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BBC to Stop Inviting Guests with Marginal Views to Discuss Non-Contentious Scientific Issues

posted by azrael on Sunday July 06 2014, @10:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the flat-earth dept.

lhsi writes:

The Telegraph reports:

BBC journalists are being sent on courses to stop them inviting so many cranks onto programmes to air 'marginal views'.

The BBC Trust on Thursday published a progress report into the corporation's science coverage which was criticised in 2012 for giving too much air-time to critics who oppose non-contentious issues.

The report found that there was still an 'over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality' which sought to give the 'other side' of the argument, even if that viewpoint was widely dismissed.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday July 06 2014, @01:56PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Sunday July 06 2014, @01:56PM (#64850) Homepage

    so the safest course is to allow each school of thought to speak for themselves and let the viewers make up their own minds.

    That may be the "safest" course of action - whatever you mean by "safe" - but it would quickly get pretty tiresome if, for every point Brian Cox makes in a documentary, the program then has to spend five times as long airing all of the opposing views.

    You wouldn't be able to get further than "the dinosaurs lived hundreds of millions of years ago" in a single hour.

    but the BBC is a state broadcaster. When the Government gets to decide what the people are or aren't allowed to be told is contentious

    The BBC isn't run by the government any more than any of the commercial broadcasters are.

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  • (Score: 0) by Jiro on Sunday July 06 2014, @06:27PM

    by Jiro (3176) on Sunday July 06 2014, @06:27PM (#64908)

    The BBC is run by the government. It's paid by a tax on TVs. Private companies don't get to do that--imagine that you were not permitted to buy a burger at McDonalds unless you also paid some money to Burger King.

    The government may not be directly deciding what it says at this exact moment, but they can change that any time they want.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday July 06 2014, @06:59PM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 06 2014, @06:59PM (#64917) Journal

      Rubbish - the BBC is run by the BBC Trust [wikipedia.org] which is are responsible for ensuring that the tax-payer - NOT the Government - get value for money. The BBC frequently has documentaries, news reports and other items which are NOT in the Governments interest.

      I suspect that, from time to time, the Government wishes it had more control over the BBC!