Thursday, August 10, 2017

Central casting

A couple of unforced editorial errors at the start of August suggest some key eyes off the ball at BBC News.

This morning the Today Programme played leading climate change scientist Lord Lawson in response to an appearance by Al Gore. Even Lord Lawson thought the BBC had banned him on this topic. Maybe Sarah Sands' induction has been incomplete.

Last night, Newsnight staged a "debate" on prospects for the Welsh language, with two people who don't speak Welsh, and, on the evidence of the discussion, who occasionally struggle with English. It was all introduced cheerily by Evan Davis, who may in retrospect wish he had been better briefed.

  • Friday update on Today from BBC spokesperson "The BBC's role is to hear different views so listeners are informed about all sides of debate and we are required to ensure controversial subjects are treated with due impartiality.  This split segment started with an interview with Al Gore, at 0710 and at twice the length of Lord Lawson's interview, and concluded with Fisher Stevens responding after Lawson, who as chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation had set out their position on the economics of subsidising green energy. It was introduced by our environment analyst who will be examining some of the claims further on tomorrow's programme."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Other people who read this.......