TODAY...

 

TODAY...

>> MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2010

For those interested, here, and here, and here.

MORE SNAKE OIL...

Here’s another BBC warming fanatic. He’s James Painter, who for the past decade has been filing warming alarmist stories from his beat in his various roles as BBC World Service Spanish American editor and Miami bureau chief. He came to my my attention because he's led the field in reporting alleged climate change related drought problems in the Amazon, one of the areas where the IPCC report has been found to be discredited; Richard North reveals today why it's bunk. 

He’s now moved on to become a lecturer and research fellow at the Reuters Institute in Oxford, but this is partly funded by the BBC and he is still a BBC Latin American analyst, filing stories on the impact of drought and the shrinking of glaciers. So Mr Painter remains a BBC man through and through. He is clearly of that BBC breed that believes climate change is a crusade. He recently gavethe annual keynote lecture to the Society of Latin American Studies. It’s well worth a careful read because his speech is a case study of the extent to which bias has infected every aspect of BBC journalism in this area. He says: 

To summarise then, climate change is happening, it’s happening faster than expected, and it will have a huge impact on Latin America. Of course there are all sorts of scientific uncertainties, but uncertainty should not be an excuse for lack of coverage in the media. In the same way that climate adaptation policies have to be incorporated into governments’ development strategies, global warming as an issue has to be mainstreamed into the media.

Basically, this fanatic believes that 90% of scientists accept global warming, and therefore the views of sceptics should not be reported; that the Arctic is melting, that the Amazon will be badly affected by drought , and vast parts of South America will become desert. He thinks also that the 2007 IPCC report did not go far enough: 

…there is plenty of evidence to suggest that by some key performance indicators - the rate of warming, the rate of melt in some parts of the world and the rise in GHG accumulation - real-world changes are at the upper bound or beyond the worst-case scenario presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) last year. 

The main thrust of his argument is that media organisations must stop reporting other news, and focus their main efforts on climate change. I’ve noted before that if you scratch the surface of the nature of BBC journalism, you find that it’s actually a propaganda machine, and that almost every reporter that is examined is actually a political activist. Mr Painter fits that profile; the tragedy is that he clearly believes – from the tone of his lecture – that’s he’s an objective reporter. He’s not, he’s a peddler of snake oil.

Bob's Yer Uncle

>> SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2010

Here we are, frantically battling against the bias at the BBC. Year in, year out, we stab away at our keyboards, foam-flecked spittle flying, blood pressure on the point of spontaneous combustion.
Auntie, meanwhile, gaily carries on, undeterred, oblivious and undaunted.

Then, along comes Bob. Hell hath no fury like a live-aid organiser scorned. The BBC sits up and openth one eye.
So. Should we recruit a celeb?.

MARRED AND QUESTIONED

Anyone else have the misfortune to watch the Andrew Marr show this morning? It was the usual left-liberal fest. First up we had the new Green Peace President Kumi Naidoo on to tell us about the horrors of global warming. He took the opportunity to also express his support for law-breaking. Andrew just smiled at him. Then we had author Ian McEwan on to warn us about the horrors of...global warming. Get the message? After that, on sauntered Lord Adonis to warn us of the evils of Conservatism and the need to abolish the House of Lords. To finish, Ken Clarke was interviewed and he insisted that Conservatives needed to go after the liberal vote in order to win the election. Balanced and fair from start to finish as Andrew shines his light.

Next up, the execrable Nicky Campbell "Big Question." The first question on this Mothering Sunday was "whether we need fathers". The general consensus was that we didn't and that two lesbians provided the almost perfect model for bringing up children.  There was also talk of "it takes a village" to bring up a child. Fathers were seen as an irrelevance to having a happy child. The feminised audience were a disgrace but par for the course. Next up, "Is it time for a maximum wage"? Hard left trade union Unite had a representative on to explain that it is an outrage that there is no ceiling on how people can be paid. He lied about the minimum wage being a great success (It hasn't) and now he demands a maximum wage. Pure Communist thinking and endorsed by Nicky Campbell.

Setting The Tone

>> SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 2010

Here are the opening paragraphs of two articles from the BBC today, both from stories about anti-government protest movements. One discusses the "egalitarian" Purple People movement in Italy while the other is about the "conservative" Tea Party movement in America.

"Think of a world of politics without spin doctors, teleprompters, stage-managed conferences, party headquarters, manifestos, cynicism or even leaders."

"When the bearded activist in wraparound sunglasses put his hand on my shoulder, I felt his anger."

No prizes for guessing which is which. (Compare the pictures, too. One group is happily "festooned" in symbolism, the other has "declared war" "bitterly".)