Nimble footwork from BBC Editor Innes Bowen

Much of the email from the BBC is simply lifted from the transcript of the programme. They think that because it's over a year since the original broadcast I've forgotten it's content. They are wrong.

I made it pretty clear in my letter of August 8th that I felt that sec 7.9 and 7.13 of OFCOM had been broken because the BBC hadn't identified the "200 environmentalists". I asked directly who the "200 environmentalists" were. Last year I emailed Futerra PR and asked them who the "200 environmentalists" were.  I have frankly lost count of the number of times I've asked. I'm asking because I don't believe Solitaire Townsend's statement nor her logic, and because we have a right to know. It seems pretty obvious to me that if you get 200 environmentalists in one place it's a big pow wow, there would be more than one account of such an event. Instead we only have an account from a PR executive who that will not engage in correspondence and will not even identify her client . Solitaire Townsend's account does not add up.

My basic question is still unanswered and unaddressed. But Innes Bowen  (Editor of the Anaysis prog) writes this :

...no doubt Ms Townsend's assumption is based not just on that single incident but from extensive contact with different elements of the environment movement and on her other interactions with those attending the conference. We leave listeners to judge whether they think Ms Townsend's assumptions are reasonable in that context.

Only it wasn't in that context. Innes Bowen is changing the context . So it's a conference now. And Ms. Townsend's view is supported by her extensive network elsewhere rather than the shady anecdote which the BBC broadcast.... 

More to follow