Derek Bateman reports:
Fascinating to see the BBC’s priorities revealed so nakedly tonight when Pacific Quay management contacted the University of the West of Scotland to object to the UWS Bias in Broadcasting report which, as far as I can see, they didn’t have the courage to broadcast.
Instead of doing what any self-confident public service broadcaster should do and producing a news item out of a critical report from one of our own universities, they seem to have hidden it from the licence-fee paying public who bankroll them and then mounted a sabotage operation against the author.
I understand they are demanding to see the raw data such is their fury at being found out misleading viewers. But even without seeing it, they themselves are reaching conclusions saying they doubt the “factual accuracy of a significant number of the contentions contained within the report and with the language used in the report itself.”
…
In a letter from Ian Small, the head of public policy, which came to me via a third party source, they say: “many of the conclusions you draw are, on the evidence you provide, unsubstantiated and/or of questionable legitimacy.” You may detect the irony of this statement given what the report revealed about the BBC’s reporting and presentation of referendum news.
…
Read the whole sordid story here: http://derekbateman1.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/breaking-newsbbc-threatens-academic/
This reminds me of the famous Climategate email:
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
Since the complete dismantling of the BBC engineering dept, then the destruction of BBC foreign language services the BBC ceased to be a broadcaster of anything but hearsay.
You can’t have the words BBC, journalism, & Engineering in the same sentence any more, so no suprise you can’t expect them to have anything else but a partial understanding of the term “news” or “science”.
All those became foreign concepts, just like the ideas of “honour”, “morals” & “standards” roughly simltaneously, which is why the publicly funded body is people by lawyers and jobsworths with magnificent pay-offs to match their flawlessly styled hype.
To suggest a choice between the BBC and Fox is ridiculous, two poor quality broadcasters, the choice should be do you want a good service or a bad one. The BBC is publicly funded and is expected to be unbiased in it reporting, it is not meeting its obligations to the viewers. The only reason it has continued to be funded in this way is that the government see an advantage to having a broadcaster under its control, presumably in order to control what information the public are given. The increasingly public evidence of a premeditated and planned bias in relation to Global Warming is a clear indication of this propaganda potential and must bring the debate on public funding back to the forefront.
Spillinger says: January 23, 2014 at 11:09 am;
“. . . .Alright. But apart from Top Gear, Doctor Who, Dancing with the Stars, Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses., and Match of the Day, what has the BBC ever done for us?”
The aqueduct.
Sorry, couldn’t resist…. 🙂
DirkH says “You seem to not have noticed that sometime in 2005 or 2007 or so Richard Black dragged all BBC journos to seminars organized by Futerra”.
Thanks, but your pea has moved between the thimbles again. Are you not referring to the 2006 BBC “eco-seminar” (of which I was aware of course, and its associated cover-up) reported at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537886/BBCs-six-year-cover-secret-green-propaganda-training-executives.html
This was a policy seminar held for BBC execs, not journo training – it had nothing to do with access to (or secrecy of) scientific research data. And I note that Streetcred (to whom my earlier remarks were actually addressed, in reply to his own comment) has not responded yet …
Geordie,
There’s Fox and there’s Fox News. The former produces entertainment programming, some of it very good and some exceedingly awful. The later is a news reporting organization that has the audacity to invite people from both sides of an issue to express their views.The liberals usually hate Fox News because when questioned or subject to a fair debate, the left-wing guests make fools of themselves. The worst sin of Fox News, of course, is questioning Dear Leader and his new order.
What about O’Reilly, Hannity, etc.? Those are opinion and commentary programming. They aren’t news shows. Fox News reporting has been show to be the least unbiased of any network in the USA. BTW, O’Reilly and Hannity give the other side a chance to speak and make their case. O’Reilly, BTW, is neither a conservative nor a Republican, in case you’re curious.
Don’t forget the Fox Business Network, either, which has the audacity to be unabashedly pro-capitalist, pro-property rights and pro-free market.
Curious question here; What is done with the data from hourly or special observation temperature readings at a single site to compute a temperature record such as BEST or HADCRUT3?
Do they add up all of the temps recorded for the day and compute an average? Are there only certain times that they use? Do they throw away any observations?
I only ask because all of the RAW data that I have been able to see, which isn’t all that much, only includes monthly averages.
