Relentless, I am. So here we go again with my continuing saga on imploring the mighty BBC news organization to do their core job. Call me “old school” on the matter, but news outlets are obligated – in my opinion – to report the news with no partisan slant, and to view information provided to them with a jaded eye, questioning any aspect of it where something just does not look right, and demanding not one but multiple rock-solid sources before publishing major accusations. In the case of the mid-summer 2020 report in which ex-Greenpeace operative Kert Davies brought the BBC ‘evidence’ which supposedly fit their program series titled “How They Made Us Doubt Everything” about the fossil fuel industry ‘ran disinformation campaigns to deceive the public’ … the BBC program producers should have first cast a basic ‘due diligence doubtful eye’ on whether Davies’ ‘evidence’ was verifiably true or not. They apparently did not, a basic violation of BBC’s own guidelines about gathering material. From that basic failure, they conveyed factual inaccuracies to their listening audience.

As I first detailed in my July blog post, when I spotted how the BBC strangely reworded their program title to eliminate the very phrase that was the core of my official complaint I filed, it was a ripe opportunity to refile my complaint. Now, here we go into the last available step in the complaint process.

Verbatim from Ofcom’s online complaint form below is what I sent them on Nov 6, 2025. Right after that, I have a note on why it is imperative for the BBC to revisit my 2020 complaint if they want to regain any credibility they once had as a trusted journalism source …. because this egregious ‘journalism factual inaccuracies’ problem is a current problem to this very day.

Programme title
“How They Made Us Doubt Everything, The Tobacco Playback: 6. From Fact to Theory” (RENAMED from original “How They Made Us Doubt Everything 6. ‘Reposition Global Warming as theory, not fact'”)

Date you watched, heard, downloaded or streamed programme
30/07/2020

Time of broadcast (24 hour clock)
13:45

BBC Channel/ station/ website/ app on which the programme was seen or heard
BBC Radio 4 – radio broadcast 03/08/2020 (online audio download 30/07/2020)

Your complaint
Subject (please use 255 characters or fewer)
Improper conclusion reached by BBC ECU on my complaint of a BBC report having huge errors which violated BBC’s editorial guideline 3.4.1, “validate the authenticity of documentary evidence” / “corroborate claims and allegations made by contributors.”

Description of original complaint (please use 1500 characters or fewer)
In its 8/3/20 podcast report (whether renamed now or otherwise) BBC was misled by its guest Kert Davies and thus subsequently misled its listeners – in violation of BBC editorial guidelines – by offering two sets of ‘leaked memos’ (the “victory will be achieved” / “reposition global warming” sets) as evidence that the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns. Neither set were ever implemented; they themselves thus CANNOT serve as evidence that energy companies put out disinformation. I did my best to convey the depth of this problem to BBC Complaints, and expanded much further in direct exchanges emails with BBC ECU’s Colin Tregear in my original complaint ( CAS-6241179-K0Y8J5 ) and in this new version. I suggested a comparative fictional illustration — someone offers a plan how the BBC can try a disinformation stunt to gauge public reaction to it; BBC REJECTS the stunt, but a memo of the stunt is later leaked, whereupon the U.S. Fox News says it’s irrefutable evidence that the BBC spreads disinformation — that claim would be as false and as the claims in BBC’s 8/3/20 podcast report! When BBC / Radio 4 allowed huge multiple inaccuracies in that report, including improper portrayals of the leaked memo sets, the international listening audience was misled that evidence existed which proved industry-led disinformation campaigns existed. This erroneous reporting continued in subsequent BBC articles which quote from both of the never-implemented memo sets.

Have you made this complaint to the BBC?
Yes

Reason for dissatisfaction with the outcome of the BBC’s final response (please use 750 characters or less)
BBC ECU’s Colin Tregear demonstrated in correspondence with me that he didn’t correctly comprehend what my complaint concerned, as he attempted to defend the report when he stated, “… in apparent contradiction to your assertion, I have seen documents which indicate the Information Council for the Environment [ICE] did run a test campaign.” My complaint was never that the ICE campaign didn’t take place, but instead that the core subset which the report referred to was UNSOLICITED and NEVER USED. It therefore is worthless as evidence to prove disinformation campaigns operated from its directives. I can offer considerable detail to support my complaint if requested.

BBC Reference Number
CAS-8152195-W6V6R8

Date you submitted your complaint to the BBC
7/24/25

By putting all their faith in their podcast report guest, Kert Davies, without fact-checking a word he said, that exact action right there was one more in a continuous lineage of actions where biased ‘news’ reporters demonstrated that the accusation about “industry-led disinfo campaigns” is, and always has been, a one-trick pony relying on literally the same worthless ‘leaked memos evidence.’ No joke. Witness what’s seen no earlier than the October 30, 2025 article in the otherwise 110 year old+ The New Republic publication – there it is, ye olde combination of the “reposition global warming” memos (with the requisite errantly spelled out word for the actual ICE campaign, and with the requisite never-published-anywhere “Chicken Little” advertisement accusation) and the Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan’s “victory will be achieved” memos. Once again, just like everywhere else, it’s the literal best the article author has to back up his accusation.

Who knows where it will first happen in a huge way, at the BBC or somewhere else, but that whole accusation effort will collapse, and it will conceivably take down the rest of the climate issue with it.