Complaint
The programme explored the question of whether the development of wi-fi in schools and city centres posed a risk to health. Two viewers complained that the programme gave an unbalanced impression of the state of scientific opinion on the issue (thus exaggerating the grounds for concern), that it wrongly suggested wi-fi installations give off a higher level of radiation than mobile phone masts, and that an experiment designed to test whether certain people were hypersensitive to such radiation had been misleadingly presented. In addition, Professor Michael Repacholi, a scientist who had appeared in the programme, complained that the scientific issues had been presented in an unbalanced way and that the treatment of his own contribution to the programme was unfair to him.
BBC Editorial Complaints Unit's ruling
The programme reflected concerns about wi-fi which had been expressed by Sir William Stewart, Chairman of the Health Protection Agency, and it was legitimate to focus on questions raised by an eminent scientist with particular responsibility for public health issues. The programme made clear that its measurements of wi-fi and mobile phone mast radiation were taken at the points where schoolchildren were likely to be exposed to the respective signals, thus avoiding the false impression that the level of radiation from wi-fi was higher at source, and the results to date of the experiment on "electro-sensitivity" were correctly represented as inconclusive. However, the programme included only one contributor (Prof Repacholi) who disagreed with Sir William, compared with three scientists and a number of other speakers (one of whom was introduced as a former cancer specialist) who seconded his concerns. This gave a misleading impression of the state of scientific opinion on the issue. In addition, Prof Repacholi's contribution was presented in a context which suggested to viewers that his scientific independence was in question, whereas the other scientists were presented uncriticaly. This reinforced the misleading impression, and was unfair to Prof Repacholi.
[MORE]