In February 2007, an article that Jeremy Paxman had originally written for Ariel, the BBC’s house magazine, was published on the Newsnight website. It included this remarkable statement about global warming:

I have neither the learning nor the experience to know whether the doomsayers are right about the human causes of climate change. But I am willing to acknowledge that people who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that it is the consequence of our own behaviour.

I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago. But it strikes me as very odd indeed that an organisation which affects such a high moral tone cannot be more environmentally responsible. [My emphasis]

Jeremy Paxman, Newsnight Homepage 02/02/2007

This stark admission of partisan reporting by the BBC coming from someone who has been at the centre of current affairs broadcasting for decades was a surprise to me, not because I was unaware of bias on this subject, but because someone so highly placed in the organisation was prepared to make such a frank admission.

In June of the same year, the BBC published an 80-page report with the astonishingly obscure title, From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel. Now there may be quite a few people who are concerned about the odd wheel coming off our national broadcaster’s wagon, but why would they be talking about see-saws? A subtitle on the cover of the report sheds some light on this mystery, but not much: safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century’. The connection between this relatively straightforward expression of intent, wagon wheels, and seasaws is explained in excruciating detail in the early pages of the report, but thankfully it is not the subject of this post.

In fact, once one has got past the silly title, the report is very interesting, even courageous in its attempt to confront a difficult problem. This seems to be a genuine attempt to address concerns that editorial policy at the BBC too often reflects the views of its young, metropolitan, university educated, middle class, mildly left of centre employees, rather than the full spectrum of public opinion. This problem is not just the preserve of people who sign letters of complaint, ‘disgusted, Tonbridge Wells’ but as the report makes clear, it is also causing alarm among senior staff within the organisation.

Not surprisingly, I thumbed through From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel to see if it included any attempt to justify the blatantly partisan line that the BBC takes in the climate change debate. I was not disappointed.

Skilfully dovetailed into a section that also considers the problems of reporting Holocaust denial impartially, I found a few paragraphs dealing with what the Corporation obviously considers to be an equally tedious and morally reprehensible group: climate change sceptics. Immediately it became clear why Jeremy Paxman had felt able to be so forthright about editorial policy on the climate change debate in his article. This is what the report says:

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 [on anthropogenic climate change].

From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel, Page 40

That sentence worried me. Years of watching the BBC’s coverage of this subject with growing astonishment during which numerous ‘scientific experts’ who clearly hold very partisan views on climate change, have been interviewed to provide viewers with what they were lead to believe were objective opinions on the evidence for anthropogenic global warming, has made me despair of BBC impartiality. I am thinking of people like George Monbiot, Mark Lynas, Professor Chris Rapley, Lord May of Oxford, Sir David King and Professor Tom Burke in particular. Anyone who has followed this controversy will be well aware that, although such people may be experts on the subject, they are anything but impartial or objective.

In an attempt to discover whether the BBC had organised this seminar in order to acquaint itself with the issues, or whether the purpose had been to obtain some kind of spurious authority for an editorial policy that had long since become ingrained in their news coverage, I thought that it would be worth trying to find out who had been invited to advise them. Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Regulations I made the following request to the BBC for information:

1. What was the name or title given to this seminar?

2. Where and when was this seminar held?

3. When did the seminar start and when did it end.

4. A copy of the invitation that was sent to prospective participants.

5. The agenda for the seminar together with any notes that were provided for the participants.

6. The names of all those who were invited to attend the seminar as participants, observers or in any other capacity together with their job description, organizational affiliation’s or any other information relating to their eligibility for being invited to be present.

7. The names of all those who attended the seminar as participants, observers or in any other capacity together with their job description, organizational affiliation’s or any other information relating to their eligibility for being invited to be present.

8. Any minutes, notes, electronic communications, recorded material or other records of the proceedings of the seminar.

Letter to the BBC, 20th July, 2007

Eventually I received their response:

In this case, the information you have requested is outside the scope of the Act because information relating to the seminar is held to help inform the arc’s editorial policy around reporting climate change. The only exception to this is the logistic details which you have requested

In this respect I can confirm that the seminar was called ‘Climate Change – the Challenge to Broadcasting’ and was held at the BBC’s Television Centre in White City London on 26 January 2006. The seminar ran from 9.30am to 5.30prn.

