David Rose of the Mail on Sunday tears the BBC a new one, thanks to an “amateur climate blogger”.
- Pensioner forces BBC to lift veil on 2006 eco-seminar to top executives
- Papers reveal influence of top green campaigners including Greenpeace
- Then-head of news Helen Boaden said it impacted a ‘broad range of output’
- Yet BBC has spent more than £20,000 in legal fees trying to keep it secret
The BBC has spent tens of thousands of pounds over six years trying to keep secret an extraordinary ‘eco’ conference which has shaped its coverage of global warming, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The controversial seminar was run by a body set up by the BBC’s own environment analyst Roger Harrabin and funded via a £67,000 grant from the then Labour government, which hoped to see its ‘line’ on climate change and other Third World issues promoted in BBC reporting.
At the event, in 2006, green activists and scientists – one of whom believes climate change is a bigger danger than global nuclear war – lectured 28 of the Corporation’s most senior executives.
Then director of television Jana Bennett opened the seminar by telling the executives to ask themselves: ‘How do you plan and run a city that is going to be submerged?’ And she asked them to consider if climate change laboratories might offer material for a thriller.
A lobby group with close links to green campaigners, the International Broadcasting Trust (IBT), helped to arrange government funding for both the climate seminar and other BBC seminars run by Mr Harrabin – one of which was attended by then Labour Cabinet Minister Hilary Benn.
Applying for money from Mr Benn’s Department for International Development (DFID), the IBT promised Ministers the seminars would influence programme content for years to come.
The BBC began its long legal battle to keep details of the conference secret after an amateur climate blogger spotted a passing reference to it in an official report.
Tony Newbery, 69, from North Wales, asked for further disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The BBC’s resistance to revealing anything about its funding and the names of those present led to a protracted struggle in the Information Tribunal. The BBC has admitted it has spent more than £20,000 on barristers’ fees. However, the full cost of their legal battle is understood to be much higher.
=============================================================
Related:
BREAKING: The ‘secret’ list of the BBC 28 is now public – let’s call it ‘TwentyEightGate’
Thanks to Maurizio for that revelation.
=============================================================
Tony Newbery writes:
What is clear in the Mail on Sunday report is that funding for the 2006 BBC climate change seminar came from a government department. Also that the funds were channelled through environmental lobbyists who were organising the seminar. And it is possible that the government department that provided the funds had some input about the topics selected for the seminars. Lord Hall, as the man who encouraged Roger Harrabin to set up the seminar programme, features in this story too. However since his return to the BBC he has thrown some interesting light on the matter, contradicting just about everything that the BBC has claimed about the seminar previously. –Tony Newbery, Harmless Sky, 12 January 2014
There is more at Harmless Sky, including links to the FOI release that nails the BBC.
===========================================================
The new attention on the BBC’s 28gate seminar has been prompted by disclosure of documents showing how the [UK Government’s] Department for International Development responded to a funding request for funding from the International Broadcasting Trust a body that lobbies broadcasters on behalf of green NGOs. What we have, in essence, appears to be government paying for subversion of the state broadcaster. –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 12 January 2014
=============================================================
UPDATE: from comments.
Roger Harrabin was on the advisory board of the Tyndall centre, at the same time his CMEP was being funded by Prof Mike Hulme (seminar attendee) Tyndall to organise the seminars.
I’m still to curious to know whether he had stepped down or not from Tyndall , when the January 26th, 2006 seminar happened.
According to wayback machine,
Roger Harrabin was on the Tyndall Advisory (alongside Bill Hare Greenpeace) board in August 2005, (after this date, the Tyndall website changed and advisory board info was no longer available, via wayback)
the conflict of interest for the BBC seems huge, given:
Prof Mike Hulme (climategate 2 email):
“Did anyone hear Stott vs. Houghton on Today, radio 4 this morning? Woeful stuff really. This is one reason why Tyndall is sponsoring the Cambridge Media/Environment Programme to starve this type of reporting at source.” (email 2496)
Both Harrabin and Smith seemed to have thought that the CMEP seminars werevery succesful in persuading the BBC to change it stance and policies in the reporting of ‘climate change’ as described by Dr Joe Smith’s in his OU profile: (h/t DAvid Holland)
“The seminars have been publicly credited with catalysing significant changes in the tone and content of BBC outputs across platforms and with leading directly to specific and major innovations in programming,” – Dr Joe Smith
“It has had a major impact on the willingness of the BBC to raise these issues for discussion. Joe Smith and I are now wondering whether we can help other journalists to perform a similar role in countries round the world” – Roger Harrabin
We wrote about the above at Watts Up With That, when climategate 2 broke, quotes from & more detail here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/
Congratulations to Tony, in finally getting all the information..
