The BBC’s prolific Disinformation Unit has today been named the 2022 recipient of the Ockham Award for Skeptical Activism.
Across shows such as BBC Trending, Monitoring and Reality Check, 2022 has been a busy year for the BBC’s Disinformation Unit and their work to investigate and bring to light misinformation.
Michael Marshall said: “The work of the Disinformation Unit has been a shining example of diligent, tenacious, and deeply skeptical reporting – getting to the bottom of viral health claims, misused statistics, misleading imagery, manipulated videos and dangerous conspiracy theories.
“They’ve documented how the anti-vaccine movement has become more extreme, and how Russian propaganda regarding the invasion of Ukraine has spread through conspiracist channels, but they’ve also spoken directly to believers of these kinds of ideas, to show first-hand how people can be swayed by rhetoric and fear, and the human cost of misinformation, embodying the ethos of The Skeptic, to reason with compassion.
“With that in mind, we’re proud to award the 2022 Ockham Award for skeptical activism to the BBC’s Disinformation Unit.”
The ‘Skeptical Activism’ award was announced as part of The Skeptic’s annual Ockham Awards at a ceremony that took place during Saturday’s QED conference on science and skepticism, in Manchester. Also awarded during the event was the 2022 Rusty Razor award for pseudoscience, which went to climate change denial charity the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
