BREAKING: The 'secret' list of the BBC 28 is now public – let's call it 'TwentyEightGate'

UPDATES ARE CONTINUOUSLY BEING ADDED at the end of this story. Check below.

WUWT readers may recall this post last week:

The Secret 28 Who Made BBC ‘Green’ Will Not Be Named

The BBC pits six lawyers against one questioning blogger, Tony Newbery of Harmless Sky, who was making an FOI request for the 28 names. In the process, the judge demonstrates he has partisan views on climate change.

Now, thanks to the Wayback machine and we can now read the list that the BBC fought to keep secret. [Damn those mischevious bloggers 😉 ]

This list has been obtained legally. (link to Wayback document.) My heartiest congratulations to Maurizo for his excellent sleuthing!

Maurizo writes: This is for Tony, Andrew, Benny, Barry and for all of us Harmless Davids.

The list from: January 26th 2006, BBC Television Centre, London

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

BBC attendees:

Jana Bennett, Director of Television

Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science

Helen Boaden, Director of News

Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News

Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC

Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment

Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning

Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education

Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual

Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering

George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs

Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV

John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual

Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy

Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering

Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs

Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures catriona@tightropepictures.com

BBC Television Centre, London (cont)

Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning

Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live

Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit

Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive

Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News

Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend

Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations

Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News

Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes

Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events

For those who don’t know what this is about, read the back story here.

Here is the backup link to the original document just in case the original disappears:

Real World Brainstorm Sep 2007 background (PDF)

============================================================

UPDATE: Now this Climategate 2.0 email makes more sense, as they’ve just been carrying water for CRU and the eco-NGO’s all along. The meeting with the 28 was just a pep rally. From: this WUWT post:

BBC’s Kirby admission to Phil Jones on “impartiality”

Alex Kirby in email #4894 writing about the BBC’s “neutrality”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

date: Wed Dec  8 08:25:30 2004

from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.xx.xx>

subject: RE: something on new online.

to: “Alex Kirby” <alex.kirby@bbc.xxx.xx>

At 17:27 07/12/2004, you wrote:

Yes, glad you stopped this — I was sent it too, and decided to

spike it without more ado as pure stream-of-consciousness rubbish. I can well understand your unhappiness at our running the other piece. But we are constantly being savaged by the loonies for not giving them any coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them

say something. I hope though that the weight of our coverage makes it clear that we think they are talking through their hats.

—–Original Message—–

Prof. Phil Jones

Climatic Research Unit

BBC and “impartiality”…”ho, ho” indeed.

UPDATE: ‘TwentyEightGate’ was coined by RoyFOMR in comments. I liked it enough to put in the title.

UPDATE3 –  Barry Woods writes in an email to me:

Don’t forget Mike Hulme Climategate email. why he funded CMEP, to keep sceptics OFF BBC airwaves… (below)

Mike Hulme:

“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)

let us also not forget, that Roger Harrabin BBC & CMEP – (and Greenpeace Bill Hare) were also on the Tyndall board from 2002 to at least Nov 2005.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/

When did Roger Harrabin step down from Tyndall advisory board?

(and he no made no mention, when reporting Climategate, of connections)

Tyndall were funding CMEP seminars for years to persuade the BBC, so not just that seminar, but years worth of lobbying

UPDATE4: Bishop Hill makes this excerpt from correspondence the “quote of the day”:

We now know that the BBC decided to abandon balance in its coverage of climate on the advice of a small coterie of green activists, including the campaign director of Greenpeace. This shows that the “shoddy journalism” of Newsnight’s recent smear was no “lapse” of standards at all. BBC news programs have for years been poorly checked recitations of the work of activists.

UPDATE5: Maurizo has added some analysis.

Summary for those without much time to read it all: Why the List of Participants to the BBC CMEP Jan 2006 Seminar is important

http://omnologos.com/why-the-list-of-participants-to-the-bbc-cmep-jan-2006-seminar-is-important/

UPDATE 6: Maurizo asked to add this –

I have not “given” the 28Gate list any importance. In fact, not one of the bloggers and journalists and commenters has “given” the 28Gate list any importance. It has been the BBC that GAVE IMPORTANCE TO 28GATE by spending so much money on lawyers. Therefore, 28Gate is important.

