about the science that people can make their own mind up about a disputed area, instead of the current patronising assumption that everyone is stupid and uninterested.

"What you get at the moment, with science in the media, is a bit like a sports report that covers random small teams with lots of discussion about personalities but no actual scores."

http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/537053.php

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. I remember hearing an inteview…

… with a woman who had been invited onto some program to talk about the history of “The Holocaust.”

A man introduced himself to her, and explained that he was going to be arguing an opposing view, even though he didn’t believe it. This was to be done in the name of “balance.”

http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm

"My opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful (is)... 'by restraining it to true facts and sound principle only.' Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood." --Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:224

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/30/1441/59811

“ … reality has a well-known liberal bias.” — Stephen Colbert, 2006. White House Correspondents Dinner