Yesterday provided one of the starkest contrasts I have ever witnessed between the standards of news broadcasting on BBC TV News and BBC News Online. Putting it in the crudest of terms, the so-called flagship, BBC Ten O'Clock News (BBC 1), provided little more than tabloid hysteria, while the BBC Online coverage was thoughtful, and genuinely worthy both of plaudits and of the BBC’s long tradition of public service.

The story in question somehow inevitably related to ‘global warming’, and it was about the report from a panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Department of Health, and the Health Protection Agency (HPA), to examine the way in which the UK has responded to rising temperatures since the 1970s, and to assess how the risks are likely to change. The moment you glimpsed the BBC Health News Online headline, you knew that you were in for some balanced and nuanced reporting, well-worth the read: ‘Global warming “may cut deaths”’ [BBC Health News Online, February 12]:

“The risk of a fatal heatwave in the UK within ten years is high, but overall global warming may mean fewer deaths due to temperature, a report says.

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