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Some Good News: BBC to stop counterweighting scientific consensus with lunatical idiocy...
Stop Giving Airtime to Crackpots
By Phil Plait
In very welcome news, BBC journalists have been told to stop inviting crackpots on news shows in the name of balance.
Oh, I do so love this. It’s precisely the right thing to do, sorely needed and sorely overdue. In this specific case, back in 2012 the BBC was criticized for news shows inviting on people with fringe views, especially when the science being discussed was solidly understood.
Obviously, the topic most abused in this way was the reality of global warming. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention at all.
But more broadly, most TV news shows do this, especially when they are done with a talk show format. It’s all too easy for a news program or other venue with a biased ideological objective (cough cough Fox News cough Wall Street Journal cough) to bring on people who sound authoritative, but who are in fact simply cranks or contrarians with outlandish claims. This sort of bias sows doubt, which is far easier to do than to debunk it.
...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/07/07/crackpottery_bbc_journalists_told_to_stop_interviewing_science_deniers.html
By Phil Plait
In very welcome news, BBC journalists have been told to stop inviting crackpots on news shows in the name of balance.
Oh, I do so love this. It’s precisely the right thing to do, sorely needed and sorely overdue. In this specific case, back in 2012 the BBC was criticized for news shows inviting on people with fringe views, especially when the science being discussed was solidly understood.
Obviously, the topic most abused in this way was the reality of global warming. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention at all.
But more broadly, most TV news shows do this, especially when they are done with a talk show format. It’s all too easy for a news program or other venue with a biased ideological objective (cough cough Fox News cough Wall Street Journal cough) to bring on people who sound authoritative, but who are in fact simply cranks or contrarians with outlandish claims. This sort of bias sows doubt, which is far easier to do than to debunk it.
...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/07/07/crackpottery_bbc_journalists_told_to_stop_interviewing_science_deniers.html
A screen-captured 'sunset' from space - thanks to the ISS HD EVE (http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/) :
