Remember that Panorama investigation into the dangers of Wi-Fi?
Let me refresh your memory. It's something we've discussed here before (more than once, in fact), as well as being a topic covered by our Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre. Oh, and we also pointed out that leading scientists criticised it as a scare story.
Well, the BBC's complaints ninjas have looked into the affair and, as MediaGuardian's Leigh Holmwood writes, they've decided it was unfair:
Two viewers complained that the programme, Wi-fi: A Warning Signal, which aired on BBC1 in May, had given an unbalanced impression of the state of scientific opinion and had wrongly suggested that wi-fi installations give off a higher level of radiation than mobile phone masts.
They also complained that an experiment designed to test whether certain people were hypersensitive to such radiation had been misleadingly presented.
Professor Michael Repacholi, a scientist who had appeared on the programme, also complained that the scientific issues had been presented in an unbalanced way and that the treatment of his own contribution had been unfair.
The BBC said the programme reflected concerns about wi-fi expressed by Sir William Stewart, chairman of the Health Protection Agency, and that it was legitimate to focus on questions raised by an eminent scientist with responsibility for public health issues.
However, the corporation's editorial complaints unit (ECU) today criticised the programme for not having adequate balance, saying it had included only one contributor who disagreed with Stewart, compared with three scientists and a number of other speakers who seconded his concerns.
In the past we've been accused of being craven apologists for radiation, and happy to toe the industry line that Wi-Fi (and electromagnetism in general) doesn't fry your brain.
But the real problem with this Panorama report wasn't that we disagreed with it: it was in the way the show presented the science - badly - and the way it took a tabloid approach to an issue of public safety. That's not the BBC we expect, and - it turns out - it's not the BBC that the BBC itself expects, either.
