Ofcom Complaint – [ the 2025 version ]

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. Continue reading

BBC [appears to] Bury a False 2020 Climate Issue Report Title, Pt 4 — BBC Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) responds

For new readers and for those following along in my little war with the mighty BBC, this particular situation (collected within my tag category name here) arose from the news that the BBC ECU director Colin Tregear planned back in late June 2025 to take a six month sabbatical in order to learn better how to convey the ‘climate crisis’ to the public. That news prompted me to search for the blatantly false BBC program title for which I’d originally filed a complaint back in 2020, because I wanted to succinctly show how Mr Tregear might be better advised to learn how objective, unbiased journalism was done in comparison to what outright journalism malfeasance looks like. But upon seeing the change to the program title that must have occurred minimally two years after my complaint was officially filed, I filed an all new complaint, and further followed up with a strong suggestion that the BBC / ECU / Colin Tregear revisit my original complaint — fundamentally that BBC conveyed false information to the public by saying a particular set of ‘industry memos’ were proof that the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns. The evidence behind that is literally worthless.

In an October 24, 2025 email signed by Tregear himself, he attached a PDF file single page response, which is verbatim as follows, where I highlight the critical point in red and in boldface. I’ll follow up with additional input about this overall situation after Tregear’s words. Continue reading

BBC [appears to] Bury a False 2020 Climate Issue Report Title – Part 3

BBC Complaints did actually reply to my protest, seen in the 8/15/25 Addendum section at the end of my July 25, 2025 Part 2 blog post, with an open invite to take my complaint to their next level-up “Stage 2” BBC Executive Complaints Unit (ECU). I’ve done so, as seen in what follows. At the rock-bottom level of explanation, the BBC system renamed their online podcast report for their August 2020 “How They Made Us Doubt Everything Episode 6 ‘Reposition Global Warming as theory, not fact‘ ” with the shorter-worded title, “The Tobacco Playbook: 6. From Fact to Theory.” It sure looked like they were burying the core fault about how the “reposition global warming” memos were not actually viable evidence to prove the fossil fuel industry ran disinformation campaigns. My complaint concerned that very ‘burial’ appearance. Their 8/12/25 reply was that the shorter title was for ‘saving text space,’ and my rebuttal to that said they needed to re-examine their 2021 final decision because the entire report – in original title form or retitled – was based totally on unsupportable evidence. Neither their ‘title piece’ smoking gun ‘evidence’ was ever implemented anywhere, nor was the secondary “victory will be achieved” memos ever implemented anywhere. Thus, their original ECU final decision must be revisited now, before their credibility implodes on this situation later. Continue reading

BBC Buries a False 2020 Climate Issue Report Title, Part 2 – my new complaint file

8/15/25 update added, see near the end of this post, BBC responds.

At my little GelbspanFiles blog here, I have limited reach to reading audiences, not many people across the United States and around the world are aware of my efforts showing how the ‘industry-corrupted, liars-for-hire skeptic climate scientists‘ accusation falls apart around the core clique of enviro-activists promulgating it. Thus, I’m always indebted to any outlet that can reproduce my blog posts or mention my work in some way to much wider audiences. In this situation, I’m indebted to Roger “Tallbloke” Tattersall – most famous for being one of a few recipients of the notorious second batch of “ClimateGate emails” – for reproducing my July 14 blog post about the BBC for his UK readers. As I wrote in my piece, it’s suspect that the BBC removed the specific phrase which was the central focus of my 2020-2021 official complaint 2+ years after my complaint was deemed to have no grounds to support it.

But I don’t just write about these things, I try to get something done. I refiled my complaint with the BBC. Continue reading

Inconvenient Truth: The BBC Buries a False 2020 Climate Issue Report Title

Chris Morrison’s July 2 blog post at The Daily Sceptic, “BBC Complaints Director Takes Six-Month Sabbatical to Learn How to Promote ‘Climate Crisis’,” was reproduced at Anthony Watts’ WUWT site as a guest post the next day. After reading it at WUWT, I simply wanted to put in a comment reply saying I’d had my own encounter with that BBC Complaints Director, Colin Tregear, back in 2021, after I filed a complaint about BBC’s Radio 4 broadcast titled, “‘Reposition Global Warming as theory, not fact.” My BBC complaint detailed how there was no truth to that memo directive was evidence of the fossil fuel industry operating disinformation campaigns, so for my July 3 WUWT comment, I wanted to link straight to the BBC’s page with that false accusation phrase as its title of the broadcast episode within their series of “How They Made Us Doubt Everything” reports, and then mention how BBC concluded that my complaint was meritless . . . . but that title wasn’t there at the BBC’s otherwise unchanged program page.

It’s possible – just potentially possible – that as the result of my complaint, I managed to live rent-free long enough in someone’s mind at the BBC that they ultimately felt compelled to bury their fatal mistake of failing to check the veracity of the accusations supplied to them (plural!) by their guest in that episode, ex-Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies. Continue reading

Ofcom Complaint

Well, I was warned at the very least. But as the old adage goes, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” If not a single one of us holds the mainstream media accountable for the demonstrably biased inaccuracies they put out, then they will never admit that they commit that kind of journalistic malfeasance, and they’ll keep doing it with reckless abandon. Continue reading

BBC Executive Complaints Unit’s Response to my Appeal for a Reconsideration of their ‘Final Decision’, re Radio 4’s Ep. 6: ‘Reposition Global Warming’ Report ….

So, did I succeed in getting a direct response from the top ECU administrator regarding my appeal? Yes! He responded to my August 21 email appeal which I reproduced in my August 24 blog post.

What was his response on August 31? Continue reading

BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit Responds, re Radio 4’s “How They Made Us Doubt Everything” Ep. 6: ‘Reposition Global Warming’

Did the BBC finally admit fault or effectively defend their broadcast podcast report from August 3, 2020 (and its days-earlier internet-only release), in which the fossil fuel industry stood accused of colluding with skeptic climate scientists to spread disinformation that undercut the otherwise ‘settled science’ of human-induced global warming? Read their official response for yourself. We report, you decide. Continue reading