Delving deeper into the BBC's idea of impartiality | Letters

Readers respond to Nick Robinson's recent Guardian article about the mainstream media winning back trustNick Robinson's article asserting that Nigel Lawson should be corrected but not silenced by the BBC on climate change (Silencing the disagreeable won't work. Put them on air, 28 September) suggests that he and his colleagues are still ignoring the potential harm caused by the broadcast of misinformation to their audiences. Lord Lawson has a track record of misleading the public about climate change. His lobby group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, was found in 2014 to have breached Charity Commission rules by promoting climate change denial. In the same year, the BBC upheld a complaint after Lord Lawson made inaccurate and misleading claims about climate change on the Today programme on Radio 4.The BBC is now considering a complaint from me and others about further false claims by Lord Lawson on Today in August. In particular, the BBC needs to recognise that his erroneous assertion that extreme weather events are not increasing in frequency or intensity endangered listeners by creating the false impression that they need not respond to the rising risks of heatwaves and flooding from heavy rainfall in the UK. The BBC should properly weigh up the rights of marginal voices like Lord Lawson to mislead its audiences about the risks they face against the rights of its audiences to receive accurate information about those risks.Bob WardGrantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE Continue reading...