Links to all the docs on his blog – The Harmless Sky
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Wayback when they decided what we should think”.
So you think they don’t do that anymore?
Think again.
just as scandalous. google “tony newbery” and click “news”. apart from this single article in the Daily Mail by David Rose, the MSM has reported NOTHING on this lengthy saga.
Tony Newbery is an inspiration.
give thanx for David Rose.
Roger Harrabin was on the advisory board of the Tyndall centre, at the same time his CMEP was being funded by Prof Mike Hulme (seminar attendee) Tyndall to organise the seminars.
I’m still to curious to know whether he had stepped down or not from Tyndall , when the January 26th, 2006 seminar happened.
According to wayback machine,
http://web.archive.org/web/20051112140142/http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/general/management/advisory_board.shtml
Roger Harrabin was on the Tyndall Advisory (alongside Bill Hare Greenpeace) board in August 2005, (after this date, the Tyndall website changed and advisory board info was no longer available, via wayback)
the conflict of interest for the BBC seems huge, given:
Prof Mike Hulme (climategate 2 email):
“Did anyone hear Stott vs. Houghton on Today, radio 4 this morning? Woeful stuff really. This is one reason why Tyndall is sponsoring the Cambridge Media/Environment Programme to starve this type of reporting at source.” (email 2496)
Both Harrabin and Smith seemed to have thought that the CMEP seminars werevery succesful in persuading the BBC to change it stance and policies in the reporting of ‘climate change’ as described by Dr Joe Smith’s in his OU profile: (h/t DAvid Holland)
“The seminars have been publicly credited with catalysing significant changes in the tone and content of BBC outputs across platforms and with leading directly to specific and major innovations in programming,” – Dr Joe Smith
“It has had a major impact on the willingness of the BBC to raise these issues for discussion. Joe Smith and I are now wondering whether we can help other journalists to perform a similar role in countries round the world” – Roger Harrabin
We wrote about the above at Watts Up With That, when climategate 2 broke, quotes from & more detail here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/
Congratulations to Tony, in finally getting all the information..
Links to all the docs on his blog – The Harmless Sky
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=703
The well-meaning feel the ends justify the means. But most judgement in the uk and most of europe is based on emotion not reason.
Would this have any connection to the fact the BBC invested a large portion of its superannuation fund in carbon trading? How sad?
cd I don’t agree with that sentiment at all, usually the Brits are very calculating and conservative, and this all started to make money out of the fear installed in people to indulge the green energy lobby and carbon traders. Greed.
Remember guys, this is perfect story, Erin Brockhovic without the (o)(o), a pensioner blogger (Tony) fighting for what is right because it is right, a late-night blogger (me) having a look around the Wayback Machine and finding the secret list (since purged, as expected), against the Might of the BBC ultimately brought down by the IBT’s enthusiasm to tell the world all it had been doing, including the list of participants to supposedly secret meeting.
The fact that it took 14 months for such a story to make it in full to the Daily Mail shows how much of the newsmedia is not interested in news.
And especially, we have now strong if not definitive evidence that the world-famous editorial independence of BBC News is just another paternalistic scam, as it is simply enslaved to the will and whims of the Corporation called BBC, paid by the public but completely unanswerable to anybody and as already discovered, mostly a mutual-help society with large salaries and giant severance packages, not to mention the incestuous links to the Guardian.
It will all go the way of the ice delivery companies. In time.
*Would this have any connection to the fact the BBC invested a large portion of its superannuation fund in carbon trading? *
For the sake of fairness, I have to point out that that is not true — the BBC’s top investments are in: GlaxoSmithKline ;Rolls Royce ; BP ;Amazon.Com; AstraZeneca; Royal Dutch Shell;British American Tobacco.
Their silly and dishonest alarmism comes from the internal mindset, not external financial factors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mypension/aboutthescheme/topinvestments.html
That £20,000 to prevent anyone from finding out about what they did?
That’s called Consciousness of Guilt.
They know what they did was wrong, would be seen by a majority of the public as wrong and would be condemned.
That’s why the Climate Change Priesthood want to shut up the Skeptics; they’re afraid they’ll lose the argument. They fear that because they know the theory is weak and lacks enough accurate and strong evidence.
jakee308 says:
January 12, 2014 at 5:56 am
That £20,000 to prevent anyone from finding out about what they did?
That’s called Consciousness of Guilt.
They know what they did was wrong, would be seen by a majority of the public as wrong and would be condemned.