We are also happy to voluntarily provide you with some further information relating to the seminar.

The attendees at the seminar were made up of 30 key BBC staff and 30 invited guests who are specialists in the area of climate change. It was hosted by Jana Bennett, Director of Vision (then Television), BBC and Helen Boaden, Director of News BBC. It was chaired by Fergal Keane, Special Correspondent with BBC News. The key speaker at the seminar was Robert McCredie, Lord May of Oxford.

Seminar had the following aims:

  • · To offer a clear summary of the state of knowledge on the issue
  • · To find where the main debates lie
  • · To invoke imagination to allow the media to deal with the scope of the issue
  • · To consider the BBC’s role in public debate.

Letter from the BBC, 21st August, 2007

So we know that Lord May, an ex-government chief scientific adviser, ex-president of the Royal Society and a vehement advocate of climate alarmism played an important role in the proceedings. But apparently the BBC would prefer that just about everything else to do with a seminar which formed their editorial policy on a matter of immense public importance should remain a secret.

There may be people outside the realms of the BBC and environmental activism who would attempt to justify this decision, but I doubt if there are many.
As the BBC does not offer any internal review procedure when a request under the
Freedom of Information Act is refused, I referred my application to the Information Commissioner’s Office for adjudication. After a delay of almost a year, they are just beginning to investigate. Future developments will be reported on this blog.

108 Responses to “Jeremy Paxman, the BBC, Impartiality, and Freedom of Information”

  1. Tony Brown

    You can use this: tonyn (funny swirly mark) harmlesssky (one of those round things) org.

    Sorry about the convoluted form of the address, but this is one that the spam crawlers haven’t found yet. I’ll be very glad to hear from you.

  2. David

    My application to the BBC was made under both the FOIA and the EIR. They chose to deal with it under the FOIA and I wrote to the ICO about a fortnight ago reminding them that they should consider this and provide me with clarification of the issues involved.

  3. Tony,

    They obviously chose FOIA for its exemptions, as has everyone I have requested IPCC info from. To be fair to the ICO, he has corrected quite a few people on their choice, concluding for instance, that radio emissions from mobile phone masts are covered by EIR. Having made that ruling all sorts of information to do with them is also covered. Hopefully he will start to criticise people like the BBC and CRU who just use the FOIA to delay disclosure.

  4. David

    I hope that you are right, and I will certainly keep hammering away at the EIR aspect of the application. This kind of feedback is very useful. Thanks.

  5. Tony, this might help:
    Information Tribunal Appeal Number: EA/2007/0072 Dated 29 April 2008

    Para 27
    The Tribunal having heard the arguments of the parties agrees with Mr Michaels that the Decision Notice fails to recognise that information on ‘energy policy’ in respect of ‘supply, demand and pricing’ will often fall within the definition of ‘environmental information’ under Regulation 2(1) EIR. In relation to the Disputed Information we find that where there is information relating to energy policy then that information is covered by the definition of environmental information under EIR. Also we find that meetings held to consider ‘climate change’ are also covered by the definition.

  6. David

    It might be very useful indeed, particularly the last sentence. I’ll read through the full decision tomorrow.

    It’s frustrating, but at this stage I really do have to wait and see what the ICO come up with. In the meantime any other snippets will be most welcome.

  7. Tony Brown

    Belated many thanks for the good wishes for the airfield. I’m afraid I was rushing this morning. There are hopes that things will begin to happen there in the autumn.

  8. TonyN,

    That was almost an answer to my question in #11, but not quite. One more try and you might get there: either yes or no would do.

    Well if the question weren’t so loaded a simpler answer might have been more appropriate. I really feel that you are trying to attack the BBC on some technicality rather than on the substantive issue of whether, or whether they are not, reporting the opinion of the scientific community correctly. If you think that they are not, why not just say it? Either yes or no will do :-)

    I’m sure that the tobacco companies would have liked the BBC to have adopted a more balanced line in the 70’s and 80’s on the scientific issues involved in the linkage between smoking and lung cancer. But, I don’t think that there are many now, who would argue that the BBC took the wrong line. There were perhaps similar meetings held when the names of all the participants weren’t fully disclosed!