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Curious George
November 12, 2012 4:11 pm

A good material for a conspiracy theorist. Professor Lewandowsky please pay attention.

Manfred
November 12, 2012 4:11 pm

Manfred says: November 12, 2012 at 4:09 pm
“They” refers to Auntie of course.

November 12, 2012 4:13 pm

Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Blimey I thought the BBC had shut that position down about twenty years ago

November 12, 2012 4:14 pm

This is brilliant , I’d now love to see something similar for UKMO or should I say Pravda

RoyFOMR
November 12, 2012 4:15 pm

If Maurizio had only revealed this earlier then think of all the public money that could have been saved.
At £40,000 per day for goodness knows how many days, it may even have exceeded the recent severance golden parachute given to the DG of the BBC – one of the attendees of TwentEightGate.
I hope that you don’t get sued by the BBC, omnologos, for wasting public funds!!!

Curious George
November 12, 2012 4:15 pm

A good conspiracy SHOULD exclude scientists.

November 12, 2012 4:16 pm

Wow! There are a lot of climate scientists on that list.
Yes, that’s sarcasm.

son of mulder
November 12, 2012 4:16 pm

Clear evidence that the biased BBC Climate Change editorial policy is based on evidence from very few Climate scientists. At least they had the authority of the Church of England present to explain how Noah mitigated the effects of catastrophic climate disruption.

November 12, 2012 4:16 pm

Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Was he the bloke that stood in front of that tank in tiananmen square ?

davidmhoffer
November 12, 2012 4:18 pm

Of all the questionable names on that list, most (ie Greenpeace etc) did not surprise me, only two caused me to raise an eyebrow. The first was Claire Foster, Church of England. The second was:
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
A member of the US embassy was asked to advise on the official broadcast policy of an instrument of the British government?

Nick
November 12, 2012 4:19 pm

Boaden is also on the list. Currently ‘suspended’ for her role in a paedophile mess at the bbc. The bbc covered up for Jimmy Saville. Then when it comes out, the decided that the best thing to do was go on the attack to show to distract against the mess. So they attacked a Tory donor for being involved, plus throwing Thatcher into the mix. It’s all unravelled. So she’s going to be toast.

richard
November 12, 2012 4:19 pm

another little story in the telegraph today,
the science editor at the BBC , the one who doles out the usual crap on agw was once editor of the ten o clock news, rather than sack him the BBC moved him to another department when he was responsible for a story totally wrong about a firm called Oryx. This resulted in the longest on air apology from the BBC.

November 12, 2012 4:21 pm

Let me repeat for the slowest journos that might be reading this.
The list has been obtained perfectly legally. It is available for all to see in the Wayback Machine. You don’t need no secret code or password and no knowledge of source code of any type.
All you need is to find a broken link on a publicly-available page on the publicly-available IBT website and the ability to do “copy link address” with any ordinary mouse, then “paste” with the same mouse in the appropriate field in the Wayback Machine.
If persistence is a crime, I am in for a life sentence.

November 12, 2012 4:22 pm

Note just how inclusive in their quest for diversity the BBC are, not one actual climate scientist there just every Li, Saleemul Huq and Dadi, with a hatred for the western world. Sorry but I had to say it.

November 12, 2012 4:24 pm

4:03pm “Methinks that if they spent less time on saving the earth and more time on saving souls, the Church of England wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in”
Not all of them are that bad – Rev Dr Peter Mullen: “Can we just get rid of the BBC, please?”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/petermullen/100189084/can-we-just-get-rid-of-the-bbc-please/

Lance Wallace
November 12, 2012 4:25 pm

From the Wikipedia entry for Robert May:
Although an atheist since age 11, May has stated that religion may help society deal with climate change. While referring to what he believes to be a rigid structure of fundamentalist religion, he stated that the co-operational aspects of non-fundamentalist religion may in fact help with climate change. When asked if religious leaders should be doing more to persuade people to combat climate change, he stated that it was absolutely necessary.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/richard-alleyne/6146656/Maybe-religion-is-the-answer-claims-atheist-scientist.html
I guess anything goes, huh?

