Photograph of David Attenborough at ARKive's launch in Bristol, England, author Wildscreen https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David_Attenborough_(cropped).jpg
Climate Communications

BBC Rejects Guardian Right Wing Backlash Attenborough Censorship Claims

2 weeks ago
Eric Worrall
60 Comments

Essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Dr. Willie Soon, Matt Ridley; The Guardian claims a David Attenborough episode of “Wild Isles” will not be publicly aired, because of fears of a right wing backlash.

BBC will not broadcast Attenborough episode over fear of ‘rightwing backlash’

Exclusive: Decision to make episode about natural destruction available only on iPlayer angers programme-makers

Helena Horton Environment reporter
Sat 11 Mar 2023 07.00 AEDT

The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.

The decision has angered the programme-makers and some insiders at the BBC, who fear the corporation has bowed to pressure from lobbying groups with “dinosaurian ways”.

The BBC strongly denied this was the case and insisted the episode in question was never intended for broadcast.

…

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/10/david-attenborough-bbc-wild-isles-episode-rightwing-backlash-fears

The response from the BBC;

The accusation that conservatives and climate skeptics would try to suppress an Attenborough programme is absurd. How could we entertain our readers by exposing the outlandishness of green ideas, if greens were prevented from publishing those ideas?

The only time we’ve objected that I can recall, is to the unconstrained use of green propaganda films as educational material, presenting them to kids as unchallenged fact, when many of them contain significant errors.

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Redge
March 13, 2023 10:47 pm

I’m a right-winger, but I’m also an environmentalist (old school).

I’d be delighted to see how people are trying to protect the natural world and restore damaged areas.

Last edited 13 days ago by Redge
22
Ben Vorlich
Reply to  Redge
March 14, 2023 12:51 am

I think I fall into that category too. But I sometimes wonder if restoring damaged areas is that simple. Do you restore blanket bogs or the trees they buried? If deer, wild goats and sheep damage and hinder reforestation do you reintroduce wolves or keep them out with fences? Do you restore medieval field systems or not or do you just leave nature to get on with it bearing in mind introduced species like rhododendron and buddleia will predominate because one is poisonous to cattle and insects like the other making life difficult for the bison you want to reintroduce? Do you cull wild rabbits because they were brought in by the Romans?
Turning back the clock is not easy

24
Philip Mulholland
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
March 14, 2023 1:21 am

Turning back the clock is not easy

Douglas Adams had a nice take on this.

“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.”

22
leowaj
Reply to  Redge
March 14, 2023 9:45 am

Me, too, though I’d describe myself as a “conservationist”. (Is that term used outside the US?) For example, I am not opposed to restoring swathes of land back to their natural state before industrialization, or planting trees or opening/restricting hunting (within reason) to help native species repopulate. That last point, regarding native species– I always appreciate when homeowners deliberately create food plots/feeders/boxes/etc for deer or bees or humming birds or what have you. But I would never glue myself to a road in a bout of religious fervor over it.

Last edited 13 days ago by leowaj
1
Beagle
March 13, 2023 10:53 pm

We have to remember that anything other than Loony Left is now regarded as Extreme Right.

60
Peta of Newark
Reply to  Beagle
March 13, 2023 11:32 pm

…and it’s been long accepted that if you venture far enough in either direction, you meet yourself coming from the other.

I met this story a few days ago and have been ‘mulling’

All I keep coming back to how immensely dim the grauniad is for running it while being extremely ugly people.
i.e. They are admitting to The 6th Episode (##) being being highly inflammatory and thus full of speculation, exaggerations, out-of-contexts and other lies
What they then do, because the film is actually depicting them (the human animal cannot lie) and their tactics, project what would be their reaction onto folks they regard as ‘the enemy’
It really is awful.

## Even worse and much more awful, does The 6th Episode even exist and how does anyone know what’s in it?

Thus it starts to look like the GHGE, Ozone Holes and PM2.5s = Total Fabrications and Junk so as to signal virtue and start fights with other people.
Seemingly just for the sake of it.

The Only Logic There is that little quote we saw recently from a female journalist recently:
“The easiest way to give meaning to your life is to make enemies”
….. and here we are, grauniad simply stirring stuff up so as to antagonise people. Having fabricated it from the flimsiest piece of nothing originally

And what sort of people lead meaningless lives if not the chronically depressed and Zombies.
same things

15
Ben Vorlich
Reply to  Peta of Newark
March 14, 2023 12:34 am

There’s probably enough unused material to make another 5 part series if they want to.

2
cilo
Reply to  Peta of Newark
March 14, 2023 12:55 am

…and it’s been long accepted that if you venture far enough in either direction, you meet yourself coming from the other

In my tongue, the word for ‘hole’ is the same as ‘a-hole’. This makes it very funny when I say:
“That’s because they keep reasoning around their own hole”.
I said funny, never said mature…

Last edited 13 days ago by cilo
4
Alpha
March 14, 2023 12:16 am

Shock! horror! the Guardian found guilty of lying to it’s sheep readership!

