The BBC's job is to report impartially what goes on in the world. To pursue that task, it receives at least £750m of your money every year, and it has almost 5,000 staff who are directly involved in journalism. So when steel-making on Teeside, one of our oldest manufacturing industries, faces closure, with the loss of 300 years of tradition and 10,000 jobs, you would expect the corporation to be in the forefront of explaining why. The BBC Trust's From See-saw to Wagon Wheel, p 40:
ONE MAN AND A BLOG!
>> TUESDAY, DECEMBER 08, 2009
You would be wrong. Richard North, writing on his excellent EU Referendum blog, brings us today in glowing technicolour the real reasons why Tata steel have mothballed the Redcar steelworks (losing immediately 1,700 jobs, but in the longer term almost 9,000 more who support or whom are dependent on the plant). In an nutshell, it is being "mothballed" (but more likely permanently closed)not because of "falling demand", but as a direct casualty of the pernicious gravy train that is the EU emissions trading scheme. This makes it more lucrative for the host company to suspend production at the plant and use it instead to accumulate 'carbon credits' on its balance sheet. The cumulative worth of this sleight-of-hand juggling is, according to Richard, a staggering £1bn+. Against such forces, the poor saps in Middlesbrough did not stand a chance.
I searched the BBC website for more than half an hour looking for any mention of this. There are dozens of stories and backgrounders about the closure, and lots of hot air from Mandelson and his henchmen, but not a whisper of this crucial angle. It seems also that BBC reporters were present at the press conference where Kirby Adams, the Redcar divisional boss, told the Times that the EU rules were behind the closure. They ignored what he said. So when it comes to climate change issues, the BBC are not only not reporting the truth, they are in cahoots with government ministers in deliberately hiding it. Their passion for global warming zealotry is so great that they simply cannot bring us facts that do not support it. And one man and his blog are more effective in bringing us the truth than all the wind and puff of the BBC's £750m news machine.Deniers
>> MONDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2009
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. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC's role to close down this debate. They cannot be simply dismissed as 'flat-earthers' or 'deniers', who 'should not be given a platform' by the BBC. Impartiality always requires a breadth of view: for as long as minority opinions are coherently and honestly expressed, the BBC must give them appropriate space.
Evan Davis on the Today programme this morning: "climate change deniers"
BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor on his blog today: "climate change deniers"
BBC presenter Ros Atkins on the World Have Your Say blog: "climate change deniers" (and on more than one occasion during this programme, even after Christopher Booker had pulled him up on it)
The advice of the mysterious "experts" they take. The rest of it, not so much.
(Reminder re. that seminar of scientific experts - there is at least one FoI request outstanding.)
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
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