Full disclosure. I’ve worked in television and radio for 30 years, and I’ve seen many examples of bias in my time. Bernard Goldberg, who was a reporter for the CBS Evening News, documents even more in his book at left.
After this story, there’s example of a pattern for what peaked in the 10:10 video. – Anthony
Exploding Children in Eco-Group’s Video Fails to Upset Liberal News Media
Shocking British short to promote cutting carbon emissions shows skeptics being blown up for not participating.
By Julia A. Seymour
Business & Media Institute
10/6/2010 3:11:11 PM
Red is the new green, according to a horrific short film put together by global warming alarmists in Britain for 10:10 a “Global Day of Doing.” Blood red that is.
The group 10:10 UK’s “No Pressure” video advertisement that was intended to promote its cause begins with a teacher lecturing her students: “Just before you go there’s a brilliant idea in the air that I’d like to run by you. Now it’s called 10:10 – the idea is that everyone starts cutting their carbon emissions by 10 percent, thus keeping the planet safe for everyone, eventually.”
Preaching global warming alarmism to children is nothing shocking, but the next part of the film was. The teacher singles out the two students who are skeptical about participating, presses a red button and BLAM! those children’s bodies explode as blood and guts cover their classmates.
Skeptical soccer players, businesspeople and even actress Gillian Anderson all get blown up in the “disturbing” video for not complying with the wishes of the global warming crowd.
The violent depiction may be a new low for the environmental movement, but its violent rhetoric has been in use for years. Yet, the response from the liberal news media in the U.S. has been minimal, despite the willingness of the same outlets to portray – without a shred of evidence – conservatives as “incendiary” and violent.
Despite the horrific nature of the video and the message that skeptics should be killed, the television news media, with the exception of Fox News, haven’t reported on it as of October 5.
The New York Times has run a couple of articles on its website, and James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal wrote a strong condemnation October 5 of the “green supremacists” that created the video. But, so far at least, much of the national news media have ignored the controversy.
The video was outrageous enough to upset even climate-change extremist Bill McKibben, who called it “the kind of stupidity that hurts our side.” Taranto said that the video had “drawn lots of criticism, much of which to our mind is not strong enough.” Perhaps he had the Time magazine’s blog headline in mind which callously read: “Blowing Up British Kids: Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea.”
But compare the minimal, isolated journalistic condemnation of such a violent and shocking film, to the volume of news stories portraying tea partiers and conservatives violent, without any proof whatsoever. On March 25, NBC’s Ann Curry harangued Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about Republicans “encouraging the violence” against Democrats.
Curry specifically cited a map from former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin’s website that had shown weak Democratic districts in crosshairs. She pressed McCain saying “Do you know, recommend that your party use less incendiary language?”
McCain replied that terms like “targeted” and “battleground” are part of the “political lexicon.” Such terms have been long used by both parties and by the news media without concern of actual violence, yet Curry declared “These are very dangerous times.”
A few days after that “Today” interview, CNN condemned Palin with an onscreen caption that read: “INCITING VIOLENCE?” as Palin was showing speaking in Nevada.
Anchor Don Lemon said on March 28, “Sarah Palin takes on one of the highest ranking Democrats right in his own backyard, all while causing another uproar by urging tea parties to quote ‘reload.’ And the question is, are comments like that inciting violence and name-calling over the health care bill and the like?” The panelists that answered that question agreed that Obama’s political opponents were inciting violence and were motivated by racism.
But Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen took the criticism of conservatives to an absurd level on October 5 by arguing that the Tea Party movement is like those responsible for the 1970 Kent State shooting. Cohen claimed a “language of rage” fuels the Tea Party and took shots at Glenn Beck and New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino.
Violent Video, an Attempt at Humor?
After sparking outrage over the violent video, 10:10 pulled the video and issued an apology which read in part: “At 10:10 we’re all about trying new and creative ways of getting people to take action on climate change. Unfortunately in this instance we missed the mark … Oh well, we live and learn.”
The 10:10 UK climate group, which has several corporate sponsors including Sony, Kyocera Mita and O2, along with a number of celebrity supporters, claimed the video was supposed to be humorous. 10:10 said its sponsors did not have prior knowledge of the video and Sony issued a statement condemning the video as “ill-conceived and tasteless” and said they were “disassociating” from the group.
Kyocera Mita is reconsidering its partnership with 10:10 and said they were “very shocked by the movie.”
“We wanted to find a way to bring this critical issue back into the headlines whilst making people laugh,” said more of 10:10’s apology. But is humor a valid defense for portraying the murder of people who disagree with you?
