BBC forced to correct misleading flood scare
London, 15 November - Yet another complaint has been upheld against the BBC's coverage of weather and climate issues.
In May this year, the BBC weatherman Chris Fawkes claimed in a video after the Bologna floods in Italy that “half the annual rainfall had fallen in 36 hours”.
The claim was utterly baseless, and data collected since has confirmed that rainfall totals were much less.
In upholding the complaint, the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit apologised for the lapse in editorial standards.
Climate researcher Paul Homewood, who filed the complaint, commented:
“Sadly this cavalier attitude to factual reporting is all too common in the BBC's coverage of weather and climate matters.”
The BBC has been repeatedly accused of institutional alarmism by Net Zero Watch and other observers. Reports have revealed that the BBC has been forced to correct more than a dozen false claims in climate and weather-related coverage after receiving public complaints in recent years.
Notes to editors
Institutional Alarmism: The BBC’s disastrous climate complaints (pdf)