Richard Black, BBC, Hypocrisy, and FOI

Mycroft says:
March 17, 2012 at 10:39 am
…
,where did it all go wrong with the BBC?

Well, 2 or 3 generations ago …
Confessions of a BBC liberal

The BBC has finally come clean about its bias, says a former editor, who wrote Yes, Minister
Antony Jay
In the past four weeks there have been two remarkable changes in the public attitude to the BBC. The first and most newsworthy one was precipitated by the faked trailer of the Queen walking out of a photographic portrait session with Annie Leibovitz.
It was especially damaging because the licence fee is based on a public belief that the BBC offers a degree of integrity and impartiality which its commercial competitors cannot achieve.
But in the longer term I believe that the second change is even more significant. It started with the BBC’s own report on impartiality that effectively admitted to an institutional “liberal” bias among programme makers. Previously these accusations had been dismissed as a right-wing rant, but since the report was published even the BBC’s allies seem to accept it.
…
The growing general agreement that the culture of the BBC (and not just the BBC) is the culture of the chattering classes provokes a question that has puzzled me for 40 years. The question itself is simple – much simpler than the answer: what is behind the opinions and attitudes of this social group?
They are that minority often characterised (or caricatured) by sandals and macrobiotic diets, but in a less extreme form are found in The Guardian, Channel 4, the Church of England, academia, showbusiness and BBC news and current affairs. They constitute our metropolitan liberal media consensus, although the word “liberal” would have Adam Smith rotating in his grave. Let’s call it “media liberalism”.
It is of particular interest to me because for nine years, between 1955 and 1964, I was part of this media liberal consensus. For six of those nine years I was working on Tonight, a nightly BBC current affairs television programme. My stint coincided almost exactly with Harold Macmil-lan’s premiership and I do not think that my former colleagues would quibble if I said we were not exactly diehard supporters.
But we were not just anti-Macmil-lan; we were antiindustry, anti-capital-ism, antiadvertising, antiselling, antiprofit, antipatriotism, antimonarchy, antiempire, antipolice, antiarmed forces, antibomb, antiauthority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place – you name it, we were anti it.
Although I was a card-carrying media liberal for the best part of nine years, there was nothing in my past to predispose me towards membership. I spent my early years in a country where every citizen had to carry identification papers. All the newspapers were censored, as were all letters abroad; general elections had been abolished: it was a one-party state. Yes, that was Britain – Britain from 1939 to 1945.
…
So how did we get from there to here? Unless we understand that, we shall never get inside the media liberal mind. And the starting point is the realisation that there have always been two principal ways of misunderstanding a society: by looking down on it from above and by looking up at it from below. In other words, by identifying with institutions or by identifying with individuals.
To look down on society from above, from the point of view of the ruling groups, the institutions, is to see the dangers of the organism splitting apart – the individual components shooting off in different directions until everything dissolves into anarchy.
To look up at society from below, from the point of view of the lowest group, the governed, is to see the dangers of the organism growing ever more rigid and oppressive until it fossilises into a monolithic tyranny.
Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for liberty, equality, self-expression, representation, freedom of speech and action and worship, and the rights of the individual. The reason for the popularity of these misunderstandings is that both views are correct as far as they go and both sets of dangers are real, but there is no “right” point of view.
…
These four factors have significantly accelerated and indeed intensified the spread of media liberalism since I ceased to be a BBC employee 40 years ago.
But let’s suppose that I had stayed. Would I have remained a devotee of the metropolitan media liberal ideology that I once absorbed so readily? I have an awful fear that the answer is yes.

RTWT. Essential b/g!!

Something that the BBC licence payer payed for.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/climateexperiment/whattheymean/theuk.shtml
The BBCs “Climate Change Experiment” (a computer model)

Sorry guys, can we forget the bizarre conspiracy theories and the excuse for knocking the BBC and focus on the FACTS of the progressive, unrelenting loss of sea ice volume? The data is clear for all to see and the predictions flow from the data. If you don’t like it why shoot the messenger? Is it because it’s easier and less painful than facing the reality of what is happening to the planet. The Arctic is our current ‘canary in the mine’ and should be a cause for alarm rather than nonsensical head-in-the-sand reactions.

