When I last spoke to him, James was genuinely angry and felt badly let down by the BBC. He had taken part in the making of both programmes in good faith, yet the BBC had basically said to the world in his view, that climate sceptics are deniers and an organised group of these deniers are responsible for stalling political action to ‘save the planet. It appears to me that this was the program makers intention all along.

I asked James if he felt concerned for his safety now, and he said absolutely that was a concern, following how sceptics were depicted in these programmes.

Prior to this program being aired apparently both people at the BBC and Paul Nurse spoke to the Guardian ^[7]with comments that gives every reason for me to think the program was intended all along to present sceptics in a bad light.

I believe that in this type of BBC science program the public has an expectation that the BBC would present fairly both pro and sceptical arguments on the issues in enough detail to allow the public to take own view. If a respected main stream journalist can be treated like this by the BBC, what hope and expectations of being treated fairly should a member of the public or a blogger (like me – RealClimategate^[8]) have of the BBC?

The issue I have with this program and the BBC is not who is right or wrong in climate science, but the failure of the BBC to fairly present in the program the sceptical arguments in detail (which it must be fully aware of) with respect to climate science, the climategate emails and the inquiries to the general public.

I would like to leave the final words to James Delingpole that he said to me (and ones that he left in the comments at Bishop Hill^[9]) about why he participated in BBC Horizon  – Science Under Attack program  and trusted the producers of the  BBC 4 program, Storyville – Meet the Sceptics.

Why shouldn’t one have faith in one’s national broadcaster to tell the other side of the story? – James Delingpole

Links/sources:

BBC Horizon -Science Under Attack – transcript^[10]