大象传媒

It will be the latest in a series of reviews that assess impartiality in specific areas of 大象传媒 output.

It is a key priority for the Trust that the 大象传媒 covers potentially controversial subjects with due impartiality, as required by the Royal Charter and Agreement.

Richard Tait, 大象传媒 Trustee and Chair of the Trust's Editorial Standards Committee (ESC), said:

"Science is an area of great importance to licence fee payers, which provokes strong reaction and covers some of the most sensitive editorial issues the 大象传媒 faces.

"Heated debate in recent years around topics like climate change, GM crops and the MMR vaccine reflects this, and 大象传媒 reporting has to steer a course through these controversial issues while remaining impartial.

"The 大象传媒 has a well-earned reputation for the quality of its science reporting, but it is also important that we look at it afresh to ensure that it is adhering to the very high standards that licence fee payers expect."

The review will assess news and factual output that refers to scientific findings, particularly science output relating to current public policy and matters of political controversy.

For the purposes of the review, "science" will be defined to include not just the natural sciences but also those aspects of technology, medicine and the environment that entail scientific statements, research findings or other claims made by scientists.

The Trust expects to launch this review in the spring and further details about the process will be confirmed at this time. The review findings will be published in 2011.

The 大象传媒 Executive has indicated that it plans to raise the profile of science on the 大象传媒 this year with a focus on the genre across television, radio and online.

Notes to Editors

This is the third impartiality review the Trust has carried out. Previous topics covered were 大象传媒 coverage of business (2007) and the devolved nations (2008).

The 大象传媒's Editorial Guidelines, which are designed to help everyone who produces content for the 大象传媒 make editorial decisions, include the following about impartiality:

Impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to our output. Our approach to achieving it will therefore vary according to the nature of the subject, the type of output, the likely audience expectation and the extent to which the content and approach is signposted to our audiences.

Impartiality is described in the Agreement as "due impartiality". It requires us to be fair and open minded when examining the evidence and weighing all the material facts, as well as being objective and even handed in our approach to a subject. It does not require the representation of every argument or facet of every argument on every occasion or an equal division of time for each view.