That was the basic defense Jim Edwards of CBS Interactive’s BNet gave for the video. Edwards said, “No one but the most extreme climate change denier believes this is actually what environmentalists want. It’s obviously just a joke outrageous enough to actually get people’s attention.”
WSJ’s Taranto wrote that “one may hope that Jim Edwards is right when he denies that ‘this is actually what environmentalists want.’ But it’s bad enough that this is what they fantasize about — and that they manifestly felt no inhibition about airing such a depraved fantasy in public.”
Full editorial here
=========================================================
This incident would be simply a bad aberration if it were not for the fact that we have had a string of such blunders from the green movement.
Let’s go all the way back to 1990, where the National Resources Defense Council uses a group of babies, a John Lennon song, and Tom cruise, Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, and Demi Moore to push what they are selling.
By itself, harmless. But it does represent the beginning of a trend in the global warming movement with these two points; be afraid for the children, and pay attention to clueless celebrities. It is a theme that has been repeated again and again.
For example in 2006, we had a little girl that was going to be run over by a freight train if we didn’t do something about climate change:
Here’s another from 2006 called “Tick” using dozens of children:
While I can’t be certain, it looks like they may have used the same child actress for both of these. Compare:
Then we have this difficult to watch Finnish TV ad from Greenpeace showing a baby that could drown in a bathtub if we don’t do something about climate change
There’s the drowning puppy bedtime story from ACT ON CO2:
Then they move on to the beloved animals committing suicide:
Plane Stupid’s Polar bears falling from the sky commercial:
We have this disturbing child rant from Greenpeace:
Then we had this disturbing and insulting ad showing a swarm of planes attacking New York City to promote WWF’s view:
“The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.”
Yes, there’s a whole lineage of shocking, angry, tasteless, and disturbing videos from the NGO’s that take donations and turn it into pure propaganda.
But we’re the crazy ones.
UPDATE: I forgot to add this one, probably the most offensive one, from the 2009 Cannes film festival.
Source: http://www.act-responsible.org/ACT/ACTINCANNES/THEEXPO2009.htm
Act responsible?
I really liked the ‘new’ little bit, “Red is the new green.” – but didn’t you know?? “Green is Red”, that’s been out there for almost twenty years.
I got THAT little tidbit stopping in for a bagel one morning, must have been about 1991-92 when I was studying architecture at the Fingerlakes Institute for Advanced Bolshevik Studies [they don’t call it the BIG RED for nothing]. Out of idle curiosity I picked up a copy of MIM Notes [that’s the ‘rag’ of the Maoist International Movement] off the rack [something one could DO in a bagel shop in Ithaca, NY] and there it was, the headline of the lead article on the front page, “GREEN IS RED” which described how the communist and revolutionary movements of the world were changing their tutelary color from Red to the more environmentally aware Green. And, this of course in a journal where the by line was a three or four digit number [Hey, at least if I choose to use a ‘handle’ it is a properly obscure literary reference], and half of these were written, “From behind bars.”
You’ve noticed too perhaps the progression of ‘Some Facts’ [or information pretending to be factual] to ‘No Facts – 100% Narrative’. We can interpret this as the evolution of the environmentalist meme away from any attempt at a fact based propaganda approach to a the ‘Shock and Awe’ approach based upon hypercannabinated paranoid fantasy. I wonder if anyone has attempted to correlate this shift in strategy with the passage of medicinal marijuana legislation? [just a thought]
I wonder if losing their sponsorship will ‘shock’ any of these folks back into reality instead of ‘awing’ us with their dreadful lack of good taste?
~ your friend W^3
Would I get snipped if I called you all a bunch of whiners?
The liberals all complain how the MSM is biased against them too, and can bring up many more examples and more serious examples than this. Was it liberal bias that none of the media would even mention the biggest anti-war rallies in the history of the human race?
Also, if you saw Fox’s segment on this, you’ll understand the dilemma facing the news shows – the video was too graphic for them to show, but if they don’t show it there’s no story. Do they give a sensationalistic warning “the following is very graphic – I dare you to leave the T.V. on you wuss!” like Fox did? Geraldo would have been all over it, but I can’t remember if he thought he was liberal or conservative. That kind of warning strikes me as tacky and unworthy of a serious news program regardless of subject matter.
You know, there are lots of people in America who just don’t care that much about global warming that they would be interested. I care about it. You care about it. That’s why we come to blogs like WUWT. Most of our neighbors couldn’t be bothered to listen. Try to keep a little perspective.
