Martin Durkin (television director)
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Martin Durkin is a television producer and director, most notably of television documentaries for Channel 4 in Britain. He has caused consistent controversy over the alleged bias found in many of his documentaries. He is understood to have once been closely involved with the Revolutionary Communist Party and its later offshoots Living Marxism and Spiked, a magazine and associated political network which promotes libertarian views, and is highly critical of environmentalism. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
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[edit] Documentaries
[edit] Against Nature
In 1997, Channel 4 broadcast Durkin's Against Nature, a documentary series which criticized the environmental movement for being a threat to personal freedom and for crippling economic development. Against Nature was subsequently investigated by the Independent Television Commission of the UK, following a number of complaints from viewers and from some of the interviewees featured in the program. [6] The Commission did not uphold most of the claims, concluding that it was entirely legitimate to open up debate about environmentalist policies and ideologies. It also pointed that environmentalists had been permitted a fair chance to air their side of the story in the televised debates that followed the broadcast. However the Commission also concluded that Durkin had misled his interviewees about the nature and purpose of the documentary, and that he had misrepresented and distorted their views by editing the interview footage in a misleading way [7]. For these reasons, Channel 4 later issued a public apology on prime time TV.[8]According to The Independent, Durkin "accepts the charge of misleading contributors, but describes the verdict of distortion as 'complete tosh'." [9]
[edit] Equinox
Subsequent television documentaries by Durkin aired as Equinox programs which include a 1998 documentary which argued that silicone breast implants were in fact beneficial to a woman's health; another Equinox program called Modified Truth: The Rise and Fall of GM, and The Great Global Warming Swindle. The 1998 documentary on breast implants was shown on Channel 4 only after it had been rejected for broadcast by the BBC whose in-house researcher concluded that Durkin had ignored a large body of evidence contradicting his claims in the program.[6] Another researcher hired by Durkin to work on this same documentary allegedly quit her job, claiming that her research had been ignored and that "the published research had been construed to give an impression that's not the case." She is also reported to have said: "I don't know how that programme got passed. The only consolation for me was that I'm really glad I didn't put my name to it." [6]
[edit] Modified Truth
Durkin's documentary which argues in favor of genetic modification was broadcast on Channel 4 on March 20th 2000, also met with complaints.[10] A joint letter signed by a number of scientists from the Third World was issued in protest of Durkin's claims in this documentary. [11] Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, a scientist featured on the program, later said of her participation in the program: "I feel completely betrayed and misled. They did not tell me it was going to be an attack on my position." [6]
[edit] The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle is a 2007 documentary film which premiered on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on March 8, 2007. The film features scientists who are sceptical of the prevailing consensus that global warming is caused by human activity. The second part of the program examines the conditions under which the current consensus developed. It focuses on political pressures on those who speak out against the supposed anthropogenic causes of global warming, some of the reasons for the wide adoption of this view and the factors leading to its original development.
[edit] External links
- Presentation at Channel 4
- Geoffrey Lean, "Global Warming: An inconvenient truth or hot air?", The Independent, March 4, 2007 [1]
- Robin McKie, "Why Channel 4 has got it wrong over climate change," The Observer, March 4, 2007 [2]
- Profile of Martin Durkin on GMWatch.org [3]
- "More digs at Durkin", The Guardian, March 22, 2000 [4]
- Dominic Lawson, "Here is another inconvenient truth (but this one will infuriate the Green lobby)", The Independent, March 2, 2007 [5]
- Friends of the Earth press release, April 2, 1998 [6]
- Dave Walker, "Libertarian Humanism or Critical Utopianism? The Demise of the Revolutionary Communist Party", What Next journal article that hints at Durkin's involvement in the Revolutionary Communist Party [7]
- Independent Television Commission ruling on "Against Nature"