I attended the Vienna International School in the 80s, run by the United Nations. We were taught that it is more normal for the Earth to not have a ice cap on the North Pole than it is for there to be one. Now Peter says we should be alarmed that the Earth is trending towards its normal state.

Mann, Black, Schmidt, the modern Three Stooges. Ok, who is Larry, who is Moe? We know none of them is Curly.

“Peter says:
March 18, 2012 at 5:56 am
Sorry guys, can we forget the bizarre conspiracy theories and the excuse for knocking the BBC and focus on the FACTS of the progressive, unrelenting loss of sea ice volume? The data is clear for all to see and the predictions flow from the data. If you don’t like it why shoot the messenger? Is it because it’s easier and less painful than facing the reality of what is happening to the planet. The Arctic is our current ‘canary in the mine’ and should be a cause for alarm rather than nonsensical head-in-the-sand reactions.”
Peter (or Richard Black himself perhaps?),
Do yourself a favor and either
1) investigate the science yourself or
2) go back to your Guardian and BBC fairy tales and don’t waste your time on a real science blog like WUWT.
Clearly you have been reading too much propaganda. The stuff Richard Black regularly puts out about the Arctic is so patently ridiculously alarmist that your comments do not even deserve the time of day. Sea ice loss – so what? What in the world makes you think sea ice is supposed to be constant? How do you know that sea ice levels of the 1970’s (a decade randomly selected out of billions of years) are the correct amount for now and forever more, Amen?

I’ve worked in FoI (in Australia) and I want to make the point that the precise manner in which a document, or part of a document, fits within a particular exemption is often quite subjective. It’s surprisingly common for different officers to reach different conclusions about quite similar requests or to argue about on which side of the line a particular request falls.
That said, I note that it was the same Stephanie Harris who gave the details for Harribin’s flights, but refused to release Black’s flight details. Hmmm . . .

Reed Coray [March 18, 2012 at 8:36 am] says:
“Mann, Black, Schmidt, the modern Three Stooges. Ok, who is Larry, who is Moe? We know none of them is Curly.”

They all look like Moe’s to me. 😉
Well he asked.

William M. Connolley [March 18, 2012 at 10:37 am] says:
“It is not possible to merge together the sea ice records before 1979 with those after. The instruments are different and attempting to stick the two records together doesn’t work, which is why people don’t do it.“

Bwahahaha. You didn’t say that with a straight face now did you?
Just give it to Mikey, he’ll splice anything.

Peter says:
March 18, 2012 at 5:56 am
Sorry guys, can we forget the bizarre conspiracy theories and the excuse for knocking the BBC and focus on the FACTS of the progressive, unrelenting loss of sea ice volume? The data is clear for all to see and the predictions flow from the data. If you don’t like it why shoot the messenger? Is it because it’s easier and less painful than facing the reality of what is happening to the planet. The Arctic is our current ‘canary in the mine’ and should be a cause for alarm rather than nonsensical head-in-the-sand reactions.
________________________________________
I suggest you try to wrap your mind around this thread and comments The End Holocene, or How to Make Out Like a ‘Madoff’ Climate Change Insurer
Your canary is healthy.

Peter, 2 simple questions for you.
How much sea ice should there be?
How much sea ice was there at max during 1947?
I can give you the answers. We Don’t Know.
So what is your point again?
“Peter says:
March 18, 2012 at 5:56 am
Sorry guys, can we forget the bizarre conspiracy theories and the excuse for knocking the BBC and focus on the FACTS of the progressive, unrelenting loss of sea ice volume? The data is clear for all to see and the predictions flow from the data. If you don’t like it why shoot the messenger? Is it because it’s easier and less painful than facing the reality of what is happening to the planet. The Arctic is our current ‘canary in the mine’ and should be a cause for alarm rather than nonsensical head-in-the-sand reactions.”