Pat Frank: Thanks for the heads up.
I googled on Noam Chomsky lies. There appears to be lots of stuff there.
My coffee break’s over and I have to get back to work but I will be following the links after I get home. On the other hand, I do recall (dimly because it was more than three decades ago) checking Chomsky’s references on a couple of lies published in Time magazine. As far as I could tell, Chomsky had his facts right in that instance. Even liars sometimes tell the truth. 😉
James sexton,
According to Gallup, unemployment is actually 10.1 %.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/143426/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-September.aspx
A bit OT, but since unemployment was mentioned a few times above, consider this: With a population growing at roughly 2.5 million per year, the US needs to “create” 200,000 new jobs per month, just to stay even. So when we hear trumpeting about 40,000 “new jobs” last month, it means 160,000 labor force entrants did not find jobs.
Pat Frank: Yes, upon a time I was under Chomsky’s spell.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by those hundreds of footnotes in Chomsky’s books and by the calm intellectual authority of his voice. (Though even back then I wondered how many of those cites were assembled by grad students and disciples.) Eventually I realized that things weren’t adding up with Chomsky, especially with regard to the Middle East.
If you were to make the contents of your Chomsky file public on the web, I would be interested. Here’s the link to an Israeli blog diary of an anti-chomskyite.
I actually begin to wonder if this was not a brilliant set-up of the whole climate change movement – I could not have written a better parody of how we, the “uninformed public”, and especially our children are being brainwashed by this tripe.
I just loved the sanctimonious teacher – obviously a fully paid-up member of the Greens – who thinks nothing of indoctrinating children with her highly politicised views of the world. If you wanted people to sit up and question the “message” that the climate fanatics are dispensing, you really could not have done it better.
I think Richard Curtis should go down as one of the best 5th Columnists of all time.
Now hopefully everyone will be asking their children exactly what they are being taught in the classroom and we parents can fight the brainwashing.
MSM baffles me.
In all honesty though, media is not my field (I’m an engineer and own and operate a small engineering/manufacturing firm). I like magazines and reading is my chief form of entertainment – I do not look at the TV and haven’t for decades. No offense TV people, I just don’t like the medium.
I became aware of Climategate through the Wall Street Journal and read CruTape Letters as soon as it came out. Wow. I fully expected to see print journals just all over this story. Practically Nada. When Newsweak did run a mangled and poorly informed article, they published a letter from Michael Mann the next issue giving him plenty of space to point out how wrong they were.
Time passed and still no participation in Climategate beyond the Wall Street Journal and a few obviously right-leaning publications. After educating myself on CAGW a bit, I noted how ridiculously slanted MSM print media was/is on the topic and canceled my subscriptions to all magazines except “Guitar Player” and if they so much as breath a peep about CAGW (unless to debunk it) they are toast too!
So there you have it – a former fan of print media canceling subscriptions and further more, telling everyone who will listen that print media is shot through with outright lies. If all these magazines wanted was to sell copies, they should have jumped all over Climategate – I think it would have been a fabulous magazine seller. But what do I know about media? Obviously not much.
CAGW is an exaggerated non-problem with no solution (if indeed it was a problem…). This post shows how heavily invested MSM is in CAGW propaganda and I can’t help but wonder “what are they thinking?” How does this serve MSM? I mean, how long before everyone starts to notice the sea-level isn’t rising any more than usual; the poles aren’t melting; etc. It may take time, but eventually people who haven’t yet figured out CAGW is a scam, will figure it out and then how many of them will cancel their subscriptions to print media and tune out like I have? It’s not like magazines and newspapers are doing well right now…
One explanation is that media is run by incompetent, stupid people. There is no conspiracy or insidious interests being served – it can all be explained by simple human laziness and stupidity. They just missed the mark and keep missing the mark. I believe people are interested in the truth. But again, what do I know about media?
It would be nice if some writer or editor from some MSM magazine or another would post a comment explaining how their poor journalism practices are helping their cause; which I imagine is to sell more newspapers and magazines. They aren’t getting anymore money from me.
Whats worth noting here is not only are they dangerously finatical but in many cases they are also just plain stupid about even the most basic facts.
The WTC commercial was in poor taste but for them to use a tsunami disaster as ammunition for action against global warming simply doesn’t make sense and anyone would see this.
Another example more recently is found in a gallery of synthetic photos published by the telegraph in the UK showing what the world would look like of we don’t take action. Take a look at this photo which depicts rising sea levels:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/8044199/Postcards-from-the-future-illustrators-imagine-how-London-could-be-affected-by-climate-change.html?image=11
“London’s busiest thoroughfare is a haven of calm as water levels rise ever higher. Water lilies, fish and wind turbines fight a losing battle on behalf of a civilisation which is going, going, gone. What happens to busy city centres once they become redundant? Piccadilly Circus is synonymous with being busy but could become a haven of calm and peace with empty buildings just used for supporting the infrastructure of power generation”
Whats wrong with this picture? (I realize everything is wrong with it, but take a closer look – hint; sea is salty)
Not just wrong, but also stupid.
The thing that disturbs me in this video the most, is that they aren’t blowing up “skeptics” per say, but anyone who is apathetic to their message.
Frank K. says:
October 7, 2010 at 10:33 am
I feel sorry for those of you in other countries who, through you hard-earned tax dollars, have to support a giant “national” media complex.
I sold the TV on ebay last year. Since then, although I already told them we don’t have a TV anymore, I get a threatening letter from the TV licensing authority about once a fortnight. When the one with the red capitals an inch high on the *outside* of the envelope was handed to me by our postman I wrote back to them threatening court action for harassment.
I got another today saying our address has been passed to “THE ENFORCEMENT TEAM” who “WILL ENTER YOUR HOUSE”.
What? They think they can break into my home? Bring it on boys, my cricket bat is ready and waiting.
tallbloke says:
October 7, 2010 at 1:12 pm
“1984”. Every exaggeration it’s a sin, and you, up there, have exaggerated democracy.
This is not a great example of bias because the group, 10:10, is not something we’ve heard of before. If some nut off the street does something stupid, then it’s not news. If this had been put out by Greenpeace, it would certainly be news. But as it is, it’s just somebody passing gas in their backyard.
commieBob says:
October 7, 2010 at 10:25 am
Never mind bias. The media tells outright lies.
The best proof that the media tells outright lies is work done by Noam Chomsky
=================
For his work on linguistics, linguistic philosophy, and philosophy of mind, Chomsky is universally recognized as one of the sharpest minds of the 20th century. I have read part of that work, and I do think he is a first rate intelligence.
His political/activist work is more controversial, but no doubt his analysis of the media and propaganda systems were groundbreaking at the time and have become classics of the genre. The main media does lie and distort – compulsively, chronically, systematically – almost as if lying and distorting was the main reason for its existence. Which it is. It is mainly a vehicle of propaganda, and has always been.
Having antagonized the political right for obvious reasons, Chomsky proceeded to ridicule post-modernism as nothing but empty posturing and prattle, thus antagonizing what for many people is the current “university left” as well.
He has antagonized critics of Israel who accuse him of being too soft on that score, and also antagonized supporters of Israel who accuse him of being too critical.
He has slowed down now –getting old. In his day, very few people dared debate him in public on political matters, for the exact same reasons they don’t dare debate Monckton on AGW. The amount of information he had ready at his fingertips, coupled with the sharpness of his mind, was thoroughly intimidating.
He had an article in January of this year commenting on a Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to fund elections directly – and what it implies. This decision should have caused some worry by defenders of democracy, but it didn’t.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/5502/the_corporate_takeover_of_u.s._democracy/
Obama just said if the Rebublicans win the house next month, there will be “hand-to-hand combat” on Capital Hill. Is he promoting overthrowing the gov’t if the Dems lose the House? I’m just reporting the facts. You decide!
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-base-20101008,0,3160644.story
Duncan says:
October 7, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Would I get snipped if I called you all a bunch of whiners?
The liberals all complain how the MSM is biased against them too, and can bring up many more examples and more serious examples than this. Was it liberal bias that none of the media would even mention the biggest anti-war rallies in the history of the human race?
=======================================================
I’d rather not be covered than mischaracterized. Remember the hubbub about the racist conservatives with guns by an Obama town hall meeting? As proof they showed us a man with a rifle across his back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx4HqkqNnJU
Oops, nary an apology offered.
BTW, I’ve never known any of the big 3 to be too squeamish to sensationalize a story, only too squeamish to tell it if it contradicts their point of view.
Your statement, “You know, there are lots of people in America who just don’t care that much about global warming….” says about all that needs saying. You’re right! So, if its clear that many don’t care about it, why the constant coverage? Why the laws? Why the ceaseless droning about unprecedented this and robust proof to that? It may not fit perfectly into the left vs. right narrative.(It doesn’t.) But it is clear, to me anyway, that there is an agenda with the MSM, and it isn’t about selling airspace, as you so clearly stated, many simply don’t care. (Until the laws are passed that robs them of their liberties and wealth.)
@ur momisugly tallbloke says:
October 7, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Frank K. says:
October 7, 2010 at 10:33 am
I feel sorry for those of you in other countries who, through you hard-earned tax dollars, have to support a giant “national” media complex.
I sold the TV on ebay last year. Since then, although I already told them we don’t have a TV anymore, I get a threatening letter from the TV licensing authority about once a fortnight. When the one with the red capitals an inch high on the *outside* of the envelope was handed to me by our postman I wrote back to them threatening court action for harassment.
I got another today saying our address has been passed to “THE ENFORCEMENT TEAM” who “WILL ENTER YOUR HOUSE”.
What? They think they can break into my home? Bring it on boys, my cricket bat is ready and waiting.
Excuse me? I don’t understand. Are you saying they are forcing you to have a TV?
allright. climategate and darwin zero woke me up.
but had i still been a believer, blowing up Gillian Anderson would surely have sent me over.
that’s just plain sacrilege.
This is not a liberal bias. Are you nuts?
This is a corporate bias since all of the “mainstream” media are corporate owned. If the corporations wanted it broadcasted, it would be broadcasted.
What a crock!
—————————————————————————————-
Spot on David, it’s good to see that others can spot this classic capitalist conspiracy to rip off all and sundry while dressing up the scam in green and left wing ideology. It’s clever, and many people have fallen for it.
For those who fawn over Chomsky as a “great intellectual” and not simply an academic PT Barnum I strongly suggest reading The Anti-Chomsky Reader for a little insight.
British readers may have come across this comment in The Times today (Oct 7th), in its ‘Eureka’ science supplement. Ben Webster, who I think is the Environment Correspondent, has made a list of ‘infamous five’ top sceptics. He says that he has ‘selected the five most important sceptics. Importance is gauged more in terms of influence on public opinion than scientific credulity. With sceptics, there is usually an inverse relationship between the two.’
He ends his list (Bjorn Lomberg, Nigel Lawson, Sarah Palin, Christopher Monkton, Steve McIntyre) thus:
‘Prominent sceptics tend to be over 60, so few will be alive in 20 years’ time to see the consequences of their efforts to resist global action on climate change. Perhaps Sarah Palin, 46, will be left alone (with her hunting rifles) to confront the displaced millions.’
The Times used to be a newspaper of some standing.
Luke says:
October 7, 2010 at 1:03 pm
The thing that disturbs me in this video the most, is that they aren’t blowing up “skeptics” per say, but anyone who is apathetic to their message.
========================================================
I don’t believe they perceive a difference. If you’re not with them, then you should be humorously exterminated.
I don’t know how I missed the COP15 nasty video. To me, the COP15 child’s scream is as harrowing as the Greenpeace child’s abusive misplaced anger and the 10:10 sick humour.
This putting millstones round children’s necks is what made Jesus really angry. Plus he said his work was bearing witness to truth – which is what I understand real science is about.
Michael Mann’s immunity is allowing this indoctrination without debate to continue. So is IPCC’s lack of accountability. So is the MSM’s handling of science. So is academia’s infiltration by activists and funding by alarmism. So are all the schools which are teaching alarmism without checks.
So many people are to blame. So many people who could wield clout are too chicken to speak up. So many people are too lazy to check. So many people can be selfishly motivated to dangerous actions by the whip hand of a small number in control.
So many people believe that so many people cannot all be wrong.
“The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.”
I don’t quite get it. Does it follow from the principle “the brutally powerful should be respected and preserved“? Whose principle is it? What kind of people think this way?
No doubt 9/11 was a brutally powerful act in itself. Does it mean al-Qa’ida should be respected and preserved? Or was this deed still too meager to deserve it? I do admit I am confused more than a bit.
OK, maybe the planet should be respected and preserved (although I don’t have a clue why an inanimate object is to be respected and as for preservation, enhancement sounds better). But anyway, is it because it was able to inflict a hundred times more damage in a single act than the vilest of our contemporaries or in spite of it? If the former holds as the ad suggests, does it follow the bolsheviks and nazis, who killed off even more people than the tsunami of 2005, should have been respected and preserved?
This logic is sicker than we thought.
In terms of media bias, here are a couple classic examples from ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/video/hero-scientist-titanic-earth-sink-global-warming-hope-save-control-climate-science-stephen-schnieder-11360895
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/video/pikas-tiny-cute-close-extinction-9448648