Even the BBC's coverage of bias is biased when it comes to the climate change debate. This, posted today, is the BBC's attempt to create "balance" in the debate about AGW. I haven't the time now to go into detail about why this is a blatant, pathetic whitewash. I am sure others will in due course. But how about for starters, the words devoted to the AGW case are far more than those on the "sceptic" side? Why are the "sceptic" points so crudely put? And why are the vast majority of linked sites pro-AGW? Dozens of climate realist sites are missed out, including Bishop Hill and Harmless Sky - those that have done most to expose the gross BBC bias. Wat Tyler has responded to Marcus Brigstocke's dire Now Show rant about the Taxpayers' Alliance. Further to Robin's post yesterday about this week's Newswatch, here are the transcripts of the exchanges between presenter Raymond Snoddy and environment correspondent Richard Black. The Kate Silverton programme on Radio Five Live this morning dedicated a segment to telling us about all the wonderful positive things that will flow from the challenge of combating climate change (more recharging points for electric cars, refurbished homes, new factories, green jobs, a unicorn for every home, trees with money growing on them, that sort of thing). The guest they had on to help promote these lovely fluffy thoughts was none other than Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications, the PR agency behind the Rules of the Game propaganda document mentioned in the CRU emails. Of course none of that was brought up this morning (no talk of Climategate at all), nor was it pointed out that Futerra has advised the BBC on how to promote the eco agenda through workshops on "communicating sustainable development". (An email promoting these Futerra workshops can be found in the CRU batch, coincidentally). It would appear that the latest element of the BBC/Futerra communications strategy is simply to let the green PR wonks have the airtime themselves to get their message across. I listened carefully in BBC bulletins last night and this morning to David Shukman spreading AGW panic about melting glaciers in Bolivia, which he left no doubt were because of "climate change". Poor, hapless Bolivians were dying of thirst because of Western greed, etc. Truly awful programme on BBC1 this morning where investigative journalist Fern Britton visits Desmond Tutu. It is just plain hero worship with Fern declaring that he is one of the great men who changed the history of the last century. The BBC admires Jew-hating Tutu and this sickening programme allows just one point of view - Tutu worship. The final part of a read-it-all post from Burning Our Money: The BBC positively ejaculates at the thought of "climate change" demonstrations. You can tell by the reverential tone in which it reports the sorry sight of government ministers, the primate of England and sundry law-breaking thugs telling us that we must spend billions on doing a King Canute. A Biased BBC reader alerts us to this story. It concerns the sentencing of a Polish immigrant for the brutal murder of a young girl here in Northern Ireland. Scroll down the story and have a look at the image of the murdered girl. We are often mocked by our critics for drawing attention to bias by omission, but when it amounts to downplaying the implications for Israel of Iran’s nuclear programme, it’s a significant omission, indicative of a significant bias.
BIASED BIAS!!!.
>> SUNDAY, DECEMBER 06, 2009
More Marcus
This was Brigstocke's humble tweet following the recording:
"No knock out punch I fear" Yeah, because that was likely to happen. "Following a series of unfunny remarks made about us by Green Party and CND supporting posh kid Marcus Brigstocke on The Now Show, we have decided to disband the Taxpayers' Alliance."
I see that even Simon Mayo is taking the piss out of Brigstocke's latest voice-over work:
Yes it is Simon. One more reason not to shop there.Newswatch
First exchange:Snoddy: Richard Black, as a journalist do you think the BBC really underplayed this story despite Today and Newsnight items?
Black admits that there was a failure to ask the questions that viewers wanted answered, but then in his response to Snoddy's point about "the enormity of this controversy" he reveals the very mindset that made the asking of those challenging questions so unlikely. Clearly Black doesn't think that this is a big deal at all.
Black: In quantitative terms I'm not sure that we have underplayed it. I don't think that stands up. But there is another side to - certainly comments I've had in from the public - is that, which talk about the way we've treated it and whether we've asked the kinds of questions that Chris and Anthony [the guest viewers in the studio] are suggesting that need to be asked.
Snoddy: In science terms the Newsnight science correspondent said this was as bad as it gets in science. I mean, has the BBC really reflected the enormity of this controversy?
Black: Well there are different views about how enormous it really is. There are many in the scientific community who say that it actually doesn't alter the scientific picture one jot. To start with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia is just one of a number of institutions in the world that keep records of global temperatures so even if all the CRU interpretations and analysis turned out to be wrong it doesn't invalidate all the other analyses. And they also point out the fact that the raw data is not something that's gathered by CRU - it's used by CRU and analysed by CRU, but the raw data is still out there.
Second exchange:Snoddy: Richard Black, Steve Mitchell actually said that it's the BBC's aim to reflect the whole range of views on this issue. Here's two viewers who don't think the BBC does. What have you got to say to them?
As Robin pointed out, Black is referring to the guidelines laid down in the BBC Trust document From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel - Safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century (2007). From page 40:
Black: The guidelines, the sort of broadest guidelines in terms of our climate change coverage are set by the BBC Trust. They issued a document a couple of years ago on impartiality that dealt with many issues. On climate change they made it clear that in their view the sort of old balance that we used to have between two equally weighted sides of a debate were simply out of date. That doesn't apply any more, and the sort of weight of the scientific evidence lies with the IPCC view. But they do also explicitly say that sceptical, contrarian views - whatever you want to call them - should not be absent from the coverage, that we cannot neglect them. I think it is a bit of an urban myth that we do neglect them."The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus."
TonyN at Harmless Sky put in an FoI request to find out more about this seminar. He was told that it took place in January 2006, but the BBC refused to name the "scientific experts", fobbing him off with the same "editorial policy" excuse used to hide the Balen Report:In this case, the information you have requested is outside the scope of the Act because information relating to the seminar is held to help inform the arc's editorial policy around reporting climate change.
I notice that at least one more FoI request concerning the January 2006 seminar has been made recently and is currently under consideration by the BBC. If the BBC once again fails to release the names of the scientific experts upon whose advice climate change editorial policy was determined then we will draw our own conclusions.
[Incidentally, Newswatch is worth seeing for no other reason than the amusing "nods" of Snoddy (Snods?) inserted into his interview with the BBC's Steve Mitchell. What's with all the licking of lips? Had Snoddy just eaten a sugared doughnut? Was it some sort of piss-take? Odd.]Eco PR group on the BBC
(Townsend doesn't seem to be on top of her subject. During the discussion she came out with following: "Obama has a Green Jobs Czar who is to make sure the USA can make the best of this transition to a low carbon economy." I don't believe he does. Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar, wentunder the bus when it emerged that he was a 9/11 truther with radical leftist links, and I can find no mention of a replacement. I suppose Townsend can be forgiven for not knowing about Jones' "resignation" - even the BBC's director of global news Richard Sambrook admitted that the Beeb didn't give the story enough coverage.)MELTING TRUTHS....
I decided to do a bit of google-digging to find if this, indeed, was the "consensus". It turned out to be like wading through treacle because the topic is dominated by NGOs and other propagandists, who are as fanatical as Shukman. But without too much difficulty, I came across this(you need to scroll down a bit to get to the relevant entry): It is ironic that the melting Chacaltaya glacier has become such an important symbol of the AGW theory, when in fact the evidence from Chacaltaya seems to refute this theory. (In contrast, the evidence from Chacaltaya is fully consistent with Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory (5), but that is another story).
At the very least, what this shows is that the science behind Shukman's melting glaciers is highly complex and the subject of debate. To suggest that there is "consensus" or agreement is nonsense.
Yet again, the BBC's so-called "experts" on this topic are found to be pushing in the crudest way questionable theories in the hyping up of the need for more taxes in Copenhagen. No doubt Mr Shukman had a nice trip to Bolivia (at our expense) and enjoyed speaking with activists who agreed with him. The Bolivians themselves obviously want to press the "we're doomed" button because they want cash from Gordon Brown. But pushing their views in this unfiltered, unbalanced way is not journalism. It's propaganda.TUTU WORSHIP
"Of course it was climate change what done it."
>> SATURDAY, DECEMBER 05, 2009
BOM correspondent NN suffered a seizure while watching a BBC news report on Wednesday about salt traders in Timbuktu. According to the report - a NEWS report note - said traders have apparently had to swap their transport camels for great big climate destroying trucks, because global warming has made the camels too tired and thirsty to do the work (well there is also the small matter of the always biddable truck being able to haul in one week what it takes the moody camels seven to achieve, but the real villain is definitely global warming). After a strong dose of smelling salts, NN emailed - "They sent a sodding reporter and camera crew and translator to sodding Timbuktu for this garbage. By camel? I would be willing to wager that they flew in a nice shiny aeroplane and then carted all their gear on one of the very same evil trucks that cause climate change. At least I hope so. The thought of BBC reporters earning 45 days of per diems while lugging their crap around on 1st century technology is truly alarming. What could have been a really good example of creative destruction and new technologies replacing old for the good of all involved becomes a truly loopy example of green non-thought. And spare a thought for the Tuareg salt-trader. Who wouldn't rather spend 45 days in blistering heat and thirst with a load of wheezing camels than seven days in an air-conditioned truck listening to Timbuktu FM. Of course it was climate change what done it. Aaaaargh. I think I need to leave the country to escape the madness, - by horse." We may join him.
MORE HOT AIR....
BBC AIRBRUSHES REALITY
"Their priority? To airbrush out of the tragic girl's fingers the cigarette she was smoking when photographed. Is a non-smoker's life more important than that of a smoker?"
UPDATE; Thanks to DB for making me aware that whilst this is an airbrushed image, the likelihood is that it was her family that did so. That said, when the BBC uses such airbrushed images from whatever source it seems reasonable that we challenge it.Half the Picture
Just Journalism points out that while this topic is covered fairly extensively by the serious press, the BBC gives scarcely a mention to background essential for understanding why Israel might feel particularly threatened. Hat tip Deegee.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Can you imagine how the BBC will handle the day when Mandela finally pops his clogs - I bet we will have solemn music and dark ties. I am no supporter of the wicked Apartheid system but those like Mandela and Tutu should not be portrayed as latter day saints simply because the political left and their media courtiers declare this to be the case.
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