Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 02/04/2014
Event: BBC criticised for giving airtime to sceptics - "you wouldn't give equal time to pro-smokers"
Credit: BBC Radio 4
People:
Evan Davis: Let's talk now, though about the report from the Commons' Science and Technology Committee, which is very critical of the efforts of government and media to explain climate change to the public at large. It's critical, too, of the Royal Society and the Met Office. Andrew Miller is Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, and joins us - morning to you.
Andrew Miller: Good morning.
Evan Davis: Let's start with the government. What's your - what's your criticism of government and the way it handles this communicating climate change?
Andrew Miller: Very simply that the centre of government - Number 10, the machinery there - accepts that man-made climate change is for real, as do all the broadcast organisations, by the way. But the message coming out of different departments is inconsistent and pretty unhelpful. And it seems to me that this is an area where collective responsibility at the heart of government is hugely important, because -
Evan Davis: Give us an example of what you mean, there.
Andrew Miller: Well, there have been examples, of course, coming from Owen Paterson - the lack of willingness to spell out that he accepts that climate change is for real. Those kinds of events don't help to get messages across on what is, after all, one of the biggest challenges facing the planet at the present time.
Evan Davis: All right. Let's move on to the media, and I should say we have David Jordan with us, who's Director of Editorial Policy at the BBC, who gets a few paragraphs in your report, that's fair to say. Um, what are your criticisms of the media, in general? And then we'll talk about the BBC.
Andrew Miller: Well, David gave evidence to our committee and he defended the BBC's position extremely effectively. But the message he didn't get across, in the context of climate change, is: why is it that you get this false balance in the way in which climate change sceptics are given equal time on some programmes - news programmes, I stress - versus the science community. You certainly wouldn't do that, for example, in the case of smoking - lung-related diseases, and so on, related to smoking - you wouldn't give equal time to pro-smokers. It isn't a sensible way of dealing with it, and doesn't reflect the, a) the, the overwhelming amount of science that supports the climate-change case, and b) the importance of it, in terms of the impact upon the globe.
Evan Davis: Let me bring David Jordan in there - as I say, Director of Editorial Policy at the BBC. A false balance, a sort of a debate in which you have one person says "Yes, it's happening", the other person - who isn't an expert on the science - says "No, it isn't". And it, sort of, it gives them, if you like, equal status.
David Jordan: I absolutely agree with Andrew Miller about that - in fact, I said so to his committee, when I gave evidence. I said that there was a bit of our editorial guidelines which talks about the importance of giving a due weight to different viewpoints, in relation to any controversy, and that I agreed with an earlier witness of his that there was a danger of false balance between the vast majority of scientific opinion and a small minority of scientific opinion. And a debate between the two, as if it was a sort of 50/50 debate - these are words that I said to the committee - is something we seek to avoid. So I -
Evan Davis: That's conceded, more or less everyone's agreed.
David Jordan: - I completely agree. I'm not saying that we don't occasionally fall short, in lots of ways, of our standards that we aspire to - occasionally we do. But we aspire to do that, and we don't try to give equivalence to the weight of scientific opinion on climate science and those small numbers of people who contest it.
Evan Davis: Andrew Miller, are you perhaps putting too much weight on the odd examples that pop up, of an argument on air that, sort of, turns into an argument over science, that probably would - should have specified that one was a scientist and the other wasn't a scientist? Or are you - have you got a more general point, there?
Andrew Miller: I think that particular point is hugely important, that when somebody is not a disinterested party, they're a lobbyist or whatever, they ought to be labelled as such, by the interviewer - that's perfectly reasonable. The, um -
Evan Davis: How may cases are there, of this? This is what I suppose I'm getting at? Are we talking about this as being an occasional thing or what you think of as the generality?
Andrew Miller: It does - it does tend to happen consistently on the climate change debate. We had the example in February with Lord Lawson up against Sir Brian Hoskins, and he wasn't labelled as representing a particular strand of opinion. Yes, okay, you could argue he's a well-known politician, his views are known. But these things happen, and I understand that, on that one, there's been recognition by one of David's colleagues that the programme didn't come out as intended. Similarly, earlier this week, with the issues around Professor Tol, again it wasn't spelt out that he was an advisor to one of those groups.
Evan Davis: This - this was the one on - the World at One, is that the - the Australian...?
Andrew Miller: I think there was a World at One, yeah...
Evan Davis: Oh, sorry I think I'm confusing them. David Jordan, help us out, here.
David Jordan: Professor Tol was somebody who disagreed with some of the recommendations and the findings of the latest IPCC report, which we reported extensively on this programme, and all our other outlets, on Monday. I think - I think it would be a shame if a few, a few odd instances, where we don't necessarily do everything that we would like to, is characterised as typical of the BBC's coverage of climate change. And I think there's a slight danger that the committee has fallen into that trap. I think it's very important to recognise the huge amount of output that the BBC devotes to this issue, the vast majority of which is - is interviews and discussions with climate change scientists about the - what's happening, and based on an acceptance that climate change is happening. But of course there are then many, many debates both about the extent to which it's happening and what should be done about it, which are perfectly -
Evan Davis: Which are quite different debates, yeah -
David Jordan: - which are perfectly, perfectly legitimate. I think it would be a shame if - if the BBC's output was characterised as entirely based around the odd interview with Lord Lawson or somebody else. It certainly isn't.
Evan Davis: Last word - Andrew Miller.
Andrew Miller: The - for example, this week there was a fantastic piece on the BBC website by Matt McGrath, world-class piece of reporting. And we're certainly not seeking to close down a debate between people with opinions who are not experts - what we want to see is the balance clearly there, in the same way as you would not give the same balance between the Monster Raving Loony Party and, let's say, the Conservative Party. You wouldn't give them equal balance. And it is important to remember that journalists have, from time to time, played enormously important roles in eking out the truth - let's take the MMR debate, for example, that was down to really good investigative journalism that helped unearth the, um, er, the distorted research that was going on.
Evan Davis: Indeed so. Andrew Miller, David Jordan, thank you both very much. Professor Tol was the co-author of the thing on the other day, I think.