That’s why the Climate Change Priesthood want to shut up the Skeptics; they’re afraid they’ll lose the argument. They fear that because they know the theory is weak and lacks enough accurate and strong evidence.
The BBC would be there reporting and describing The Emperor’s New Clothes in glowing terms while preventing that impertinent child’s claims from being reported.
Ref my FOI request to the BBC
Background
The seminar was conducted under the Chatham House Rule to enable free and frank
discussion, something that is necessary for our independent journalism. Some information
regarding this event was posted on a website in 2007 without the permission of the BBC,
and later taken down. It has recently become apparent that this information is still available
on an internet archive. However, this does not impact on the decision of the Tribunal nor
the reason the BBC defended its decision not to disclose the material sought under the FO
Act.
In total, £18,665 plus VAT of £4,091 was spent on legal fees.
Please note however that the majority of Freedom of Information work is carried out in-
house within the BBC. The Information Policy and Compliance team, which deals with
many aspects of FOI, does not charge out for its work and we therefore do not hold
information relating to the individual costs of in-house work.
“What we have, in essence, appears to be government paying for subversion of the state broadcaster. –Andrew Montford”
Come on, who in the world expects a state broadcaster to not be a propaganda organ for the regime. What exactly the regime is is matter of debate – Welfen, Eurocrats? Surely not the elected government.
The key issue, now, is will there be a proper independent commission to determine exactly what happened?
omnologos
Try writing a script for this story. I’m sure the powers that be in Hollywood would be fighting over it. /sarc…. and the many activist actors would be fighting to play the lead./sarc …..or if you went low budget can you imagine the hype this would generate at Cannes Film Festival./sarc……who knows just maybe skepticism would go “a vant gard” . Please forgive my poor French.
In 2005 the UN redefined what the term “:sustainability’ meant to expressly encompass economic and social transformation. This is part of an explosion of activities in 2006 laying out the desired transitions to be pushed in the name of AGW necessity. The big corporations are all being pushed to see themselves as components of a common good Mindset supposedly bound to focus on a triple bottom line.
We are all better off knowing what is being pushed in the name of Sustainability.
“Mr. Benn” I think should be “Mr. Bean.”
😉
To be fair to the BBC 20K does not buy you very much barrister and solicitor time in the UK.
Now if someone, who has access and the PW, could check for any details that might be deep in the FOIA regarding communications with IBT, BBC, Harrabin or any other of the regular suspects… There may be more to the story.
omnologos: We remember who broke the story. It is deeply annoying that the reporters (+1 to them for having finally reported on Tony Newberry) are not acknowledging your contribution.
I am speculating, they must be afraid of the Wayback Machine themselves and prefer to keep the public in the dark about it. I myself did not know about it until you pointed it out.
By the way, I was then able to recover most of my experimental data I thought I had lost more than 10 years ago. The crawlers visited the machine where it was stored while it was still alive. How cool is that?
This scandal can’t possibly be true, I haven’t seen anything on BBC news reporting it or denying the report / sarc.
A moratorium on sarcasm! Please! /sarc
oops!
Liberal elites (er, “progressives”) think they are so competent at running their own lives, that they have the right to run the lives of the little people too. If you disagree too vocally, they also have the power to call upon men with guns to shut you up. A glimpse of life in the Socialist Utopia.
Rick Bradford says: January 12, 2014 at 5:56 am “Their silly and dishonest alarmism comes from the internal mindset, not external financial factors.”
Your list shows the Investments now, not a few Years ago, when I distinctly remember seeing investment in “Carbon”, but I can’t remember, but see these
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/156703/8bn-BBC-eco-bias
http://biasedbbc.org/blog/2011/12/28/bbc-pension-fund-hires-green-advisers/
http://australianclimatemadness.com/2010/02/07/bbc-pension-fund-invested-in-climate-companies/
http://biasedbbc.proboards.com/thread/897
http://www.climategate.com/follow-the-money-bbc-exposed-in-biggest-climate-racket-on-planet
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9055183/BBC-admits-receiving-millions-in-grants-from-EU-and-councils.html
OT Anthony, but those guys and gals from the Russian Ship are still sitting on the Australian Ice Breaker at Casey Station, rockin and rollin with the waves and discomfort of being at sea. Karma!
From the Tony Newbery Harmless Sky I see:
Further down his post I read:
Specialists:
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/12/breaking-the-secret-list-of-the-bbc-28-is-now-public/
If the BBC were a witness in court they would have been thoroughly discredited. The BBC and the Guardian will pay a heavy price for their CAGW nonsense.