The veteran children's presenter says the Times Educational Supplement misreported his claims on why he is being targeted in online smear campaign
Last Friday, I wrote a genuinely heart-felt article condemning those people who - according to Johnny Ball in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) - were using extreme tactics to smear his name and, thereby, dramatically harm his career as an educational speaker in schools. I still very much stand by my main point: there should be no room ? or tolerance ? in the climate debate for personal, malicious intimidation of those who hold a different view from your own. Furthermore, such actions should be condemned by one and all.
I read the TES article, and Ball's claims, in good faith: I had no reason to doubt the veracity of the story. But within a few hours of my article going live here on the Guardian website, some readers began to question some of the details in Ball's claims about "environmental extremists" targeting him in an online smear campaign.
For example, one of Ball's central claims was that a blogger had stated that he "should not be allowed near children". The word "paedophile" was not used, but the implication was clear. But soon the original blog posting was isolated and it turned out that the full statement used ? by a reader on a blog run by a woman with an autistic son ? was that Ball, as a climate sceptic, "should [not] go anywhere near children with his ideas". A very different message. Speculation mounted in the comments beneath my article ? and elsewhere ? that Ball was wrongly maligning and blaming environmentalists with this pointedly edited sentence.
One of Ball's other claims was that when googling his name he had quickly been returned pornographic images bearing his name. Again, theories soon surfaced about why this might be the case. Some said a porn star existed with the name "Johnny Ball" so the Google returns were not that surprising. Others said that porn sites routinely use well-known names as meta tags to guide casual browsers towards their sites. And, either way, how could any of this be blamed verifiably on "environmental extremists"?
As I was already in communication with Ball over another matter to do with his claims about climate films being shown in schools (due to reasons of clarity and available space, I hope to blog on that separately tomorrow), I decided it was only fair to let him know such speculation was under way online and ask him to respond. This is what he emailed back to me on this specific matter:
"Never did I say [to the TES] my present problems were the work of environmentalists. I have said in one interview 'by person or persons unknown'. That they were aimed at me personally is beyond doubt. Someone tried to cancel a speaking date in my name. [Ball says the school involved still has the voice recording of the person who did this.] The links which were removed from the web are nonetheless in my web search memory and can be reproduced. Both were listed in the first six responses when googling 'Johnny Ball' or 'JohnnyBall' without the gap. One was labelled johnnyball/paulraymond [Raymond, before his death in 2008, was well known in the UK for his adult-orientated publishing and entertainment businesses] and when clicked on, with no intro or home page at all, showed around seven explicit nude female poses. There may well be a porn star named Johnny Ball, as someone has suggested. Of that I know nothing, but there were no males present on the accessed page.
The other appeared on a Northern Ireland blog that prided itself in winning a blog award. Googled items usually have two lines of introductory text. This one said, 'Johnny Ball should not be allowed near children.' This appeared on the listing and was very alarming.Their issue was in my support on BBC Radio Northern Ireland of Sammy Wilson as Energy Minister who had said he would not allow a Carbon Trust commercial which showed a child of around 5 being read a bedtime story in which the world was drowning. On that show, I lost my temper as two other NI MPs were banging on about who had the largest carbon footprint over the mileage they each did in a week.
After many complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority declared the ads alarmist, or whatever - the point is they did feel they might be damaging and worrying for children and they were withdrawn ? so, whatever the beef was, my stance was in line with the authorities and so I was justified. But for whatever reason, for that blog to make such derogatory statements about me, was totally out of order. The two blogs disappeared a few days later
Personally, I don't really want to get drawn into the nitty-gritty of how Google works, the intentions of those who build porn sites, or whether certain blogs have been deleted or not. I asked Ball to respond on these points and he did so. Ball also says he's filed a complaint with Thames Valley police (the TES article mistakenly referred to "South Thames Police") and, even though he says he was told by the police "there's not much they can do in all reality", it is up to them how they decide to investigate these matters.
What interests me far more is his claim that he didn't, in fact, ever claim environmentalists were to blame. Instead, he seemed to be implying to me that the TES had misreported him; a serious claim, not least because it's the "climate extremists ruin man's career" angle that certain sections of the media have so enthusiastically reported. For example, the Daily Telegraph commissioned three articles/blogs on the matter, and the Daily Mail ran with the headline: Climate zealots made my life hell for being a sceptic says Johnny Ball, who was victim of porn and blog smears. The Daily Express ran with: Climate 'zealots' hate me, says Ball, but Ball has told me he has since complained to the paper about the article and it is no longer available online. And, of course, climate sceptic blogs have been all over the story with predictable fervour. (Furthermore, Ball has told me that, on the back of the TES article, he has given an "exclusive interview" with the Daily Mail and also been booked to appear this week on Andrew Neil's Daily Politics Show.)
And then, yesterday, the Sunday Times (behind paywall) carried a first-person "My Week" column by Ball in which he stated: "I don't know who is behind this malicious campaign, but I think it may be linked to the criticism I've made of climate change campaigners."
So, yesterday afternoon, I spent the best part of an hour on the phone with Ball ? at his request ? to further clarify all of these related issues. He wanted to expand on his views on climate change ("The CO2 that comes out of a car is absolutely harmless. There is no refuting this. It's preposterous"), but I said I was most interested in getting to the bottom of the specific questions that have arisen out of his TES article. This is what he said in regard to how the TES reported his views:
"I said [to the TES reporter] you must show it [the article] to me and I must have complete editorial rights. So they wrote it and I said that's terrible. So we had a chat and I said, 'let me write it and if you're happy with it publish it verbatim'. I submitted it to him and, because he was going on holiday, he passed it onto the editor and then they published it without ever speaking to me again.
I chose the TES over, say, a tabloid, because my beef is that I feel I'm being damaged in education specifically. I didn't want to throw this to the Sun and Mirror, because I didn't want it to be a celebrity thing. I wanted it to be rational. I knew people would pick it up, though.
I did go out of my way not to say it was certain people behind this campaign against me. All I wanted to say was that a person or persons unknown were having a go at me, probably because of my climate views. I haven't blamed "climate zealots", as some are now reporting. Believe me, I was very measured in what I said. If I'd wanted to say 'climate zealots' I could have gone to the tabloids and they would have splashed that because they would have loved that. I want you to correct this.
I also don't know where the 'bookings have dropped by 90%' has come from either. I said it was by over half, maybe 60%. It maybe that educational budget cuts have caused my bookings to fall. That could be a major reason. I don't think it is because of my views on climate change. Sometimes I'm booked by schools to talk specifically about climate change. Just recently I was asked to come along to a school because two days earlier they had someone from Greenpeace talking and they wanted both sides which they said would be discussed by the children when we were both gone."
I have since spoken to both the reporter and editor at the TES who handled this story and they said they firmly stand by their story and have yet to receive a complaint from Ball.
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