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Censure for Channel 4 over misquoted scientist



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Published Date: 20 July 2008
By Margaret Davis
CHANNEL 4 misrepresented comments by a former Government scientist but did not materially mislead viewers with a controversial documentary on climate change, Ofcom is expected to report tomorrow.
The broadcast regulator received complaints over privacy and fairness from former Government chief scientist, Sir David King, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change after The Great Global Warming Swindle was shown, it was reported yesterday.

In the documentary, climate-change cynic Fred Singer incorrectly stated that King claimed by the end of the century the only habitable place on earth would be the Antarctic.

The report will say: "Channel 4 unfairly attributed to the former chief scientist David King comments he had not made and criticised him for them and also failed to provide an opportunity to reply."

King's complaints are expected to be upheld by Ofcom tomorrow, as will three of the five made by the IPCC. Another will be thrown out, while the fifth will be partly upheld.

These are believed to be about not being given enough time to respond.

However, Ofcom is also expected to say Channel 4 did not materially mislead the audience and was within its rights to show the programme.



The full article contains 203 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 19 July 2008 7:13 PM
  • Source: Scotland On Sunday
  • Location: Scotland
 
1

Unimpressed one,

20/07/2008 08:58:36
The Independent's slant on this:

Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said last week.

He said that the Earth was entering the "first hot period" since 60 million years ago, when there was no ice on the planet and "the rest of the globe could not sustain human life". The shock warning - one of the starkest yet delivered by a top scientist or senior government figure - comes as ministers are deciding whether to weaken measures next week to cut the pollution that causes climate change, even though Tony Blair last week described the situation as "very, very critical indeed".

The Prime Minister - who was launching a new alliance of governments, businesses and pressure groups to tackle global warming - added that he could not think of "any bigger long-term question facing the world community". Yet the Government is considering relaxing limits on emissions by industry under an EU scheme on Tuesday.

Sir David says that there is "plenty of evidence" to back up his warning. Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the main "green-house gas" causing climate change - were already 50 per cent higher than at any time in the last 420,000 years. The last time they were at this level - 379 parts per million and rising - was 60 million years ago during a rapid period of global warming in the Palaeocene epoch, he said. Levels soared to 1,000 parts per million, causing a massive reduction of life on earth.

"No ice was left on earth. Antarctica was the best place for mammals to live, and the rest of the world would not sustain human life," he said. And Sir David warned that if the world did not curb its burning of fossil fuels "we will reach that level by the end of the century".

So if he didn't say what he said, then who did? King went off the rails with his pathetic rants and now he wants to disown them.


2

11+failed,

the pans 20/07/2008 09:11:48
"Channel 4 did not materially mislead the audience and was within its rights to show the programme."
The IPCC refused to take part and then complain about how they are represented.
"the ultimate verdict on a separate complaint about accuracy, which contained 131 specific points and ran to 270 pages, will find that it did not breach the regulator's broadcasting code and did not materially mislead viewers"
Seems that Mr King the notorious "culler" was misrepresented and both he and IPCC had their feelings hurt but the factual content of the programme was not disputed and "did not materially mislead viewers".
Seems the GW brigade got it wrong again!
3

TimW1234,

Ottawa, Canada 20/07/2008 13:36:53
Isn't Graham Norton on CHannel 4? I wonder what his take will be on this tempest in a teapot?
4

sceptic,

livingston 20/07/2008 13:49:06
3
What are you hypocrites in Canada going to do about your burgeoning emissions. You sign up to Kyoto and carry on regardless increasing your emissions, at the same time the US who were not hypocritical enough to sign up to the nonsense have reduced their emissions. We now have Canadian per capita emissions above even the USA. Time you started looking to yourself instead of banging on trying to impose your stupid ideas on everyone else.
5

TimW1234,

Ottawa, Canada 20/07/2008 14:12:42
#4 sceptic in livingston

How dare you be so rude and unmannerly so early of a Sunday morning - it is just past 9 a.m. here.

We are trying to do our best but we have a STOOOOPID minority Conservative government infested with hihgg hihg-school dropout and farmers.

They have no vision and are dragging their feet on the Kyoto accrod accord.

The "hypocrites" are the Conservative government so to make such a sweepoing sttement about all Canadians shows that you are an ignorant blowhard and bully.

SHUT THE EFF UP YOU NUMPTIE!

And YOUR ideas are the STUPIDEST I have had the displeasure to read today.

SO drag your knuckles back to you coven or cave, you neanderthal and drool over your porridge or whatever.
6

Neil,

Glasgow 20/07/2008 15:23:01
Thank you for posting that Unimpressed I would have done the same.

Sir David King not only made his lunatic statement but raised no objection to the Indie reporting it at the time.

I suspect that as the tide of warming hysteria recedes we will see lots of other people denying they told similar lies. Will Ross Finnie now be denying he said warming sceptics were "from Mars"?

Mr Durkin's film has been cleared of any charge of being wrong despite or because of 130 accusations of error.

They have been found only to have made up King's statement which he quite clearly actually said & of not giving enough airtime to alarmists.

Doubtless we may now expect several thousand reports from Ofcom denouncing the same media for not giving sufficient, or any, airtime to sceptics. For example when the BBC did the Al Gore concert against warming they distinctly failed to cover the other view. Indeed when on the night's "News" they informed us all that "Al Gore is a climate scientist" they allowed no sceptic on tho say "he isn't & the BBC must be out of their tiny minds".

At lest we may expect such Ofcom reports if they are interested in truth rather than merely enforcing lying government propaganda.
7

sceptic,

livingston 20/07/2008 16:36:53
5
Seems the truth brings out the gentleman in you!
You are regularly on here berating everyone else.
Time you cleaned up your own back yard before castigating others.
8

11+failed,

the pans 20/07/2008 17:07:57
King's statement was not "made up" it was wrongly attributed to him. Anyone else would probably have been amused by it, but not Mr King. As they were unable to supply a critique of the technical content King and IPCC had to find something trivial to complain about. From the Guardian:-
In the programme, the concluding voiceover from the climate change sceptic Fred Singer claimed "the chief scientist of the UK" was "telling people that by the end of the century, the only habitable place on Earth will be the Antarctic and humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who moved to the Antarctic ... it would be hilarious if it weren't so sad".
King has never made such a statement and it is believed Singer confused his views with those of the contrarian scientist James Lovelock. King did once say that "the last time the Earth had this much C02, the only place habitable was the Antarctic".
9

Boy Wonder,

20/07/2008 22:11:25
#7. Who said TimW1234 was actually in Canada? We hqave no concrete proof of that!
10

TimW1234,

Ottawa, Canada 21/07/2008 02:37:57
9 Boy Wonder

If you go to any website to look up telephone numbers you will see that I am listed in the telephone book as having my primary residence in Ottawa, Canada.

That will be proof enough, one hopes.

 

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