{"id":586,"date":"2007-09-05T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-05T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=586"},"modified":"2007-09-05T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-05T21:00:00","slug":"bbc-impartiality-and-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/09\/bbc-impartiality-and-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC impartiality and climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>riting recently<\/a> about the BBC<\/span>\u2019s decision not to go ahead with a climate change special, Peter Horrocks<\/span> observed: <\/p>\n

BBC news programmes and our website of course reflect alternative views but we do not balance these views mathematically as that is not our judgement about where the argument has now reached.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The obvious reply (I only do obvious) is, why not? Why don\u2019t you balance these views mathematically? You poll people and analyse the results mathematically. You analyse ratings mathematically.<\/p>\n

Surely the BBC<\/span> could keep track of its output sufficiently to give a rough balance to the weight of its coverage, or at least a running total reflecting the balance of coverage given to different opinions on some of its platforms, be it TV, radio etc.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This wouldn\u2019t stop people making editorial judgements (after all online journalists already know which stories are getting most attention and TV editors spend time looking at viewing figures), but it would provide some ready reckoning on where the balance was being struck. 60\/40 is, after all a long way from 95\/5.<\/p>\n

Of course, it wouldn\u2019t stop BBC motoring advocate\/journalist (is he still a journalist? he was when I met him…) Jeremy Clarkson<\/span> being “bored by the BBC\u2019s hysterical climate change reporting<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Still, thank goodness for impartiality! But, hang on – if it\u2019s not the BBC\u2019s job to save the planet<\/a>, is it the BBC\u2019s job to sell motor cars<\/a>, or cheerlead for the automobile industry? Oh dear, I guess I still don\u2019t get it…maybe a full page ad in Top Gear<\/span><\/span> magazine might clear things up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing recently about the BBC\u2019s decision not to go ahead with a climate change special, Peter Horrocks observed: BBC news programmes and our website of course reflect alternative views but we do not balance these views mathematically as that is not our judgement about where the argument has now reached. The obvious reply (I only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}