HADCRUT3 for example.
Number= 037760
Name= LONDON/GATWICK
Country= UNITED KINGDO
Lat= 51.2
Long= 0.2
Height= 59
Start year= 1961
End year= 2007
First Good year= 1961
Source ID= 10
Source file= Jones+Anders
Jones data to= 1998
Normals source= Data
Normals source start year= 1961
Normals source end year= 1990
Normals= 3.8 3.9 5.8 8.0 11.3 14.4 16.5 16.2 13.8 10.8 6.6 4.7
Standard deviations source= Data
Standard deviations source start year= 1961
Standard deviations source end year= 1990
Standard deviations= 2.1 2.0 1.3 0.9 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.2 1.0 1.2 1.1 1.7
Obs:
1961 3.9 7.1 7.5 10.3 11.0 14.7 15.9 16.1 15.7 10.9 6.4 2.7
1962 4.1 4.5 2.5 7.6 9.8 13.0 15.1 14.7 12.6 10.5 5.9 1.7
1963 -2.7 -0.8 6.2 8.6 10.3 14.7 15.1 14.5 13.1 10.3 8.5 2.0
Notes:
Number is a station identifier (usually the number assigned by the WMO).
Long is the longitude of the station. Negative values are east.
Height is in metres.
First Good Year – data before that year are suspect.
Source ID is an indicator of the source of the data.
Source File and Jones data to are internal flags relating this file to other systems.
Normals and standard deviations are produced and used as described in the data set papers. One value for each calendar month (Jan-Dec) in Celsius.
Obs (short for Observations) are monthly average temperatures, in Celsius – one row for each year. Each column is a calendar month (Jan-Dec).
A value of -99 indicates missing data.
See specifically Obs.
Can I get hourly data from one specific station over a long period of time?
Thanks
Do you guys have any idea how the way you talk sounds? Imagine how this thread would look to an impartial observer with no stake in the issue. Not a good look, especially when you are accusing someone else of bias.
drumphil says:
January 24, 2014 at 4:18 pm
“Do you guys have any idea how the way you talk sounds? Imagine how this thread would look to an impartial observer with no stake in the issue. Not a good look, especially when you are accusing someone else of bias.”
Where do all you BBC apologists come from? Don’t you have some lies to write during office hours?
TimC says:
January 24, 2014 at 8:25 am
“DirkH says “You seem to not have noticed that sometime in 2005 or 2007 or so Richard Black dragged all BBC journos to seminars organized by Futerra”.
Thanks, but your pea has moved between the thimbles again.”
See, I don’t care. Are you a Brit? Happy with the BBC? Well great for you; what do I care whether the Brits like themselves being lied to; it’s not a country I wish to visit. You want them to take every lie from the IPCC verbatim and without investigation, and probably also every lie from every other UN and NATO department? Great! You must be a happy man because that’s exactly what you get.
DirkH said:
“Where do all you BBC apologists come from? Don’t you have some lies to write during office hours?”
I didn’t say a damn thing about the BBC. Not a word.. And I get that in response.. I think you just made my point for me.
drumphil says: @ur momisugly January 24, 2014 at 4:18 pm
Do you guys have any idea how the way you talk sounds? Imagine how this thread would look to an impartial observer with no stake in the issue. Not a good look, especially when you are accusing someone else of bias.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are coming in at the very tail end of a several year long conversation.
At this point most of us are very fed up with the lies told by the MSM. BBC is the worst of them because they take public money have secret meetings and then decide to shut out one side of a debate. Their propaganda aided politicians in killing 30,000 people a year via fuel poverty while stuffing money into their pockets and the pockets of their buddies.
Kinda hard to be an impartial observer with all those dead bodies.
“Kinda hard to be an impartial observer with all those dead bodies.”
Oh, so it’s the BBC’s fault that people can’t help but carry on like this…
So much for personal responsibility.
Hyperbole never serves the cause of truth.
Sounds more like a Hissy Fit.
DirkH says “Are you a Brit? Happy with the BBC? Well great for you; what do I care whether the Brits like themselves being lied to; it’s not a country I wish to visit.”
Ah – glad you cleared that up: it’s all just prejudice about something you have never directly experienced, nor actually know about, nor even want to. Doesn’t it follow that your opinions in this thread should be weighted accordingly?
