Doesn't great power come with great responsibility?

Avid global warming activists know true well the enormous impact the mainstream media can have on getting anything done on climate change issues. The media can be likened a little to the Pied Piper calling the tune, with the children of the village following obligingly after.

Mostly, the 'enormous impact' has been on the negative side of the scales, with the MSM having been shown to give undue attention to global warming skeptics and deniers. Global warming is, as Al Gore astutely puts it, an inconvenient truth. Media agencies don't edge out their competition by telling people what they don't want to hear.

The internet, however, wonderful thing that it is, has had some impact on getting the word out where the MSM has failed, and some could argue that this has helped shift the balance - and begun some of the adjustments in stance that has been seen of late - notably with media mogul Rupert Murdoch of News Corp, which happens to own, and it seems, influence, Fox News, normally filled with famously moronic attempts to undermine global warming science.

Now, across the Atlantic, another drama is being played out - this time with the well-respected British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC):

The BBC has scrapped plans for Planet Relief, a TV special on climate change.

The decision comes after executives said it was not the BBC's job to lead opinion on climate change.

Celebrities such as Ricky Gervais were said to be interested in presenting the show, which would have involved viewers in a mass "switch-off" to save energy.

The BBC says it cut the special because audiences prefer factual output on climate change. Environmentalists slammed the decision as "cowardice".

"This decision shows a real poverty of understanding among senior BBC executives about the gravity of the situation we face," said activist and writer Mark Lynas.

"The only reason why this became an issue is that there is a small but vociferous group of climate 'sceptics' lobbying against taking action, so the BBC is behaving like a coward and refusing to take a more consistent stance."

... "It is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet," warned Newsnight editor Peter Barron at the Edinburgh Festival last month.

... Is is believed that poor ratings in the UK and elsewhere for July's Live Earth concert may have confirmed the internal belief that the public do not like being "lectured to" on climate change. - BBC

This is an interesting topic. Should media 'take sides'? Don't they already, on a large array of topics? Take evolution and creationism, for example - most scientists believe in the former, and the BBC certainly promotes this through its documentaries. Isn't that 'taking sides'? The majority of scientists believe global warming is human-caused, and the BBC knows it.

What do you think? Should the BBC help spread the word on global warming, as it does on a myriad other important issues? Are they "behaving like a coward and refusing to take a more consistent stance"?

If this is just an economic fear that the world's energy-guzzling couch potatos will thumb over to another channel, then must we on the internet - the 'people's voice' - work yet harder to sway public opinion, until we get to a point where the BBC would be preaching to the already-converted before they would agree to run their just-cancelled show?

It begs the question - does the mainstream media educate the public, or just pander to them?