    Generally speaking, I’m in favour of openness. But, let’s have the same standards for all. If the BBC have to have open book policies on everything, then lets have the same rules for all other TV channels too.

  9. This supression of alternate views is also happening in the US, and supported by leading publications like the Columbia Journalism Review (see story <a href =”http://www.cjr.org/feature/climate_change_now_what.php” here and commentary here).

    I wonder if Lord May is advising the Columbia Journalism Review?

  10. Peter

    As you know, and I know, and probably even the BBC knows, there is only one answer to my question. How about closing your eyes, taking a deep breath, holding your nose and whispering that simple little word: YES!.

  11. Geoff

    I get the impression that the US is about a year behind the UK where attitudes to AGW are concerned. In the months after the IPCC report was published last year, scepticism hit an all time low here, but since then there has been a revival, with the media beginning to publish sceptical articles again. It would seem that hysteria has to reach a certain level of absurdity before people start saying, ‘But why are we doing this?’

    The ideas expressed in the CRJ article may sound convincing when discussed with like minded friends, but when they are committed to print they look just awful and are likely to have the opposite effect to the one intended. They draw the public’s attention to what is going on in parts of the media, and this arouses suspicion.

  12. At a major international scientific conference held in Norway last week (see video), Indian scientist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia (Center of Advanced Study in Geology, Punjab University, visiting scholar of the Geology Department at University of Cincinnati, board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet and author of numerous scientific studies in the fields of geology and palaeontology), criticized the promoters of man-made global warming fears for “drawing out exaggerated conclusions” and took the UN to task for failing to allow dissenting voices. Responding to criticism from an IPCC official, he said

    See, when we have that sort of attitude, that sort of dogma against a scientific observation that would not actually end up in very, very positive debate. We should maintain our sense of proportion, maintain our sense of objectivity, allow a discussion – not have fixed mindset about global warming

    What I believe the UK licence-payer is entitled to know about a BBC seminar, intended to “allow the media to deal with the scope of the issue” and to “consider the BBC’s role in public debate”, is whether it included that sense of proportion and objectivity and allowed a discussion that was not based on the fixed mindset referred to by Dr Ahluwalia. Knowing who were the “best scientific experts – specialists in the area of climate change” at the meeting would be a good start.

  13. Re: #55, David

    Wouldn’t it be ironic if FoE has opened Pandora’s box?

    On the other hand, what is depressing about the decision you quoted from is the time scale: three years to get to this stage.

    I am unable to discover whether the Schedule 1 derogation (in respect of information held for purposes other than journalism, art and literature) that protects the BBC applies equally under the FOIA and the EIR. Do you have any views on this? Or are we only going to find out as the process I started last July progresses?

  14. Robin

    It sounds like a gem, but the video won’t play and I’m getting:

    WM7 Activex control Not Found

    in spite of updating Media Player. Any suggestions.

  15. Tony,

    If you want a yes or no answer, how about NO? In that ‘no’, the BBC need not publish the minutes of each and every meeting they hold and that would include the attendance list of each and every meeting they hold.

    What they do need to is present scientific issues correctly and in a way that informs, educates, and entertains, as Lord Reith would have said. The opinions of the scientific community need to be correctly represented.

    How about answering my question of whether or not the BBC are doing that?

  16. Peter: it would be helpful if you were to define “the scientific community” whose views you say “need to be correctly represented”. Does it, for example, include Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia to whom I refer in my post 62?

    (Sorry, Tony, I’m having the same problem.)

  17. The BBC are based mainly in London. You might have heard of the Royal Society who are also based there? They generally have a pretty good reputation in the scientific world and are considered to be the UKs National Academy of Science.

    They’d be happy to give the BBC every assistance. Not just in climate science but in all other branches of Science too.

    A good place to start would be to take a look at their excellent website:

    http://royalsociety.org/

    If you need to know whether Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia is part of the general consensus or is one of the several mavericks who are around, I’m sure that they will be able to advise you on that point too. I suspect that if Robin likes him, he’ll turn out to be the latter, but maybe I’ll be proved wrong on that point.

  18. Oh dear, Peter, you’re back to suggesting that those who don’t subscribe to what you consider is the “consensus” are “mavericks” and thus, you imply, ineligible to advise the BBC. Would you describe Bob Carter, Sonja A Boehmer-Christiansen and David Holland (all of whom have contributed to this thread) as mavericks?