November 12, 2012 4:25 pm

This is the Oryx story http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2002/nov/28/bbc.broadcasting1
I think tonight, I would be able to find on Google who killed Jimmy Hoffa if I so wished.

tallbloke
November 12, 2012 4:26 pm

Lolz
Well done Maurizio!

November 12, 2012 4:30 pm

This list appears to contain inter-related lobbyists and advocacy groups.
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
http://www.ibt.org.uk/members.php
IBT is a membership based organisation. … one of our principal activities is lobbying, … contact IBT Director, Mark Galloway. IBT’s current membership includes the following organisations … Tearfund

November 12, 2012 4:35 pm

Another interesting fact: That well known Royal AGW campaigner Prince Charles, who is currently in SE Asia I believe ; is hoping the Savile sex scandal calms down before he gets back, as they were the very best of best of best of mates. Way beyond any rationale logic bar the scurrilous nasty stories linked to Savile’s activities that are openly claimed on dozen’s of blogs

Paul Westhaver
November 12, 2012 4:36 pm

Just like the obfuscating Penns State University that is wrapped up in a scandal, so too is the BBC. Penn State, busying themselves in the corrupt business of protecting themselves in the midst of Sandusky on campus, and preventing the “hide the decline” emails from Michael Mann from being made public, set the creepy model for the latest BBC scandal.
The entire management of BBC is resigning and getting fired in the wake of a devastating scandal.
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/bbc-news-executives-step-aside-pedophilia-scandal-235922592.html
The BBC, one of the left wing’s, progressive, pro-global warming fake news machines is self-destructing as all of its upper executives are implicated in covering up an expose of Jimmy Savile, while he was employed by BBC.
If that wasn’t weird enough for you, guess where the ex-executive of the BBC, Mark Thompson, is now the CEO…. come on guess…..
YUP ….THE NEW YORK TIMES.
This is too weird for words.

viffer
November 12, 2012 4:39 pm

1. Please can we all agree that this should be known and referred to as “28 Gate”?
2. Has anyone worked out a way to get this information to Tony Newbery?
3. Great find. Great timing.

November 12, 2012 4:40 pm

Tune into the blogosphere and drop out of the MSM. It’s there that you’ll find people like Steve McIntyre. Investigative journalism is alive and well; it’s just moved house.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/the-death-of-journalism-and-the-irresistible-rise-of-the-blogosphere/
We can add Omnologos to the list of sleuths. Well done amico.
Pointman

richardscourtney
November 12, 2012 4:42 pm

Friends:
I write to observe that – in the shock at surveying the list – some commentators have missed that there are scientists and climate scientists among the list.
The important points are
1.
The stated purpose of the meeting was to determine policy on broadcasting about AGW so there was no reason according to that purpose to invite any of those I listed in my post at November 12, 2012 at 4:01 pm: they are all advocates of AGW.
2.
The scientists who attended were all of one mind concerning AGW.
Hence, the list of invited specialists demonstrates that the stated purpose of the meeting was a sham because the policy which it was claimed was determined by the meeting had been decided prior to the meeting.
The only discussion which the entire list of “Specialists” would have would be on how best the BBC could “sell” their assertions of AGW and its dire effects. The advocates would say what was wanted and the scientists would caution on the limits of what could be advocated without legal challenge under the BBC Charter.
The adopted policy on ‘balance’ supposedly adopted by expert discussion at the meeting cannot be justified in the light of those invited to attend the meeting. Hence, the adoption of that policy can be demonstrated to be a deliberate breach of the BBC Charter. Therefore, the list is potentially even more serious for the BBC than any of the problems now confronting the BBC.
Richard