Being Louis

Being Louis

>> FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 04, 2011

or Louis in Wonderland. I was wondering what all that fuss was about, so I put on my best Louis Theroux voice. I wanted to understand Louis, so I set off to enter Louis’s mind. I tried to think like Louis.....I wondered if Louis felt uncomfortable, as a human being, that the filmmakers used the word ‘Zionist’ pejoratively, and selected the most controversial sound-bites for their ubiquitous trailer? Then I realised - it’s the ratings, stupid. I was wondering whether Louis was worried that the film might inadvertently lure antisemites from their lairs. Then I remembered the subtle backtracking I had noticed earlier, and I thought I understood. I wondered whether Louis felt uncomfortable, on a human level, for asking settlers if they felt guilty over stealing Palestinian land, when his film actually stated, " It [an Arab area] used to be Jewish till all the Jews were violently driven out 1920s during a pogrom.” I wondered if Louis felt uneasy perpetuating myths about Jews stealing Arab land, when the opposite is nearer to the truth. Then it occured to me that the filmmakers forgot to edit that bit out and hoped no-one would notice. It was revealing, yes, but also so fleeting, so momentary, so easily missable; few would have noticed. I began to wonder whether Louis had done any homework, before embarking on a film which he had waited ten years to make. Then I remembered, studying the Guardian and the BBC would have provided all the education Louis needed. Louis chatted to the head of security of the Hebron Jewish community, named Yoni. Louis began a series of questions that were cunningly designed to highlight the Palestinians' inequality. Louis seemed to be exposing injustice, but I was wondering if the injustice Louis perceived was the injustice that prevents Palestinians with murderous intent being allowed to import knives and guns, freely and democratically into Israeli residential areas. Was that the injustice Louis perceived, I asked myself? I thought I detected some clumsy editing. I noticed an abrupt jump from Yoni’s half-finished answer to Louis’s first question, ping, to Louis’s next question. Louis said: It’s been reported that Arabs suffered a campaign of harassment from Jewish settlers in Hebron, including graffiti, stone throwing, abuse - to which Yoni replied: There were incidents - of course there were incidents - unfortunately - but you cannot compare.. CUT! I was wondering whether Yoni had actually said some more, and the editors had edited it out. Hmmm, I wondered. If some Arabs threw stones at Jewish settlers, the settlers would do what?asked Louis. If Yoni had said something that the editors didn’t like, the editors would do what? I wondered. You may now stop thinking in the Louis Theroux voice. Snap! You’re back in the room! Most of the Jews in the film seemed engaging and human. The Palestinians, on the other hand appeared to be bristling with hate and spittle, or sitting puffing a fag all day getting fatter and fatter and wondering why they couldn’t sell something and own it at the same time. I’m not saying all Palestinians are like that by the way. I’m talking about the way they were shown on Louis’s film. Is it fair to transfer Jews into Palestinian areas that had been won in war?asked Louis. Is it fair not to mention that the wars in question were, in fact, wars of aggression, started by Arabs with the sole object of obliterating Israel? Not a lot of people know that, Louis. And Louis, if you were given the chance to enlighten them, why didn’t you?

WATER OFF A DUCK'S BACK...

Barry Woods, in a long and thorough post on WUWT, asks whether the BBC has broken faith with the general public in its conduct in the production of the Horizon programme presented by Keith Nurse, in which climate sceptics – and their arguments – were badly treated or ignored. There is much that is important in Mr Woods' post, but I don’t think the principal question he poses is quite the issue. The programme was a product of a much deeper and much older malaise. The “breaking of faith” by the BBC with audiences, its Charter and common sense – as has been admirably documented by Bishop Hill and Harmless Sky - happened several years ago, when, in a secret meeting crammed with political activists and warmists, it bizarrely decided that the science behind climate change was settled. This decision was taken by an organisation already infected with the zealotry of the rectitudes of corporate social responsibility, and stuffed full of staff recruited through the pages of the Guardian whose tendencies were to support left-wing liberalism and ideology. Ever since then, the BBC has pursued an open but unspoken agenda of pushing the alarmist cause, and it has led to every arm of the imperialist corporation embracing a form of bigoted zealotry unprecedented in its history. I do not believe (as some reaction to my post yesterday seemed to assume) that this means that the BBC from the top down is nakedly pursuing a ham-fisted climate alarmism strategy to make money for the pension fund. And nor are reporters like Roger Harrabin and Richard Black driven by the desire to make money for their own pension pots. But they have been given a carte blanche licence to pursue their prejudices. They are trapped in a paradigm of political activism and cannot see it, as Roger Harrabin’s post on WUWT in defence of his Met Office hide-the-decline shenanigans vividly testified. Because of this, the deeply-worrying revelations of Peter Sissons in his autobiography about the one-sidedness of BBC climate change reporting make no sense to most of those working at the corporation. There has been, as is usual with such attacks against the BBC, a virtual wall of silence, and no effort to engage with the important issues he raises. Roger Harrabin wrote baldly to the Daily Mail in response that, “he did not recognise” the BBC that Mr Sissons was talking about. This llustrates par excellence that talking to Mr Harrabin about his climate change prejudices is like trying to explain colour to a blind man. I believe that the consequences of this approach are manifested on a daily basis. An organisation that sets out its stall on the basis of fair and accurate reporting cannot see that it has become a travesty of those goals. Take for example, the reaction of the BBC’s College of Journalism (the self-declared “centre of excellence” in journalism skills) to the Keith Nurse Horizon programme. What does it do? Seek out a genuinely independent sceptic to give reaction and to allow the alternative case to be aired? No, precisely the opposite. It goes instead to what it laughingly describes as an “independent” commentator - Fiona Fox. But Ms Fox, as I have chronicled on this blog, is anything but independent; she is one of the most strident advocates of the BBC alarmism worldview. And a board member of her Science Media Centre is Ceri Thomas, the editor of Today – another ardent activist. This is what Ms Fox says about the programme:

This was in some ways a gentle and simple film which managed to focus on the battles over climate change without descending into the nasty, polarised style that has for too long characterised that debate. If you haven't seen it yet, you should do so.

Her inflammatory. crass comments have generated a torrent of counter-opinion pointing out the programme's inaccuracies, unfairness and bias. But as I have already noted, this will be seen by those at CoJo and in the wider BBC not as a reasonable reaction, but simply as more evidence that the sceptic community is a bunch of nasty, raving nutters: water off a duck’s back. Nothing but a major earthquake will change this rigid zealotry; the BBC is trapped in a massive delusion of its own making.

Question Time LiveBlog 3rd February 2011

>> THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 03, 2011

Tonight Question Time comes fromWorkington which has been a Labour stronghold since its creation in 1918 except for a short lived Tory by-election win in 1976. It is represented in the House of Commons by Labour career trade unionist Tony Cunningham. On the panel tonight we have Damian Green MP, Andy BurnhamMP, Melanie Phillips, the utterly insane Clare Short and someone calledNoreena Hertz who is engaged to Danny Cohen, the Channel Controller of BBC One. The LiveBlog will also cover the surreal This Week, with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo.