Alice Bell has a more nuanced take on the situation:

The 2011 BBC Trust report on science coverage is often wheeled out at this point, used to argue that too often fringe views are presented against scientific expertise. I worked on that report and it does happen. But by far the biggest worry is that they don’t ask enough questions of the various experts – whoever they are – that they put on air.

Or to put it another way, as George Monbiot wrote after the Australian climate sceptic and geology professor Ian Plimer appeared on the Today programme in 2009: “Let Plimer speak, but let his interviewers do some sodding research first.”

The Monbiot piece, from 2008 is quite amusing. One of the things that Monbiot thinks Plimer should have been pulled up on was this:

We've had a warming, up until the late 90s, now we're in a cooling phase."

To which the great George responded that 11 of the 13 previous years were the warmest on record, providing a helpful link to a Met Office press release, which indeed supports his claim finding explanations for the lack of apparent warming in El Ninos and the linke. It also includes this:

Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand.