At Last: BBC Told To Ensure Balance On Climate Change
The Daily Telegraph, 13 October 2010
by Neil Midgley
Climate change sceptics are likely to be given greater prominence in BBC documentaries and news bulletins following new editorial guidelines that call for impartiality in the corporation’s science coverage.
The BBC has been repeatedly accused of bias in its reporting of climate change issues.
Last year one of its reporters, Paul Hudson, was criticised for not reporting on some of the highly controversial “Climategate” leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, even though he had been in possession of them for some time.
Climate change sceptics have also accused the BBC of not properly reporting “Glaciergate”, when a study from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) saying that glaciers would melt by 2035 was discredited.
But the BBC’s new editorial guidelines, published yesterday after an extensive consultation that considered over 1,600 submissions by members of the public, say expressly for the first time that scientific issues fall within the corporation’s obligation to be impartial.
“The BBC must be inclusive, consider the broad perspective, and ensure that the existence of a range of views is appropriately reflected,” said BBC trustee Alison Hastings.
“In addition the new guideline extends the definition of ‘controversial’ subjects beyond those of public policy and political or industrial controversy to include controversy within religion, science, finance, culture, ethics and other matters.”
However James Delingpole, a prominent climate change sceptic, yesterday said that he predicted little movement in the BBC’s environmental stories.
“It’s highly unlikely that they’ll be more balanced in their coverage,” he said.
“It’s a whole cultural thing at the BBC – that people who don’t believe are just ‘flat earthers’. Whenever they invite dissenters like me on to debates, they surround us with ‘warmists’. On Any Questions, for example, Jonathan Dimbleby does his best to be impartial, but this is a man with a wind turbine in his garden.”
In 2007, a BBC Trust report called Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century said: “Climate change is another subject where dissenters can be unpopular … 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.”
The BBC Trust is also currently conducting a separate review into impartiality in the corporation’s science coverage, led by Professor Steve Jones from University College London, which will report in the spring of next year.
Professor Jones has been asked to consider whether the BBC’s output “gives appropriate weight to scientific conclusions including different theories and due weight to the views expressed by those sceptical about the science and how it was conducted or evaluated.”
Richard Black the doyen of unbiased reporting said:-
“Successive reports, notably by the Dutch government, have found nothing to challenge the basic picture of a warming world that the IPCC and many other scientific bodies have painted in recent times – whatever the findings may have been about the behaviour of some individual scientists.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/10/climate_body_seeks_new_wardrob.html#comments
The BBC love makeover programmes and it is only when they carry out a makeover with their environmental correspondants with scientifically qualified personnel will any change occur.
About time, but I will believe it only when I see it. The BBC is stuffed over full of left-wing cultists who are totally in denial about anything not of that left-wing belief system. They literally cannot compute any data that runs counter to their belief system.
I have been in the UK for a few days and listened to ‘Costing the Earth’ today. A more ludicrous party political broadcast for panic stricken catastrophism one has rarely heard. There is no such thing as balance. There is not even any rationality. Some air head lady explained that indigenous peoples (whoever they are) have a law which is made nature and the environment and not by man. This apparently was the law which excused the Kingsnorth vandals. The complete falsity that extreme weather events are (a) increasing (b) caused by CO2 increases was taken for granted. It was taken for granted that the Katrina disaster was due to emissions.
The oil giants were to blame for having funded denialism, it was just like the tobacco situation all over again.
There was not even the smallest gesture to any different point of view. This was pure propaganda. The UK population is paying for this stuff out of what is essentially a tax levy on the privilege of watching television.
You can probably download it, listen. And then write and object.
But no, there is no balance. There is basically carefully put together deliberate propaganda that has no basis whatever in fact.
Nobody anywhere has established that Hudson was in possession of more than the one, single email that mentioned him personally, and that was passed to him by “a friend”. Because Hudson was able to attest to the veracity of THIS email, he suggested that the content of the Climategate ZIP file may be genuine – all before the veracity of the email content was confirmed by UEA.
Many have made the presumption that, because he had been forwarded THAT email, he must have known of the Climategate ZIP and stayed quiet. This is a logical fallacy. It would be nice if this was acknowledged at some point. Preferably soon.
As for the BBC reporting climate science in a balanced way, there is nothing in the new mandate to force change. The same reporters are reporting the same drivel in the same alarmist ways. Until the BBC’s environmental journalists and spokespeople become suspicious of advocacy scientists and sceptical of their motivations – ideological or financial – and until the BBC recruits science journalists rather than environmentalist advocates and activists, nothing will ever change at the BBC.
Isn’t Prof. Jones an advocate of agw? Not sure. Still, I’ll believe in a change when it actually happens. This last week on Radio 4 has seen a stream of programmes almost automatically accepting the agw hypothesis.
Will this make BBC = “Fair and Balanced” news? Hmm, seems rather unlikely, but it could happen…
BTW, I don’t think any news outlet is really unbiased. Anthony’s pretty close, though.
I’m surprised they didn’t ask Professor PHIL Jones to consider whether the BBC’s output “gives appropriate weight to scientific conclusions including different theories and due weight to the views expressed by those sceptical about the science and how it was conducted or evaluated.”
It’s a start?
Government should NEVER be in the business of funding journalism. The temptation to control content in pursuit of a political agenda is too great. The recipients of their funding are too easily manipulated.
Here is the USA we need to defund PBS and NPR. Let them stand on their own, if they can. It seems to me that both of these entities are pretty far left of center because the only party that has ever seriousely proposed to withdraw their funding are the repulicans.
I don’t need the Beeb and other media outfits to be more balanced – I just want them to be clear and honest about their rhetorical position on a story so that readers who give a crap can determine when they are being spun. For starters, a prominent link to the editorial guidelines would be essential.
I long abandoned the naïve notion that journalists acted like Joe Friday and just gave us the facts. “Facts” are used explicitly by politicians to argue for a certain position. Media outfits do the very same thing with facts but cloak themselves in the intellectually dishonest claim of “impartiality”. By compelling media outfits to publish editorial guidelines we can better know the spin (again assuming one cares enough to ferret out the spin).
Expecting the BBC to be balanced on global warming is like a boxing commentator asking a deaf person to extol the wonders of Mozart, they just don’t have any shared terms of reference. They can’t tell when they’re being biased.
They need to spend some time talking to sceptics to hear our side of the story, not our side as told by climate crusaders.
Don’t buy the hype. The media is the propaganda arm of the government, and government wants draconian global warming legislation.
Think what you like but it ain’t going to happen. There’s too much invested in AGM and the BBC are part of the machinery.
Anyway the good news is (from the Guardian) that the BBC willl have a tiny ‘carbon footprint’ covering Cancun Cop16..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/oct/14/chilean-miners-bbc-cancun-climate-talks
Damian Carrington – Guardian
“Certainly the political momentum has gone out of the climate talks after the Copenhagen debacle, which saw 120 world leaders turning up to sign a treaty which had yet to be negotiated. But sending just one correspondent to Mexico seems very underweight for one of the world’s biggest newsgathering organisations. Shame on them.”
What a shame. all those beaches and nice hotels going to waste.
All the BBC has to do is call up the CBC and run some Rex Murphy pieces
October 14, 2010 at 10:16 am
…Michel…one BBC Radio 4 “Costing the earth” programme is called: “Can we save
the earth by staying in our pyjamas?” … Monty Python somebody…??
michel says October 14, 2010 at 10:16 am
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006r4wn
The notion of AGW is so engrained in the BBC that less bias is simply impossible to achieve. The message about warming creeps into almost every subject on R4 and if there is a rare reporting of sceptical views it is laced with dire warming comments by the reporter. The organisation is incapable of rational thought on the subject.
Sure, they’ll make sure they balance the coverage, the same way the CBC used to balance coverage of American politics. They would interview a Democrat who hated GWB, and then to balance things, they would interview a Republican who hated GWB. See how fair you can be if you try?
Simply marking the items in a store known for exorbitant pricing as “reduced” won’t bring in spending customers, and neither will token attempts at painting BBC as environmentally unbiased. The public has to see tangible change.
So, the ball rests in BBC’s court. Will they actually make a move?
Watch my lips – “There will be NO discernible change”.
Too much at stake, dyed-in-the-wool advocacy, and a pension fund to think about. They’ll not give up that easily, even if they pretend to. The BBC requires at best privatisation, at worst disassembly. pretty soon, too.
Ooooo, a news media reporting impartially… what a novel idea !
Fine in theory. But the main Science bodies are still putting out rubbish statements.
OK BBC. Will you put your money where your mouth is? Will you host a debate between experts on both sides?
WUWT readers – can we all ask for this?
Haha
I sent an email on Monday to the British Bovine Excrement Corp alerting them of the Hal Wilson story and requesting they cover it in the interest of fairness.
Have they?
Not yet and I’m not staying up till they do.
Even if the BBC sacked Harribin, Black and Shukman, it could never be balanced when covering the AGW hypothesis; the organisation is entirely funded by the license fee, which every 5 years or so the UK government reviews. Hence, the BBC never diverges too far from the government line on any policy or issue, lest it offends the politicians in charge, and it suffers a subsequent ‘cut’ in funding. As all the mainstream UK parties have fallen for the AGW bull, the BBC will be honour bound to support the AGW nonsense, for some time yet. That said, it is a big organisation, and there will always be some individuals who retain balance and integrity, but in recent years they have been few and far between. (Stephen Sackur’s excellent interview with Greenpeace’s outgoing Executive Director is the only piece that springs to mind – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC7bE9jopXE ). Hopefully this new guidance will mean that Paxman can start tearing in to the AGW advocates.
I thinks it’s about time the BBC became a PLC. Let’s see how long its various leftie and greenie biases last when separated from the £billions legally extorted from private UK citizens via the TV licence.
I have to agree with Dellingpole. A few words in a policy statement is not going to change “blind” obedience to their god. They will simply not find anyone or anything on the skeptic side to report on, or to offer comments on pro AGW articles. Or, more probably, they will simply not recognize an article as being on climate change, instead being something dealing with administrative matters or politics.
UK Sceptic says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:21 am
I thinks it’s about time the BBC became a PLC. Let’s see how long its various leftie and greenie biases last when separated from the £billions legally extorted from private UK citizens via the TV licence.
Much as I agree that the BBC is biased in favour of the greens (and the left on some but not all issues), I don’t think privatisation is the way forward; The Daily Telegraph and Times are both very keen on AGW, and they are hardly run by a bunch of lefties with a fondness for out of season blaeberries.
This was discussed on Yahoo climatesceptics some time ago. I believe it was Richard Courtney who went after the BBC with FOI. As I try and remember, when Lord May was President of the Royal Society he took some 20 scientists to meet with a similar number of senior BBC staff. It was after this meeting that the BBC adopted it’s policy of only reporting pro-CAGW news. Presumably this is merely a reversal of this policy, and we might see a significant shift.
The BBC is institutionally biased and this guideline is no more than lip service to journalistic standards and there will be no sea change.
As noted the BBC is heavily influenced by the government (overwhelmingly so when the governmnent is left wing or liberal) and therefore tends to tow the party line especially if this fits in with the views of the leftish geeks who run the show.
Further, the BBC’s pension fund is hugely invested in green technology. The BBC needs to talk up green issues to prevent pension deficits and therefore has a vested interest in talking up AGW.
As a good proportion of the BBC’s pension pot sits in ‘green’ portfolios, I don’t think we’ll be seeing much change soon. However, provided people are willing to spend the time complaining when they see unbiased reporting on climate issues, then this ‘ruling’ gives them more power, and with continual pressure change can be forced to happen.
We should give the BBC a chance to prove their commitment to neutrality. Nothing would please more than Connely having to say the BBC is not a reliable source and remove all Wiki articles that have a BBC link. That would inflame some people.
The BBC News first reported the Asian Tsunami as “caused by Climate Change”, and they never issued a retraction, they just sort of ignored what they initially reported as the cause.
The BBC News have also reported that coastal erosion in Norfolk, houses falling in the sea etc, is caused by Climate Change. I wrote, complained, and pointed out that they were correct that coastal erosion of Cliffs made of Glacial Deposits, was due to Climate Change, in this case the climate change that occurred 10,000 years ago.
If America’s own PBS NewsHour is ever told to ‘put things back even’ they would have their own tough hill to climb. In my American Thinker article “The Left and Its Talking Points” ( http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/the_left_and_its_talking_point.html ), I tell how they had over 200 program segments about AGW in some form or another going back to 1996, with only three giving any usable mention of skeptic science.
The BBC staff pension fund is heavily invested in “green” technologies, to a greater extent, IIRC, than any other major UK corporation.
The UK government is heavily into “green” corporatism . The Climate Change minister, Tim Yeo, is an investor in, and on the board of a handful of “green” technology companies, some of which he chairs. Since this is all very well aligned with the BBC’s stance, not just on AGW, but other “green” issues, I do not expect any change during the term of the current parliament (and probably beyond).
I suggest a boycott of the BBC (don’t watch BBC TV, and you don’t have to pay their license fee) would be a better method of achieving change than dreaming about any change from the top.
All the best.
Jonathan Dimbleby does his best to be impartial, but this is a man with a wind turbine in his garden.
Dunno anything about Dimbleby, and I’m not sure what this is supposed to tell me. I mean, I’ve heard of a reputable climate realist who has solar panels on his roof…. : > )
Andrew P,
The Times and the Guardian can be what ever they want simply because no one is forced by law to buy their news papers. With the BBC it is different. Here in the UK we HAVE to pay for the BBC.
Mailman
I suggest a boycott of the BBC (don’t watch BBC TV, and you don’t have to pay their license fee) would be a better method of achieving change than dreaming about any change from the top.
Oh you do have to pay, even if you watch on a pc!
Unfortunately for balance, the scientific literature found in peer reviewed journals is strongly biased in favor of green house gases causing serious climate warming. What does balance mean in this situation? Should balance be based polling or the popularity of internet blogs? If 90% of scientific articles support AGW, would balanced reporting also give 90% support to AGW?
Lord Reith (first and great director general of the BBC) must be spinning in his grave at the lack of impartiality and disinterest in the BBC. They will spin anything, yes anything, as driven by AGW. They are an outrage to the licence fee public. They exemplify perfectly the development of contemporary society, first catered by cheap daily papers and weekly ones, the spread of tertiary education, which resulted in a large population with well developed literary and scholarly tastes – but all sufficiently uneducated to undertake analytical thought. The pavlovian response by the BBC is to spin anything that can possibly be attributable to AGW. Do we laugh? Or do we cry? Meanwhile, the Royal Society, stamps itself indelibly into history by refusing to debate the issue. Rees and May will have a lot to answer for when posterity looks back at today.
If the BBC’s record on political impartiality is anything to go by, they will never live up to their duties under their own charter.
They seem to think that they can demonstrate impartiality only through issuing statements of impartiality, without actually having to be impartial in practice.
Paul Deacon, Christchurch, New Zealand says:
October 14, 2010 at 12:33 pm
“I suggest a boycott of the BBC (don’t watch BBC TV, and you don’t have to pay their license fee) would be a better method of achieving change than dreaming about any change from the top.”
Would that it were so. In fact, It wouldn’t matter if you could prove your TV had been disabled from receiving BBC programmes – the licence fee is still due in full. It’s been admitted by government that the licence fee is, in effect, a TV tax, not a BBC tax.
If you don’t have a TV and don’t pay the tax, that’s okay. However, You can be sure that this will be picked up quickly and you’ll have people from TV licensing round in a jiffy to accuse you of evasion. I’m being perfectly serious here, by the way. It is presumed that every household has a TV, and if there is no revenue from it, evasion is presumed.
The BBC cannot be unbiased, it is too heavily involved financially with CAGW.
“The BBC is the only media organisation in Britain whose pension fund is a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which has more than 50 members across Europe.
Its chairman is Peter Dunscombe, also the BBC’s Head of Pensions Investment.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/156703/-8bn-BBC-eco-bias-#
Would you talk down the value of your own pension? I think not.
Was it the complaints registered to Ofcom that prompted all of this action?
Ref:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3358634/BBC-investigated-over-climate-change-documentary.html
I think this is a good idea
The sooner the UK public can see the reality of the inconsistency of (and lack of scientific backing for) the anti-AGW arguments the quicker we can get on with implementing the changes to tackle the problem.
I’m just waiting for the program where we get some saying it isn’t warming , some saying its solar activity , some saying it’s a scientific conspiracy and a series of fact showing the artic melting , the solar minimum and the reality of normal scientists.
The BBC might even sell the program to other media organisation so it might end up on TV in the US .
The BBC has long had a built in institutional bias to reporting all matters in a trendy and/or liberal/lefty way. Nothing is going to change this, unless you clean out the Augean Stable and that is not going to happen anytime soon.
The BBC is top heavy with overpaid executives, mostly of the ‘sensible sweater’ variety. These individuals would be largely unemployable in the real world and therefore will do nothing to implement real and meaningful change.
They are part of a mutual support organisation, similar to climate ‘scientists’, where dissension is not tolerated and only the status quo of what the Establishment deems good is allowed.
Having said that, it is still one one of the most professional and least biased news organisations when it comes to reporting facts.
However, the BBC still refuses to recognise that climate ‘science’ obviously does not fall into the category of ‘facts’, but rather of a cult run by a small group of grant-financed individuals, purveying dubious theories in the form of scary unfounded forecasts and models, which in turn are based on manipulated, strangled or falsified data.
On the one hand I’m with Dellers, no change likely.
On the other hand, Richard North was invited onto Radio Oxford…
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/political-theatre.html
DaveE.
The BBC won’t change their biased reporting whilst they have so much money invested in the AGW scam http://www.iigcc.org/about-us/members
There is no honesty or integrity in science, politics, journalism etc,. views, theories, policies and reporting all come down to money over honesty.
Black and Harrabin have their snouts in the ideological trough. Nothing will change.
Paul Deacon,
It’s not that simple. If you watch any broadcast by any broadcaster on any medium (TV,satellite, digital box, computer or mobile phone) as it is actually being broadcast you have to have a licence.
Doesn’t matter if you never watch BBC at all.
BBC=Coast to Coast AM
Art Bell is an AGW believer as well.
As for the poor UK public forced to pay for the BBC…. here is how their licensing arm operates: http://www.bbctvlicence.com/
Will this grand gesture change anything? Nope.
>>On Any Questions, for example, Jonathan Dimbleby does his best to
>>be impartial, but this is a man with a wind turbine in his garden.”
I did suggest to Dimbleby that if he really wanted to demonstrate his Green credentials, he should disconnect himself from the grid and only use wind power. And he clearly demonstrated his true colours, by refusing to do so.
Typical holier-than-thou, aristocratic Greens — hypocrites….
This is also the man who aggressively supported mass immigration into the UK, but when they applied to build more houses in his quaint little village, to house these extra people, he aggressively opposed the application.
Typical holier-than-thou, aristocratic Liberals — hypocrites….
.
And here is a typical piece of BBC propaganda, that still has no ‘balance’. Apparently, the biggest problem with wind turbines, is that they might spoil the view….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/adaptation/wind_power.shtml
So no fears, then, about the turbines being stationary for four full weeks during a cold anticyclonic winter, and half the population dying.
That’s BBC balance for you.
Don’t ‘cha love these ‘off-the-planet’ liberals.
.
Dave Andrews says:
October 14, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Paul Deacon,
It’s not that simple. If you watch any broadcast by any broadcaster on any medium (TV,satellite, digital box, computer or mobile phone) as it is actually being broadcast you have to have a licence.
Doesn’t matter if you never watch BBC at all.
****************************************
OK, please excuse my ignorance, the law must have changed since I lived in the UK. It used to be the case that you had to be found watching BBC itself in order to be accused of evasion. That was all before satellite, cable and broadband internet, of course. It used to be a genuine license fee, way back when they even set different levels of fee for black and white and colour TVs. Now it just sounds more like a straight tax (something close to a household rate or poll tax in practice). Fairly neat, really, Orwell would be proud. Tax people to watch TV, then use the money to control the propaganda that you broadcast to them. Use this public money to support the incumbent government, political parties and corporate interests that are close to it and to you. Increase the value of your pension fund at the same time. Hard to improve on that model if you are a beneficiary of it, and either genuinely believe in it, or are morally/politically blind (or have no scruples).
All the best.
>>>Government should NEVER be in the business of funding journalism.
Technically, they don’t.
The government enacts a bill that says everyone must pay for the BBC, and is then supposed to stand back and allow the BBC to be completely independent. The BBC is not funded through government expenditure.
Unfortunately, it does not always work like that. The last government thought that Auntie** was being too critical of the new government. So they mused for many months about cutting the licence fee (the BBC budget) by about 20%. Suddenly, Auntie began a love-in with the new government.
Funny, that.
** Auntie = the BBC.
Peter Miller says:
October 14, 2010 at 1:23 pm
“Having said that, it is still one one of the most professional and least biased news organisations when it comes to reporting facts.”
How would they be able to tell a fact from fiction if they are uncapable of doing this for the “CO2 is warming the planet” hypothesis. Two possible answers:
-They are not.
-They know that their reporting about the AGW hypothesis is untruthful; but on every other fact they apply their skillful journalistic truth-finding capabilities.
Personally, i go with the first hypothesis. I think it’s pretty plausible; Der Spiegel operates on a similar basis (a guilty pleasure of mine is comparing Der Spiegel’s reporting about economics with Financial Times or the likes. Endless hilarity.)
Bureaucratic Bull#### Channel… and you have to pay.
Interesting business model.
George Orwell was a true prophet.
So I would guess this would allow the hoax to be thrown out.
Listening to BBC radio 4, every other programme has a reference to Climate Change or Carbon Footprints as an aside, the truth of which is to be taken for granted. It’s dyed into the fabric. I don’t think they know they’re doing it.
This may lead to some superficial changes, but I expect them to continue beating the CAGW drum.
Imagine a major news organization getting a “mandate” to abandon biased reporting. The next thing you know they will be cleared to tell the truth. I don’t like where this world is heading.
What most people don’t seem to understand is that the BBC thinks that what it is doing is balanced reporting. They truly believe all this nonsense.
Remember, when they seek new appointments 75% of their adverising is in one newspaper only – The Grauniad. And as for Dimbleby’s program, might as well call it the world according to Polly.
BBC? Perleese
The BBC, as Dixon of Dock Green might say, has ‘form’.
Am I the only person who remembers the: endless flu pandemic scare stories, the tacit approval of MMR vaccination scare stories. The new variant CJD (mad cow disease) scare stories. Global terror threat scare stories, Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? (for which they fired their star reporter, Gilligan when he uncovered Blair’s Dodgy Dossier). They’re still towing the line on Afghanistan despite the growing sense of humiliation and waste felt by British forces there.
Oh and on the other side of the equation, what about that New Economic Paradigm, the endless economic growth, smugly applauding the rise in property prices, the booming fiancial services industry….soaring stock market etc etc?
Let’s be realistic the British Government of the day protects the BBC by maintaining its Charter, and the BBC backs the government through self interest.
Factor in a quivering middle class with little or no scientific education that quite enjoy a frisson of fear over their morning coffee and there you have it… a perfect seed bed for ill founded ideas to take hold.
As has been pointed out above the BBC hierarchy: broadcasters, management and financial management has nailed its colours to the mast. So I wouldn’t hold my breath wating for the wind of change.
However the mere concession that there ‘might’ be another side to the AGW story is progress and on some level (however informal) it must have been sanctioned by the Establishment.
Let’s end on a note of praise. I greatly admire BBC nature programmes, especially when they make no reference to climate change!
To be quite frank, I’m sick and tired of sending complaints to the BBC over clear and blatant bias and then having a “Dear Mr we have listened to your complaint … but it is totally groundless”
And to be honest, the BBC have vastly improved recently, to the extent that I recently realised I hadn’t sent in a complaint for over a month … but that is more because they’ve given up adding to every news story the cheap filler … “and this is yet further proof of global warming”!
Here are the origins of the unbalanced climate reporting.
It is a long document so you will have to click “Edit” then “Find” (climate)
BBC Trust “From Seesaw To Wagon Wheel”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.txt
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.pdf
Why balance in science coverage only?
Snow in Inverness Scottland, Oct. 20-21st.
Beginning of a new season of GoreBull warming!
So we will be seeing Richard Lindzen, John Christy, and Lord Monckton on the BBC?
As Simon Hopkinson says above, this was a false account circulating due to a misunderstanding of comments Hudson made in his blog. Hudson did not say that he had been in possession of the emails prior to the announcement on Air Vent etc. Rather, Hudson should be celebrated for his earlier article (Was it: Is the world warming up?) which broke the pattern on this issue at the BBC.
Simon Hopkinson –
paul hudson did not receive a single email. he called it a “chain of e-mails” which were “forwarded” to him on Oct 12 and he did not mention them in his posts on 12 Oct, 16 Oct, 19 Oct, 6 Nov, 13 Nov, and 19 Nov.
finally, on 23 Nov, after Climategate broke, he mentioned them and authenticated them, the first to do so:
23 Nov 2009: BBC: Paul Hudson: ‘Climategate’ – CRU hacked into and its implications
I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the worlds leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article ‘whatever happened to global warming’. The e-mails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded and read at the time and so, as far as l can see, they are authentic.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/11/climategate-cru-hacked-into-an.shtml
in march this year, there was an update, which has a number of inconsistencies, such as the BBC spokesman, simon hailes, saying hudson spotted these emails from the climategate emails in “early november” which is incorrect. hailes also mentions the emails were ‘forwarded’ but not by whom. there has never been any suggestion Mann and Schneider emailed Hudson directly, so this matter should be cleared up:
March 2010: Australian: BBC defends journalist Paul Hudson over climate email claims by ABC chairman Maurice Newman
THE BBC says ABC chairman Maurice Newman was wrong to criticise BBC climate journalist Paul Hudson, who Mr Newman alleged sat on emails related to the so-called Climategate affair…
(BBC spokesman Simon Hailes )Mr Hailes responded: “Paul wrote a blog for the BBC website on 9th October 2009 entitled `Whatever Happened to Global Warming’. There was a big reaction to the article – not just here but around the world.
“Amongst those who responded were (climate change scientists) Professor Michael E. Mann and Stephen Schneider whose emails were among a small handful forwarded to Paul on October 12th…
“Although of interest, Paul wanted to consider the emails as part of a wider piece, following up his original blog piece.
“In early November Paul spotted that these few emails were among thousands published on the internet following the alleged hacking of the UEA computer system. Paul passed this information onto colleagues at the BBC, who ran with the story, and then linked to the emails on his blog.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/bbc-defends-journalist-paul-hudson-over-climate-email-claims-by-abc-chairman-maurice-newman/story-e6frg996-1225839965257
BBC in March were keeping to the script they developed last November, when Hudson was prevented from speaking with his local newspaper, where he was well known:
27 Nov 2009: BBC weatherman in global warming row
A BBC Look North weatherman has become embroiled in a national global warming row…
When contacted by the Mail, the weatherman said he was not allowed to comment and asked us to speak to the BBC press office…
A BBC spokesperson said: “Paul wrote a blog for the BBC website on October 9 entitled Whatever Happened To Global Warming. There was a big reaction to the article – not just here but around the world. Among those who responded were Professor Michael E Mann and Stephen Schneider whose e-mails were among a small handful forwarded to Paul on October 12.
“Although of interest, Paul wanted to consider the e-mails as part of a wider piece, following up his original blog piece…
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/BBC-weatherman-global-warming-row/article-1553969-detail/article.html
as the BBC is funded by the public via a licence fee, all relevant information should be made public and it makes no sense to me why people would want to downplay Hudson’s role. after all:
“BBC: Paul Hudson – about this blog
I’ve been interested in the weather and climate for as long as I can remember, and worked as a forecaster with the Met Office for more than ten years locally and at the international unit before joining the BBC in October 2007.”
hudson undoubtedly knows some of the CRU people, and the Met Office people, and he undoubtedly has more to say, if allowed.
“Dave Andrews says:
October 14, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Paul Deacon,
It’s not that simple. If you watch any broadcast by any broadcaster on any medium (TV,satellite, digital box, computer or mobile phone) as it is actually being broadcast you have to have a licence.
Doesn’t matter if you never watch BBC at all.”
Unless the law changed, you need a license if you have a mains powered radio. As most households have (Clock radio etc), then yes, having no license is evasion. I am not sure these days, but in the 1970’s, during the threats of the coming iceage and power strikes, TV detector vans used to parade streets checking that, if the TV was on in the house, a check was made to see if you had a license. No license = 1000 GBP fine, or even inprisonment. There were even nasty draconian adverts on all channels about the vans.
Interestingly though up to about 1996 in New Zealand, there was a TV tax to which the Govn’t agreed was a tax, which attracted the GST. I believe a group of people successfully won a case against the Govn’t because a tax on a tax is illegal in NZ. Now there is no TV license required.
But I agree with everyone here, there will not be any balance in the AGW “debate” at the BBC.
Johnny Ball was on the Breakfast couch this morning. Fingers crossed for David Bellamy next week!
Cold Englishman says:
October 14, 2010 at 3:34 pm
What most people don’t seem to understand is that the BBC thinks that what it is doing is balanced reporting. They truly believe all this nonsense.
Remember, when they seek new appointments 75% of their adverising is in one newspaper only – The Grauniad. And as for Dimbleby’s program, might as well call it the world according to Polly.
*************************
The figure is 86%, IIRC (discovered by an individual through a FOI request, figures are for the year 2006 IIRC).
During the Blair/Brown era, the Grauniad was heavily reliant on government job advertisement revenue (HR adverts are very expensive, I recall a figure of GBP70,000 for a full page advertisement in the Sunday Times). I understand the current government has decided to withdraw job adverts from the Grauniad. There is no need for this anyway nowadays, government job adverts should be online. To put them in newspapers is pure political patronage. ‘Nuff said.
All the best.
Patrick Davis says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:05 pm
“Dave Andrews says:
October 14, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Interestingly though up to about 1996 in New Zealand, there was a TV tax to which the Govn’t agreed was a tax, which attracted the GST. I believe a group of people successfully won a case against the Govn’t because a tax on a tax is illegal in NZ. Now there is no TV license required.
****************************
I don’t know about that case, it’s before my time in NZ. But I am not sure there is anything in principle wrong with tax on tax in NZ. For example, my local government rates (a relatively straightforward tax) are subject to GST (goods and services tax = VAT).
All the best.
[SNIP – violation of site policy – wtf@fu.com is not a valid email address. the fu.com domain is in Arlington, VA and your comment originates at The University of Reading, UK., until you use a valid email address, all of your comments will be discarded – Anthony]
Read these words very, very carefully!
Professor Jones has been asked to consider whether the BBC’s output “gives appropriate weight to scientific conclusions including different theories and due weight to the views expressed by those sceptical about the science and how it was conducted or evaluated.”
Appropriate weight ? due weight? evaluated? by whom? and yes Jones is known to the BBC. The BBC is overrun by …. no I had better not say. but just watch their output it says it all.
Let’s end on a note of praise. I greatly admire BBC nature programmes, especially when they make no reference to climate change!
That’s rare these days. They broadcast 2 country programmes on sunday and they mention Climate change (not global warming) every program twice on the day.
Peter Miller says:
October 14, 2010 at 1:23 pm
“Having said that, it is still one one of the most professional and least biased news organisations when it comes to reporting facts.”
You could not be more wrong. This is an organisation with a garanteed income of £2 – 3 billion. They spent £10m on travelling last year. They send upteem people to the same news event to interview grandma, the milkman, the shopkeeper etc; Their questions are purile and never attack the point. Professionel, mon oeil.
After living in the UK for almost a decade, I have come to see the bias in the BBC as being weighted in favour of the left of the political spectrum rather than being in thrall to views of the government of the day. Since the last general election and the change of government, the BBC’s apparent leftward bias has not changed markedly.
The current government is as ridiculously ignorant of the realities of weather and climate as was the last and the Climate Minister almost personifies the concept of wilful stupidity with his mania for installing windmills, but I suspect that the tide is slowly being turned in favour of the sceptical view by nothing less than the lack of money available to the government to enact the mad Green policies espoused by most politicians prior to the general elections.
And yes, the BBC licence fee is a tax which returns not only very poor value for money, but enables the enormous number of BBC top brass to enjoy salaries and pension packages that are so huge they are a spitefully-raised finger to the fee-paying populace.
MarkR says:
October 15, 2010 at 12:37 am
As long as the BBC sticks to scientific evidence, then everything will be fine. Hopefully this means that there won’t be anything as stupid as most of Delingpole’s articles.
Firstly, it’s pretty difficult to stick to science when you wouldn’t know what it was even it bit your arse and when you employ people who utterly believe and worship at the alter of AGW.
Secondly, Mr Delingpole may not express himself very scientifically but he does at least get his fact right.
And they still refuse to answer climate realist emails. (And I am forced to pay for this by weight of law.).
>>Firstly, it’s pretty difficult to stick to science when you wouldn’t know
>>what it was even it bit your arse
Not how I would have worded it, but perfectly true.
The BBC primarily advertises in the Grauniad – and yet the Grauniad is primarily read by those educated in the arts and humanities.
Thus the number of scientists, technologists and industrialists in the BBC is nil, nada, zippo. You watch their science programs nowadays, and it is as if they were made by the kids in a creche.
A BBC producer I know had this very problem, where he would produce a technology piece, send it to the BBC approval board, and it would come back with all of the science snipped out of it (they did not understand it, and presumed nobody else would). He also produced a docu on the founding of the Salvation Army, and was told by the approval board that it did not have enough ‘ethnic diversity’. His exasperated cry was that the Sally Army was created in 1865 London – not a lot of diversity there. But the approval board remained resolute, and the ducu was trashed.
.
>>Bureaucratic Bull#### Channel… and you have to pay.
No, no, no. It has long been the:
Biased Broadcasting Corporation.
.
The sinister thing about the BBC is the corruption of young minds on their children’s channels?
Ken Hall says:
October 14, 2010 at 10:16 am
About time, but I will believe it only when I see it. The BBC is stuffed over full of left-wing cultists who are totally in denial about anything not of that left-wing belief system. They literally cannot compute any data that runs counter to their belief system.
—————————————————————————————————-Response.
Sorry Ken, skepticism about climate change science is not a preserve of the hard right in politics. My politics are environmental and traditional European left wing.And I know many many people like me. When people say on this site that skepticism is somehow a left wing plot we score a home goal and give those who would wreck our ecology and swindle us out of billions of pounds an excuse to say that skeptics are backed by right wing fundamentalists in the USA. We know that is not true, don’t give them ammunition.
The newspaper media in the UK is overwhelmingly biased to right wing politicians
(think Fox news as a newspaper journal). If the BBC has a left wing bias ( which as an old lefty I don”t think is that strong given the roasting they gave Blair) at least it gives news in the UK a more balanced feel.You read the right wing rags in the morning, and watch the BBC in the evening. Somewhere between is the truth.
However we must remember that surveys suggest the BBC as a news source is trusted on an international basis more than any other source for it’s objective reporting. They may not agree with our skeptic stance at the moment, but it will come.
“Paul Deacon, Christchurch, New Zealand says:
October 15, 2010 at 12:34 am”
I know all about GST in NZ, after all I was once an unpaid GST collector (Meaning selfemployed). It is entirely possible that after that case, the “law” was changed to allow a tax on a tax (Which of course can be called a levy or a fee and in NZ, GST is applied) and that it could not be challenged.
GST is different to VAT because GST is a consumption tax, which is fair IMO. VAT n the other hand is a VALUE added tax. So, you buy a chook in the UK, raw uncooked, no VAT. Buy a chook, cooked, VAT applied. See the difference. I understand VAT is now being applied across more items, like GST in NZ. Incidentally, GST in Aus is not applied to sanitary products, to mention one.
It is high time for the BBC to give air time to eminent scientists who wish put a
different point of view, and for the daily telegraph to publish more factual material
rather than the usual warmist drivel from Louise Gray.
I haven’t read through all of these posts – but want to pick up on the ‘questions by the BBC are purile’ and the general tone of presumed bias.
Firstly, some of the key BBC journalists have phoned for long briefings in recent months and I have received acknowledgements about ‘Chill’ (my book on climate theories). Perhaps as result, some of the previously anodyne questions like ‘Is the evidence that man is having an impact on the climate conclusive?’ have been replaced by
‘What percentage of the warming is natural and what percentage man-made’ put to John Christy in a BBC programme a few weeks ago – Christy replied ‘About 25% is man-made’.
And Roger Harrabin to Phil Jones, recently obtaining the phrase from Jones ‘there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995’.
These are important statements. Don’t discount the BBC. They have sharpened up. They are reading the critical literature.
tell the abc australia to do the same thay only report on the global warming side. very sad for our grand kids future
It is impossible to believe the BBC will stop its endless propaganda for AGW. The BBC’s pro-AGW bias spreads across all its TV and radio programming, news/documentaries/farming/comedy/drama/radio talk-ins etc etc.
Just yesterday, there was a full 30-minute programme that demolishes any idea that the BBC understands what journalistic balance means. The programme was unbelievably awful, almost a parody of BBC programming. Seriously – the worst programme I can remember in a long long while.
Please do not listen to it, it will drive you crazy – but Robin Horbury gives an accurate summary of its content :
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/10/heap-of-st.html
…”Delingpole, a prominent climate change sceptic, yesterday said that he predicted little movement in the BBC’s environmental stories.”..
Nuff said!
>>The newspaper media in the UK is overwhelmingly biased to right wing politicians
Nonsense.
Liberal rags include the Grauniad, Independent, Mirror and Times. And until recently, the Sun too. Right wing rags are Telegraph and Mail.
That, is a definite left wing bias.
You might dispute the Times, but I have stopped reading it solely due to it’s left wing bias. And you have to remember that much of the population get their info and education from the TV. Thus UK education has been reduced to soap operas, reality shows and exploitive talent shows. The result of this is immediately obvious.
In Europe, the youth will talk about politics, culture, and world events, but in the UK their knowledge expands no further than Eastenders. It is killing our economy.
.
Now, if only the Government would stop using its diplomats for propoganda. UK High Commissioner to Canada Anthony Cary has a dreary piece in a little known publication in Ottawa again raising the alarm bells about climate change. The UK diplomats in Canada should stick to their well known gossip mongering and leave science to scientists.
BBC is the same as Australias ABC..controlled by “science” experts?? who are on the AGW wagon and refuse to allow any differing opionion to get to air.
Its a travesty alright.
Philip Thomas says:
October 15, 2010 at 12:13 am
Amazing given that Johnny is a sceptic, (maybe goes with the surname, ;-))
Johnny was heckled by some essentially left wing crowd when he proclaimed his scepticism, article somewhere on wired. In the crowd were people wanting the libel laws in the UK reformed; they started a petition, which I duly signed (and would do again) but that doesn’t stop me from despising these people for their double standards. Free speech for them but not for Johnny Ball. Disgusting people.
DaveE.
John Anderson says: “It is impossible to believe the BBC will stop its endless propaganda for AGW. The BBC’s pro-AGW bias spreads across all its TV and radio programming, news/documentaries/farming/comedy/drama/radio talk-ins etc etc. ”
You know this might be a little controversial here, but given a choice between a BBC run by environmentally minded people that does tremendous wildlife programmes but has fallen hook line and sinker for the global warming nonsense … and a BBC that can’t produce anything decent at all.
Well … we’ve just been watching life on earth and the quality is absolutely superb and is one inevitably stupid comment about polar bears really too much to bear for something decent to watch?
The Grauniad is traditionally liberal paper, the Indie professes to be Independant, (Though I’m not convinced!) The Mirror supports the Labour ( left wing party)
So who are the right wing papers?
The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch is centre right,
The Daily Express is unashamedly right wing, The Daily Mail is to the right of that, the Sun ( the largest selling paper) wholeheartedly supports the right wing parties, The Daily Star is also right wing. The Daily Telegraph, known as the Torygraph for good reason slavishly support all right wing politics. The Sunday Telegraph is barking right wing along with most Sunday papers. With regard to the BBC biase of climate change, it’s wrong but I can live with that. Lets face it, if you could only have one channel, would you choose the BBC with it’s wealth of wonderful programmes, or Rupert Murdochs channels that go for the lowest cost and interest programmes ? Would you rather watch Blackadder and Richard Attenborough, or Americas next top model and the the dross aired by the right wing media?
You may like to read this essay which I thought was fair.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/the-media-column-how-rightwing-columnists-show-their-flagrant-bias-612922.html
We can but hope.
Simon Hopkinson:
Yes, the emails leaked in the climategate.zip included things posted after the BBC fellow received whatever he received, so I am inclined to believe what you say.
PS Australia’s ABC had some sceptical coverage of AGW in the last six months.