I don’t really understand this discussion, TimC, you yourself describe it as politically hot. The BBC collects £3.6 billion pounds as a tax but is required to cover controversial subjects accurately and with due impartiality. It has been involved in a number of recent scandals about ignoring the standards which are required by law and have been threatened with a massive loss of funding.Following the meeting in 2006 which the BBC described as informed by some of the best scientific minds (few were actually scientists) they themselves made a statement saying impartial reporting was no longer justified. Even within their own reporters and editorial staff there has been public dissent on their policies. I expect external observers of these posts might recognize it as part of an ongoing public debate about a public body who feels no obligation to the people who pay for it. You also wonder about the FOI request and suggest that the BBC would be a better judge of research data than a University with no axe to grind. Ive no problem with the request but we are talking about an organization which is currently fighting for its very existence because of its arrogant, misleading and incompetent management style. Do you really expect them to use the data in a constructive way, the only public defense for virtually all of the current scandals is mounted by people being paid by them.
Geordie says “we are talking about an organization which is currently fighting for its very existence because of its arrogant, misleading and incompetent management style” (etc – see above).
A bit late (in a busy day): thanks for your comments but can I try to put matters into some perspective, as I see them – and I should perhaps confirm at the outset that I am a UK national, living in the south of England.
First, I would mention that the BBC is no big deal, on a world-wide scale. It is the public sector broadcaster for the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) – but the UK’s entire land area is about 93,400 sq miles – less than that of the state of Oregon.
The BBC is ultimately all under political control. Its Charter periodically comes up for review under the control of the then UK government, which also appoints the members of its governing body. Its funding is by a flat-rate “licence fee” on any UK household containing equipment capable of receiving live BBC broadcasts (whether by radio signal or internet streaming of live broadcasts); householders where such equipment is present (for TVs) or used (live streaming) are liable to criminal sanctions if they do not pay the licence fee, so it is truly a tax, again under political control.
It used to be regarded affectionately and was often called “Auntie” (as if to a spinster aunt, burbling away to nobody in particular at the end of the dinner table) but those days are gone – principally its lavish spending habits with licence fee money has recently caused much adverse comment. But this is just an example of the BBC’s public sector ethos: as it is a public body under political control it will never be happy to admit to getting anything wrong, and will follow the political consensus du jour – which in the UK is presently that CAGW is real and not to be questioned. What I am saying is that it will actually take a change in the UK political consensus to effect any change in the BBC’s approach – but life moves on, the pause continues and change will one day happen.
And now the politicians have a larger problem – the Wee Eck looking to bring about a break-up of the UK, with Scotland seceding from the Union.
To get to the point, I think you were suggesting that my earlier comments in this thread implied that the BBC would be a better judge of research data than “a University with no axe to grind”. I was in fact only suggesting that the BBC should have access to the data, to be able to review and comment on it – when we can all get to form a judgment on the arguments as to whether the BBC’s output is actually biased or not.
And I very much doubt that UWS can correctly be described “a University with no axe to grind”: having conducted this research it will have its own reputation to maintain; it will almost certainly have a (corporate) view on the referendum question as will its academic staff and students – and it is a Scottish institution within the Scottish Parliament’s territory. Any of these is enough to give it “an axe”.
For these reasons I believe that UWS should disclose its research data to the BBC – and I think it is rather suspicious that UWS did not do so before publishing its findings, as this seems anyway to connote that the research was politically motivated.
I think it would be fair to say that the BBC ‘used’ to be very good but now it is no more than a left wing organisation that pumps out propaganda to suit its political preferences whilst it is funded by a blanket tax enforced by the threat of court and imprisonment for not paying the fine as well as soft EU loans.
I would like to think that we are past the point of needing a state broadcaster – the BBC loves to ridicule the North Korean state broadcaster but doesn’t have the wit to see the the irony.
Privatise it and it can be as left wing, pro-warming and mad as it wants as I won’t care a bit and if it’s so good Frank McDonald, it will prosper but we both know it will fall on its arse faster than a Greenpeace activist slipping over on a few inches of ‘global warming’ in Winter.
I suppose they can as a hefty licensing fee, and signing an license agreement for this raw data that BBC wants? BBC knows that licensing is not free – after all it lives off paid licenses! So it would be understandable for BBC that they have to pay for the raw data they wish to analyze.