BBC to improve science reporting

The BBC is going to improve its reporting on science, following a "review of impartiality and accuracy of the BBC's coverage of science" - as reported in The Guardian:

The BBC is to revamp its science coverage after an independent review highlighted weaknesses and concluded that journalists boosted the apparent controversy of scientific news stories such as climate change, GM crops and the MMR vaccine by giving too much weight to fringe scientific viewpoints.

The wide-ranging review found the network's science reporting was generally of high quality, and praised the BBC for its breadth, depth and accuracy, but urged the broadcaster to tackle several areas of concern.

Commissioned last year to assess impartiality and accuracy in BBC science coverage across television, radio and the internet, the review said the network was at times so determined to be impartial that it put fringe views on a par with well-established fact: a strategy that made some scientific debates appear more controversial than they were.

The criticism was particularly relevant to stories on issues such as global warming, GM and the MMR vaccine, where minority views were sometimes given equal weighting to broad scientific consensus, creating what the report describes as "false balance".

The review comprised an independent report by Professor Steve Jones, emeritus professor of genetics at University College London, and an in-depth analysis by researchers at Imperial College London of science coverage across the BBC in May, June and July of 2009 and 2010.

In his report, Jones lamented the narrow range of sources that reporters used for stories, poor communication between journalists in different parts of the organisation, and a lack of knowledge of the breadth of science.

"The most important aspect is a vote of confidence in what BBC science is doing. It is head and shoulders above other broadcasters. As always, though, there is a but," Jones told reporters on Wednesday.

Jones likened the BBC's approach to oppositional debates to asking a mathematician and maverick biologist what two plus two equals. When the mathematician says four and the maverick says five, the public are left to conclude the answer is somewhere in between.

The report will disappoint some climate change sceptics who hoped it would find the BBC at fault for promoting a green agenda. "There is a consensus in the scientific community that anthropogenic climate change exists," Jones said. By failing to move the debate on, the BBC was missing other stories, he added.

The Times does it again

Today there's an article by Ben Webster in the Times (UK) that claims "The University of East Anglia wrote this week to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee giving the impression that it had been exonerated by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)."

The 'evidence' Webster provides is that both the University and the Deputy Information Commissioner agree that the Deputy Information Commissioner based recent comments solely on prima facie evidence from stolen emails. In fact, given that both the University and the Deputy Information Commissioner both agree that there has not yet even been any investigation, it's hard to see why the University would claim it has been exonerated. Indeed the University hasn't made any such claim.

The UEA memo to the House of Commons committee actually states:

3.7.6 On 22 January 2010, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) released a statement to a journalist, which was widely misinterpreted in the media as a finding by the ICO that UEA had breached Section 77 of the FOIA by withholding raw data. A subsequent letter to UEA from the ICO (29 January 2010) indicated that no breach of the law has been established; that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie; and that the FOI request at issue did not concern raw data but private email exchanges.

Another case of the Times getting carried away over nothing? There is arguably a prima facie case that it is Ben Webster of the Times who does not understand the difference between 'exonerated' and 'no breach of the law has been established'.

UPDATE - midday 28 Feb 10: Australia's very own showman (who finds it entertaining to mislead his readers), Herald-Sun blogger Andrew Bolt, has copied part of the TimesOnLine article and pasted it under his own leading paragraph:

It's amazing how many unfounded claims Bolt packs into the one short sentence he prefaces his copy and paste from the Times article.

First, contrary to what Bolt states, the university reports using the best information available, updating the records as necessary. The University drew the attention of the Parliamentary committee to the fact that the Office of the Information Commissioner has not found that the University nor any person involved in the matter has committed an offence. The OIC has not yet investigated the matter, although it has stated there is a prima faciecase on the basis of the stolen emails. The University has issued a statement that it will cooperate fully if the OIC inquires into the matter.

Andrew rarely bothers with checking sources, but has strong talent as a rumour-monger, especially when the rumours have no basis in fact.