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Today’s Ofcom bulletin confirms the ruling on the mistreatment of leading scientists and the IPCC in the ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’, broadcast on Channel 4 back in early 2007. I covered the background to the Great Global Warming Swindle coverage in a previous post.

Ofcom have found Channel 4 in breach of the Broadcasting Code in relation to Rule 7.1, Rule 5.11 and Rule 5.12. But Channel 4 were found not to have breached Rule 2.2:

2.2 Factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience.

Interestingly, Section 2 of the Code is the section tha deals with ‘Harm and Offence’–the suggestion is that to ‘materially mislead’ on factual matters can cause either offence or harm. (And interesting that News is not covered by 2.2, and so in rulings on news there is less suggestion that it can mislead, or harm?)

This is the argument of the former chair of the IPCC, Robert Watson, who has responded in the Guardian. Watson opines that:

The Great Global Warming Swindle did a major disservice to the public at large and tried to undermine the scientific basis which governments and the private sector are using to address cost effectively one of the greatest challenges the human race has ever faced… Sceptics who disseminate misinformation and argue that there is no need to address this urgent issue are placing the planet at risk.

There are also reasonable views that as a public service broadcaster, Channel 4 has the right to broadcast minority views in support of free expression. The Ofcom statement makes this explicit in their rule.

For me, Ofcom have found room to rule that Channel 4 are not in breach of the code by hanging it on the word materially. It’s an adverb and I assume it’s being used in this case to mean: “To a significant extent or degree; substantially” rather than “in physical substance”. Which leaves a large amount of room for the regulator to take a broad, subjective view on what ‘to mislead materially [substantially/to a great degree]‘ can be for a factual programme.

So, if you believe climate change is happening, human-made and dangerously rapid, and that we need to act quickly, as do a number of actors who today launched the Green New Deal, then any misleading media representations, even minor, could be seen to contribute to a public harm (Watson’s position). If you make judgements based on the fact that there is plenty of time to act if the IPCC, etc are correct, then a substanial amount of misleading could still mean no harm was caused. Or, you are in the position that there is no consensus from which to factually mislead people in the first place, so it cannot be judged to have done so.

Which position is Ofcom taking?

A question to Ofcom: what level of proof of harm is required to judge on a material misleading of fact? If the global political and scientific consensus is that we are 90% certain that climate change is happening, what level of materiality is sufficient to cause harm?

George Monbiot has just weighed in on the matter (twice). He also thinks the example shows the limitations of Ofcom. For Monbiot, Ofcom:

decided that The Great Global Warming Swindle had not caused actual harm to members of the public: merely misleading them does not count. In fact, it is precisely because “the discussion about the causes of global warming was to a very great extent settled by the date of broadcast”, meaning that climate change was no longer a matter of political controversy, that a programme claiming it is all a pack of lies could slip past the partiality rules. The greater a programme’s defiance of scientific fact, the less likely Ofcom is to rule against it. This paradoxical judgment allows Channel 4 to keep getting away with it.

The former spokesperson for the Royal Society, Bob Ward, has also issued a statement on the Ofcom ruling. Bob Ward was one of the original 265 individuals to submit a complaint to Ofcom. Bob hoped that:

Channel 4 admits that it made the wrong decision to screen the programme, and carries out a thorough review of its internal processes to ensure that a similarly catastrophic failure to uphold the public interest does not happen ever again.

Which is not likely when you look at Channel 4’s record, and their sense of vindication. Have a read of this:

SCIENTISTS, politicians and journalists are part of a conspiracy to predict catastrophe through global warming, a Channel 4 programme suggested last night. The programme claimed that disparate groups were making this claim for their own reasons and presented data allegedly demolishing the greenhouse theory. Scientists from the Meteorological Office meet today to decide whether to complain to the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

Sounds familiar? The Great Global Warming Swindle, right? No. This was The Greenhouse Conspiracy, broadcast by Channel 4, which I found while researching media coverage of the first IPCC report in 1990. Watch it on Youtube. Learning from their mistakes??

And in the rest of the blogosphere… It’s interesting, if predictable, how the different sides of the debate have emphasized different elements of the ruling. A bit of a winner for both sides. For example, supportive and critical of the GWWS programme. The Real Climate entry on this remains a key read, as do the C4 Community forums and the full text of the complaint made to Ofcom.

I’m not a regulation expert, but the question is: can misinformation/disinformation cause material harm? How can Ofcom best rule on this in relation to a global issue such as climate change?