On 21st December 2018, hundreds of Extinction Rebellion protesters peacefully blockaded six BBC Centres around the UK to highlight the corporation’s woeful coverage of the climate and sustainability crisis that scientists are warning about.
In London, at BBC HQ in Portland Place, access to the building was severely disrupted all day as activists used superglue and lock-ons and BBC security went into lockdown. During the course of the day there were many speeches as well as music, poetry and rituals.
This short film is an edit of a speech by environmental campaigner Jon Fuller. He gave numerous examples of deliberate failure to cover key events and announcements related to catastrophic climate change. Many of these were covered in depth in our previous film which you can see at realmedia.press/bbc-climate.
As a result of a recent Freedom of Information request and more new evidence, Jon Fuller persuades the attentive crowd that the BBC may be following government orders to suppress information to avoid frightening the public of the true extent of the crisis. It is notable that the BBC gave no coverage of the protest other than one sentence in a pre-prepared profile of the Extinction Rebellion movement, and anecdotal accounts suggest that BBC presenters were told not to mention the action in their broadcasts.
Mr Fuller has been repeatedly refused any meeting with BBC staff to discuss his dossier of evidence, and his attempt to approach the BBC entrance on the 21st was robustly blocked by police.
