BBC appoints ex-BBC Exec as 'independant' assessor

[Teddy Bear]

Get this:

BBC counters kids' TV bashing
Ben Dowell
Wednesday May 16, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk

The BBC is fighting back against the growing number of reports claiming TV is bad for children with an independent assessment of their scientific validity.

An 'independant' assessment, and who would that be exactly?

The BBC children's controller, Richard Deverell, has commissioned one of his former executives to compile a study of the many reports on the impact of kids' TV and to sort "the wheat from the chaff".

Mr Deverell told MediaGuardian.co.uk that he has asked former head of CBeebies production Clare Elstow to assess the large number of reports on children's television.

A former employee and executive of BBC, this is their idea of 'independant'.

A growing number of reports claim that watching television contributes to ailments including obesity, diabetes, depression, autism and cancer.

Mr Deverell said that he was "sceptical" about the validity of many of them, but wanted a full and independent assessment of their merits and truthfulness.

Well if I look at what's on offer in an average evening, I get pretty depressed, so I can vouch for that one. It's a no-brainer that if kids are spending time in front of a TV eating TV dinners, instead of playing outside, they're going to be less fit and have a tendency to obesity. What's to be sceptical about that?

"I do think it's an issue but I think it's overblown," said Mr Deverell, who has a natural sciences degree from Cambridge.

"There's a vast difference between correlation and causation. For example, although children whose parents live in nice houses tend not to be fat, that does not mean they are thin because they live in a nice house. Should watching television be the cause of so many of these problems?

"At the same time, a broadcaster like the BBC needs to be responsible. If there is clear evidence of harm we should act on it," he added, speaking at a Voice of the Listener and Viewer conference yesterday.

Mr Deverell said that the report should be finished by July and that he would then take a view on whether its findings would be made public.

"It depends on the findings and what Clare comes up with," he said.

Now why should it depend on what Clare comes up with? They're already proclaiming they will be biased on the results, which we already know will be biased anyway.

[indikit]

How many of the BBC upper echelons let their children watch the swill they transmit without moderation?

[Teddy Bear]

But when Panorama wants to prove danger from WiFi networks it has no problem 'digging the dirt'.

Just so long as it doesn't affect kids watching TV. Wonder how the BBC will change its story to show no affect to kids from TV radiation.

Scientists reject Panorama's claims on Wi-Fi radiation risks


· Laptop and phone mast comparison is criticised
· Programme spokesman defends methodology

James Randerson, science correspondent
Monday May 21, 2007
The Guardian


An investigation into the possible dangers of Wi-Fi technology - wireless computer networks - by the BBC documentary programme Panorama has been rejected as "grossly unscientific" and a "scare story" by leading scientists. The programme will claim that the radiation given off by a Wi-Fi laptop is "three times higher than the ... signal strength of a typical phone mast". But the experiment carried out by the programme did not take into account a "basic" scientific concept and presented a bogus comparison, critics say.
Nearly half of UK primary schools and more than 70% of secondary schools are fitted with Wi-Fi networks. Campaign groups and some scientists are concerned that the expansion of the technology has happened without adequate research into the effects of Wi-Fi radiation. But most scientists argue that there are no grounds for thinking that Wi-Fi radiation at the power generated by a wireless router or a laptop would have harmful effects. The World Health Organisation says there are "no adverse health effects from low-level, long-term exposure".

Paddy Regan, a physicist at the University of Surrey, criticised the experiment at the heart of Panorama's claims because the measurements of signal power had not been made at equal distances from the mobile phone mast and the Wi-Fi laptop. A spokesman for the programme told the Guardian that the "three times higher" comparison was based on measurements taken one metre away from the laptop and 100 metres away from the phone mast, although material sent to journalists promoting the programme did not make this clear. Dr Regan said: "It's a basic fundamental of science measurement, that if you are trying to compare things you have to take into account the so-called inverse square law." To make a fair comparison between two radiation sources the measurements should be taken at the same distance away. The levels measured by the Panorama investigation were 600 times lower than levels considered dangerous by the government. "It does sound like a scare story to me," said Dr Regan.

The programme's evidence was criticised as "grossly unscientific" by Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics and clinical engineering at Royal Berkshire hospital. "It's impossible to draw any sort of conclusion from the data as presented there."

Panorama's spokesman defended the methodology by saying the phone mast measurement was "at the point at which the beam was at greatest intensity where it hit the ground".

Scientists generally believe that Wi-Fi ought to be safer than mobile phone radiation because Wi-Fi devices transmit over shorter distances and so can operate at lower power. The Health Protection Agency says a person sitting within a Wi-Fi hotspot for a year receives the same dose of radio waves as a person using a mobile phone for 20 minutes.