Thank you for your reply, however your response is wholly inadequate and you have clearly failed to grasp the implication of my complaint.
Whilst it is appropriate for Blue Peter to report on Terminal 5 as it is a major infrastructure addition to this country, it is absolutely inappropriate to give such biased coverage. I can only imagine that the marketing and publicity department of BAA where delighted with the free advertising that you provided.
Not once in the article did you refer to the damage that Terminal 5 is doing to either the local or global environment. To suggest that the environmental damage that Terminal 5 is causing can be offset by solar powered cars or renewables as you have done in your response is complete nonsense. To further suggest that the situation is mitigated by having other Blue Peter programmes showing how to holiday in the UK is absurd. You need to imagine yourself in the shoes of our young people. On one hand they are given the message that runaway climate change is imminent and that their prospects are completely dire; on the other hand they have Blue Peter extolling the pleasure of flying. To unthinkingly deliver such a contradictory message to our young people is cruel breach of the trust that a programme like Blue Peter has with them.
A copy of this email will appear on my blog.
Kevin
--- On Thu, 4/12/08, complaintresponse@bbc.co.uk
From: complaintresponse@bbc.co.uk
Thanks for your e-mail regarding 'Blue Peter'.
I understand you were unhappy to see the topic of Terminal 5 feature on theprogramme as you feel this was glorifying an industry which has done a tremendous amount of damage to our global environment.
The show decided to report on Terminal 5 because it's a significant addition to British infrastructure. In the past the show has reported on major British infrastructure such as the Channel Tunnel, St Pancras rail link and something as significant as terminal 5 is a valid subject.
The report was designed to show the inner workings of an airport, and as such concentrated on the activities in what is essentially a workplace. Our presenter engaged in tasks such as checking in passengers, following baggage reclaim and making PA announcements and not on the facts which overtly "glamorise" flying.
The report overall should be viewed in the context of the amount of 'Blue Peter' coverage which is incredibly environmentally-friendly. We had a Green Peter special last year which included tips around holidaying at home not flying and we have featured a solar powered car recently on the programme. We're also planning a whole special on renewable energy for next spring. I realise you may continue to feel that Terminal 5 should not have featured on the programme and please be assured I've registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.
The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.
Thanks again for taking the time to e-mail us.
Regards
Ross Montgomery
BBC Complaints
____________________________
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints
2 comments:
Wow, you're clearly nuts!
Dear Anoymous,
as you may be aware the telegraph also reported on our complaint to Blue Peter, I followed this with a follow up article, but they have not printed it, but so you can fully understand where we are coming from, I include it below:
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Plane Stupid were surprised but delighted to see the complaint that we made to the BBC about Blue Peter's report on Terminal 5 published in this paper and several others. We were however, less than impressed with the on-line comments on various web sites suggesting that any critique of Blue Peter was akin to blasphemy. This somewhat misses the point.
The complaint that we made to the BBC is not just about Blue Peter, and most definitely is not about the young people in Plane Stupid complaining about a children’s programme; as a 46 years old and firmly of the “parent generation” I am not actually a regular viewer of Blue Peter. Instead, the complaint goes to the heart of the wider response that our society needs to make to address climate change and the conflicting messages it receives.
Runaway climate change has now started and our response to it will be the defining issue that will face us today. Feedback mechanisms that were merely academic hypotheses 10 years ago have activated and are accelerating the process of global heating. The Arctic ice cap will soon be gone, and well ahead of schedule. When this happens the earth will absorb more heat from the sun than is currently trapped by all the CO2 we have released. Methane releases have started in the tundra and sea surface temperatures are rising inhibiting the oceans ability to absorb CO2. These effects will trigger more feedback mechanisms, the implications of which we can not hope to understand even with the most powerful computer simulations.
Despite this desperate situation, full discussion of the impacts of these changes and our responses are obscured with political correctness and conflicting statements leading to an approach that focuses on the small and easily deliverable, and avoids addressing the biggest problems. Not only is this delusional, it is dangerously delusional by giving false hope.
And this is where Blue Peter falls in the trap. On one hand they report on small and easily deliverable initiatives such as solar powered cars, yet on the other hand completely avoid the implication of the aviation industry on the environment with reports such as their recent one on Terminal 5, which was presented as if climate change did not matter. This is a hugely conflicting and cruel message to present to our young people.
The BBC's dismissal of our concerns by saying that "the report from Terminal 5 was just showing the facts and figures of the baggage handling system that young viewers would find impressive," shows how limited their thinking is on the responsibilities entrusted in them. There is no doubt that the baggage handling system is an impressive piece of technology, but then so is a production line of cigarettes. There would be howls of protest about Blue Peter giving free advertising to the cigarette industry if it were to do a similar article in cigarette factory. However, the BBC are unable to appreciate that a similar uncritical report on Terminal 5's features is not free advertising for BAA; a company which is as morally bankrupt as the cigarette industry given its continued habit of lying to cover the environmental damage it is causing.
Any hopes that we have of tackling climate change will vanish if we fail to persuade the wider population that a complete change in consumption and expectations is a necessary prerequisite for our survival as we strive to achieve the 80%cuts in CO2 necessary. To achieve this change our media and education system need to be fully focused on what is needed, and not to present the contradictory messages that many people are currently receiving.
Tony Blair came to power on a promise that his three priorities were education, education and education. But he never said what education was for. Was it so our young people can develop into good consumers and producers that could compete against the rest of the world, or was it so our young people can develop into responsible stewards of the planet? These two objectives are mutually incompatible, one leads to destruction and one to survival. Until our media and education system, which includes programmes such as Blue Peter, works out which one of these is the most important, contradictory thinking will continue to roadblock progress. And where there is contradictory information, the aviation industry and others will always be able to exploit it with billion dollar advertising budgets.
This is the reason why Plane Stupid members sent complaints to BBC. It is part of our third demand to stop advertising for the aviation industry, both explicitly by companies, and implicitly by placements in other medias such as education sites. It is this advertising that is leading to our societies self-destructive response to climate change.
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