    In any case, a maverick is commonly defined as “an unorthodox or independent-minded person” or “a determined individualist”. Clearly you have little regard for such dreadful people. But do you think they cannot be part of what you describe as “the scientific community”?

  19. Re: #65, Peter

    It had not occurred to me that you seriously expected an answer. I would hardly spend a great deal of time processing an FOIA application if I thought that the BBC’s coverage of climate change was accurate and impartial.

    Here is one very recent example when Susan Watts did a rather pedestrian piece for Newsnight about a research vessel that was about to leave for the Arctic to investigate sea ice among other things. Don’t get me wrong, she is a very able reporter. It was just that there wasn’t much in the story to make it interesting.

    As a closing shot she did a piece to camera leaning over the taffrail. After wishing the crew well she said, ‘Who knows, this might be the year when the Arctic is free of sea ice for the first time.’ Or words to that effect.

    As I say, she is an able science reporter, and as such it is hard to think that she could be unaware of the data coming out of NOAA which showed that Arctic sea ice extent significantly exceeds last year’s levels. The news was everywhere at a time when she must have been researching her story.

    Why did she say it?

  20. Its a bit early to say what the extent of the summer melt will be in the Arctic this year. Its not finished yet. Watch this link in the next few weeks:
    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

    Do the feel BBC have an obligation to be ‘accurate and impartial’ as you, [snip], would wish the terms to be applied or according to the advice of the the most highly qualified of the UK scientific community? I have suggested the UK Academy of Science should be the arbiters on this but maybe you can come up with some other suggestion?

    You really have no evidence at all, except perhaps for of a couple of loose remarks from individual reporters, that the BBC has failed to follow advice from the most expert opinion that is available to it.

    TonyN: Finding my name is not difficult, but if I choose to use a ‘handle’ on this blog I expect others to respect that, or at least get the spelling right.

  21. “Would you describe Bob Carter, Sonja A Boehmer-Christiansen and David Holland (all of whom have contributed to this thread) as mavericks?”

    Yes.

  22. 67 Peter
    It is true that the Royal Society USED to have a good reputation, but that was before May took over. May can easily be referred to as a ‘raving alarmist’.

  23. The Royal Society’s reputation is founded on a whole range of scientic disciplines and the expertise of over a thousand elected fellows. The influence of any single individual is limited. Trying to impose a dictatorial line on them all would be like herding cats.

    But, if you are right, and the Royal Society aren’t up to the task, who would you suggest instead? The ‘Wattsupwiththat’ website ?

  24. Peter: OK, so we know the names of some of the scientists you think are mavericks. Now consider my next question: do you think that a scientist whom you think is a maverick (defined as“an unorthodox or independent-minded person” or “a determined individualist”) cannot be part of what you describe as “the scientific community”?

    As the Royal Society’s reputation is founded on the expertise of its elected fellows, for its position on climate change to carry weight, I believe that position should have been put to those fellows for peer review and a membership vote before publication. Do you know if that happened?

  25. There has been some interesting discussion of Lord May’s role in the climate debate (and of this thread too) at Climate Audit here. It includes this contribution form Ian Castles. Particularly note the last sentence:

    You may well be right that Lord May has little real concern whether his ideas are correct or not, but this is not an admirable trait in a leader in science. Perhaps he had little concern whether his ideas, or even his facts, were correct when he recently condemned the ‘active and well-funded “denial lobby”‘ and referred to ‘The distractions and misrepresentations of the well-funded [climate change] denial industry.’ As David Henderson has remarked, ‘May provides no evidence of the ample funding that he refers to or of specific recipients of it whose objectivity, and perhaps professional integrity, are therefore to be held in question’ (‘Government and Climate Change Issues’, ‘World Economics’, Apr-Jun 2007: 221). With prominent figures in the Royal Society exhibiting attitudes such as these, it is small wonder that The Lancet declared in 2005 that that the Society had ceased to be ‘a place to discuss the subversive subject of science’ and had become ‘self-serving and parochial’ (‘What is the Royal Society for?’, editorial, 365: 1746).
    http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3434#comment-290131

    Lord May ended his 5 year term of office as President of the Royal Society in the autumn of 2005.

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