Are you feeling ‘materially misled’?

 

I shan’t bore you with my life story. But long ago, as a disillusioned young chemical engineering graduate I looked for work in a consumer protection role and happened to land my first ever proper job at the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).Then as now, the ASA earnestly considers the complaints from members of the public and competitor companies concerning advertising material. If found to be in breach of any one of a multitude of rules, after thorough investigation (my job), the ASA publishes a ruling and the advertiser is commanded not to repeat the advertising. Sounds fine as a system, except the rapid speed of brand advertising campaigns and the glacial pace of the ASA’s case load mean that most rulings are published long after the event.

 

I’m not here to knock the ASA though – I’m still fond of them for employing me and have significant empathy for anyone dealing with complainants. It’s like going home to the wife / husband every morning you enter the office. But compared to another UK regulator Ofcom (responsible for most UK broadcasting and telecommunications), the ASA is a model incisive action like their almost namesakes, the SAS.
On leaving the ASA, I resolved never to complain about anything, ever (except to the wife). And for close on 25 years I held to this maxim.

Then on the 8th March 2007 (note the date) I sat down to watch Channel 4 Television’s documentary on climate change, The Great Global Warming Swindle. This extraordinarily mendacious programme used falsified evidence and misrepresented interviewees to assert that manmade CO2 emissions are not the cause of climate change. One more time – manmade CO2 emissions are not the cause of climate change.

I was appalled. Just when Al Gore was finally getting some traction with An Inconvenient Truth here was a reputable broadcaster casting doubt about the science. What made me furious, and caused the breaking of my ‘never complain’ rule, was that it’s a message we would all dearly like to hear. The wonderful relief we might enjoy if climate change was a scare story cooked up by green activists and leftist politicians to prevent the wealthy from enjoying themselves to the full. Best of all Jeremy Clarkson would be right, fire up the V8, I’m going on a road trip. Friends called me as soon as the programme ended. ‘You’ve got it wrong’ they said. ‘Your career’s a fraud’. And most hurtful of all, ‘I always knew you were a pessimist’.

So after due consultation of the Ofcom broadcasting Code, I drafted my complaint. As I mentioned, I have experience with Codes. One of the Context team sent it to a friend who sent it to someone at an NGO who published my complaint on the web as a template for others. Not at all my intention, but no harm done.

 

Today, one year and four months after broadcast, Ofcom made its ruling. Yes the programme breached the code. It misrepresented interviewees, misplotted graphs and failed to give a balanced view. But no it did not ‘materially mislead’ the viewer. Despite the established fact that my friends and thousands of other people were caused by watching the programme to misunderstand the cause of climate change, they were not materially misled. This enabled Channel 4’s vacuous head of documentaries Hamish Mykura (note that name – it will no doubt appear in future broadcasting misdeeds).

 

 

“Ofcom’s ruling explicitly recognises Channel 4’s right to show the programme and the paramount importance of broadcasters being able to challenge orthodoxies and explore controversial subject matter,”

“This is particularly relevant to Channel 4 with its public remit and commitment to giving airtime to alternative perspectives.”

 

Note, Channel 4’s ‘public remit’. So what would Ofcom regard as a material misclaim? Ah, look a couple of cases down in the same Ofcom bulletin. The case of one viewer against porn channel Sport XXX Girls. Apparently the viewer was aggrieved because the live sex chat he believed he was viewing was a pre-recorded repeat. Now that really would be misleading – even a material waste of his £4 pay per view fee.Ofcom agrees.

 

 

 

Sage