{"id":5911,"date":"2014-03-11T08:28:37","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T08:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=5911"},"modified":"2014-03-11T08:28:37","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T08:28:37","slug":"confusion-in-the-bbc-about-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/03\/11\/confusion-in-the-bbc-about-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Confusion in the BBC about balance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The issue of the BBC and its search for balance on coverage of climate change was explored recently in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/climate-consensus-97-per-cent\/2014\/feb\/27\/bbc-false-balance-fox-news-global-warming\">Guardian<\/a>,\u00a0with this owing at least some debt to <a href=\"http:\/\/skepticalscience.com\/epidemic-climate-media-false-balance.html\">skepticalscience<\/a>. \u00a0It seems to me that the BBC\u2019s problem lies in its confusion of three things:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">[i] climate change itself \u2013 the evidence for change \u2013 the evidence for human agency in relation to the change,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">[ii] its implications \u2013 informed projections about the physical implications of this (temperature rise \/ sea level rise \/ weather pattern change \/ etc) \u2013 and their likely direct effects on life (of all kinds), and<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">[iii] policy matters \u2013 what we might do about any or all of this through global co-operation \/ within the EU \/ as UK society \/ regionally \/ as families \/ as businesses and other organisations.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This confusion was evident in the recent inappropriate\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegwpf.org\/bbc-radio-4-lawson-hoskins-flooding-climate-change\">Radio 4<\/a> pairing of <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/02\/26\/a-cool-look-at-global-warming\/\">Lord Lawson<\/a>, who understands policy and who's now famous for being opinionated, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/AP\/faces\/pages\/read\/Home.jsp?person=b.hoskins&amp;_adf.ctrl-state=1adfzgbp9r_3&amp;_afrRedirect=2092391127584470\">Sir Brian Hoskins<\/a>, who's a climate scientist of some distinction and a member of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theccc.org.uk\">UK committee on climate change<\/a>. \u00a0BBC presenters are at their happiest when discussing policy, where everyone can have an opinion, and every opinion counts. \u00a0Thus they think they have balance in such discussions, where expertise meets opinion. \u00a0The trouble is that, through this, they foster the impression that there is an even split amongst climate scientists about the evidence for change, when there isn't. \u00a0Did they invite Lawson because they couldn't find a nay-saying climate scientist? \u00a0Or did they really want to have a policy discussion? \u00a0Did they know?<\/p>\n<p>Any way, the Hoskins \/ Lawson combination rather got in the way of anyone learning very much about one of the most important issues of the day. \u00a0A pity. \u00a0If there were more proper scientists amongst BBC managers and editors this confusion might be less likely, and the public better informed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The issue of the BBC and its search for balance on coverage of climate change was explored recently in the Guardian,\u00a0with this owing at least some debt to skepticalscience. \u00a0It seems to me that the BBC\u2019s problem lies in its...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}