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BBC news chiefs attack plans
for climate change campaign
Richard Wray and Leigh Holmwood
London
Guardian
Monday Aug 27, 2007
Two of the BBC's most senior news and current affairs executives
attacked the corporation's plans yesterday for a Comic Relief-style
day of programming on environmental issues, saying it was not
the broadcaster's job to preach to viewers.
The event, understood to have been 18 months in development, would
see stars such as Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross take part in
a "consciousness raising" event, provisionally titled
Planet Relief, early next year.
But, speaking at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television
Festival yesterday, Newsnight's editor, Peter Barron, and the
BBC's head of television news, Peter Horrocks, attacked the plan,
which also seems to contradict the corporation's guidelines. Asked
whether the BBC should campaign on issues such as climate change,
Mr Horrocks said: "I absolutely don't think we should do
that because it's not impartial. It's not our job to lead people
and proselytise about it." Mr Barron said: "It is absolutely
not the BBC's job to save the planet. I think there are a lot
of people who think that, but it must be stopped."
(Article continues below)
Planet Relief appears to contradict BBC guidelines on impartiality.
In June a BBC-endorsed report set out 12 principles on impartiality,
warning that the broadcaster "has many public purposes of
both ambition and merit - but joining campaigns to save the planet
is not one of them".
A BBC spokeswoman said: "This idea is still in development
and the intention would be to debate the issue and in no way campaign
on a single point of view."
Meanwhile, in a session at the festival yesterday titled How
Green is TV, the documentary producer Martin Durkin attacked the
BBC as stifling debate on climate change. Durkin, whose film The
Great Global Warming Swindle attracted a large number of complaints
when it was shown on Channel 4 this year, said: "The thing
that disturbs me most is that the BBC has such a leviathan position
... that if it decides that it is going to adopt climate change
as a moral purpose, I have got a lot of trouble with that. I don't
think it is the role of the BBC to spend my money on a moral purpose."
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