Stop using climate change ‘deniers’, BBC tells its journalists

BBC staff have been told to stop using climate change “deniers” on its shows because the phenomenon is a scientific fact, it was reported yesterday.

A briefing sent by the broadcaster’s director of news and current affairs, leaked to the website Carbon Brief, says it gets its coverage “wrong too often”. Using a football analogy, Fran Unsworth said: “To achieve impartiality, you do not need to include outright deniers of climate change in BBC coverage, in the same way you would not have someone denying that Manchester United won 2-0 last Saturday. The referee has spoken.”

It follows a string of complaints and apologies for journalists failing to challenge views of prominent climate change sceptics during interviews.

Last year, the BBC apologised to viewers for airing an interview with Tory peer Nigel Lawson, in which he was allowed to deny climate change without challenge on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The four-page briefing note, sent by Unsworth to all staff, starts with: “Climate change IS happening.”