Daily Sceptic editor Toby Young has just submitted a complaint to the BBC for failing to challenge or provide any correction for eco-activist and bird-sniffing presenter Chris Packham’s claim that the website is “put together by a bunch of professionals with close associations to the fossil fuel industry.” The ‘climate resistance’ are fans of wild funding allegations with no basis in fact…
Young points out, as he did after the Kuenssberg show was broadcast on Sunday, that neither he nor any of the people who put together the website have any affiliations of funding from the fossil fuel industry. He wasn’t challenged on the show and the clip was tweeted out subsequently with no clarification. One for Marianna Spring and the BBC Verify sleuths to look into no doubt…
Co-conspirators can lodge their own complaints here…
UPDATE: The BBC issues a weak response:
”During a discussion with the panel about various issues including climate change, broadcaster and conservationist Chris Packham claimed that the Daily Sceptic, whose editor in chief is Toby Young, is “basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry.” We acknowledge we would ideally have asked him to present his evidence on this, but in a fast-moving live programme it’s not always possible to pick up on every point made by our guests. We’ve removed any posts on X with this part of the discussion.”
Read Toby Young’s full complaint below:
“On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on 21st April 2024, Chris Packham, a BBC personality (ex-presenter of Springwatch, presenter of forthcoming Inside Our Minds), said the following when challenged by Luke Johnson about what evidence he had that extreme weather events are caused by carbon emissions: “It doesn’t come from Toby Young’s Daily Septic [sic], which is basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry. It comes from something called science.” This is both false and defamatory. I am the editor-in-chief of the Daily Sceptic, a news publishing site, and neither I nor any of the other people who put it together have any affiliations to the fossil fuel industry, close or otherwise. I have never been paid money by any fossil fuel companies, nor has the editor, Dr Will Jones, and we’ve never run an ad on the site from any fossil fuel companies. Chris Packham was not challenged by anyone on the programme about this false allegation, even though it’s extremely serious and damaging, effectively claiming the people who put together the Daily Sceptic are corrupt, i.e., paid to publish climate contrarian articles by the fossil fuel industry. On the contrary, a clip of Chris Packham making this false and defamatory allegation was posted by BBC Politics on X and then retweeted by Laura Kuenssberg and as of the time of writing (11.15am on 25th April 2024) had been viewed over 850,000 times. The tweet hasn’t been deleted even though I pointed out on X that it was false on 21st April, quoting the original tweet.“
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”