[1] Operating under the GUMG banner, academics including its founders Brian Winston, Greg Philo and John Eldridge have consistently postulated that television news is biased in favour of powerful forces such as governments, transnational corporations and the rich over issues like climate change, conflicts such as Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, welfare benefits, economics and refugees.
As a result, the GUMG secured a screen-card reading CENSORED and another suggesting that viewers write and complain to the BBC's Director General.
The resulting publicity led to the editor of ITN, David Nicholas, attacking the book[4][5] and to The Observer describing the GUMG as 'academic hit men stalking television's newscasters'.
[9] In 2012, Catherine Happer and Greg Philo published a collaborative research report with Antony Froggatt of Chatham House examining public beliefs and behaviours on climate change and energy security.
They found "widespread confusion" due to media representations and politicization of the issue had resulted in falling media coverage, leading to a lack of trust of political voices on the subject and lack of recognition among the public of the issue's importance.