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Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

Appendix B: Background to the Film Maker, Martin Durkin

B.1 The Reasons for Including this Section

Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code Clause 5.8 states: Any personal interest of a reporter or presenter, which would call into question the due impartiality of the programme, must be made clear to the audience.

This clause was breached by Channel 4 in several respects:

1.	All three previous programmes Durkin has made for Channel 4 have also been accused by respected sources of misinforming the public, distorting the truth, and misrepresenting the positions of some of the contributors to the programmes. This was not made clear to the audience.
2.	Durkin’s film Against Nature was found by the ITC to have breached its code of practice on two counts, forcing Channel 4 to issue an apology on prime time television, and this was not made clear to the audience.
3.	All Durkin’s films have taken an extreme anti-environmentalist position – for example, comparing environmentalists with Nazis. This was not made clear to the audience.
4.	There is significant evidence linking Durkin to a lobby group known as the LM Group, whose members have been accused of distortion of facts and of extreme anti-environmentalism and extreme libertarianism (see Appendix B.3). This was not made clear to the audience.
5.	It was not made clear that this was a “personal view” program, as defined in Section 5 of the Broadcasting Code (http://tinyurl.com/35xfpz). Martin Durkin never appeared on the programme: instead, the narration took the form of an anonymous and authoritative-sounding voiceover, giving the audience the misleading impression that the narration was impartial.
6.	Both before and after the screening of the programme, Channel 4 billed it as a science documentary (see http://tinyurl.com/3d5ltc and http://tinyurl.com/ytogy5, which implies a fact-based programme, rather than a platform for the airing of one man’s personal opinions.

In addition, Ofcom’s draft penalty guidelines (http://tinyurl.com/3ajn5x) state that “repeated contraventions by the same person” is a factor in determining the penalty; and that “the need to ensure that the threat of penalties will act as a sufficient incentive to comply” is another.

B.2 Previous Films Made by Durkin for Channel 4

B.2.1 Against Nature

In November 1997, Channel 4 broadcast a film by Martin Durkin called Against Nature, which accused the environmental movement of being a threat to personal freedom and of crippling economic development; and which compared environmentalists to Nazis. Durkin has subsequently tried to portray it as a science film, but the ITC found it guilty of distortion of facts (see http://tinyurl.com/2lcsvq). The ruling stated:

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Page 123 of 176	Final Revision	Last updated: 11 Jun 2007