Are they still begging for money at the bottom of every article?

A quite despicable rag.

32
Redge
Reply to  Alpha
March 14, 2023 11:24 am

Shock! horror! the Guardian found guilty of lying to it’s sheep readership!

Readersheep

I like that one

Gonna use it

3
Philip Mulholland
March 14, 2023 12:52 am

The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series

Good news.

9
Ian_e
Reply to  Philip Mulholland
March 14, 2023 2:00 am

Well, If Only!

2
strativarius
March 14, 2023 12:55 am

The Guardian just gets more unhinged

In this paradigm failure to agree is confirmation that one is a goose stepping moron

7
MCourtney
March 14, 2023 1:02 am

For context, this has happened during a crisis at the BBC over free speech.
The BBC’s top paid presenter, Gary Lineker (a freelance ex-professional footballer) tweeted on his own Twitter feed criticism of the language being used by the Conservative Party over immigration. He is a strong advocate for refugee rights, even letting refugees stay in his own home.

The Conservative Party objected and said it was unacceptable. The BBC then dropped him from his presenting gig on the grounds that impartiality means never disagreeing with the Government. This contravened the BBC’s own regulations that required News and Current Affairs presenters to be openly neutral but made no such requirements of other presenters. Lineker presents football. 
This action against the highest paid star at the BBC obviously had a chilling effect on free speech for everyone else with lesser status.

So, the BBC’s football coverage over the weekend was slashed. Fellow presenters and commentators refused to work for the BBC. Premiership footballers announced they would not talk to the BBC. It was a debacle. Not helped by a Current Affairs presenter claiming that hospitalising your wife is worthy of a Knighthood so long as it’s only once and a relative of Boris Johnson. As well as an ongoing investigation into the scandal over “loans” to Boris arranged by the Chairman of the BBC immediately before Boris gave him that role.

Come Monday the Director General returned from the USA and promptly reversed the ban on Gary Lineker. But during this furore lots of BBC editorial decisions were being looked at. 

It was a fast-moving story.

0
Eric Worrall
Author
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 1:20 am

The quickest solution is to eliminate the TV license, then let people choose whether to pay for the BBC of their own free will, like any other broadcast content provider. The politicisation of the BBC is only a problem because people are being forced to pay for party political propaganda broadcasts by their political opponents.

Last edited 13 days ago by Eric Worrall
25
MCourtney
Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 14, 2023 1:34 am

There is an argument for abolishing BBC News. But abolishing the license fee altogether would be a disaster for Britain.

The UK speaks English. And is a far smaller media market than the USA. Without a subsidised UK voice British culture would be overwhelmed by the USA. That’s how markets work.

The USA is seeing this happen to itself on a small scale as Hollywood caters to the larger Chinese market. But that’s nothing compared to the swamping of culture that the UK would suffer.

If left to commercial forces there is no Britain.

-23
Eric Worrall
Author
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 1:58 am

You’re assuming nobody would want to pay for the BBC. The BBC has produced some great content, Yes Minister, Luther, Cobra, The Green Green Grass, Only Fools and Horses, East Enders, Faulty Towers, Blakes 7, The Goodies, The Tomorrow People, Doctor Who, plenty more. I don’t want to destroy the BBC, I want to liberate it, so creative people can be free of the political hacks.

19
The Real Engineer
Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 14, 2023 4:18 am

All those programs are now considered politically incorrect and are therefore unavailable. No more comedy (proper satirical) is being made and most of the programs are deadly boring. Well done BBC.

13
bobclose
Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 14, 2023 9:36 pm

Agreed Eric, but most of these great shows were well in the past before the BEEP went woke and declared climate change sceptics verboten.

3
CampsieFellow
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 3:26 am

I don’t watch a lot of television so I’m not in a position to make a strong comment on that but I wonder how far commercial television in the UK is dominated by US culture. From what I understand, a lot of ITV’s scedules is made up of soap operas such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale, hardly examples of US culture. Or are they? Then there are quiz programmes. Are they dominated by US culture? Chat shows? This afternoon ITV is showing three and a half hours of horse racing. I agree that ITV is now a pale shadow of what it used to be like in the 1970s and 1980s but I don’t know that it is dominated by US culture. But I totally agree that for our television to be dominated by US culture would be an extremely undesirable outcome.

3
Ben Vorlich
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 4:46 am

I think that that particular bird has long since flown.

My grandchildren (eldest is 13 youngest six) watch screaming hysterical American Teens and Twenties on YouTube (I understand that other platforms are available), what non-American stuff they see is also full of screaming teenagers who sound American.

5
MarkW
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 9:30 am

If it has to be subsidized in order to survive, was it worth preserving in the first place?
BTW, there is more than one “British” culture, why should only the one that you approve of be “preserved”?

1
Redge
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 11:32 am

It’s not the BBC news that’s the issue, it’s the invasive pushing of everything from the extreme left.

Every single programme and radio programme, from children’s telly to adult news, has to include climate change is bad, social justice, and a hotchpotch of inclusivity, often where it doesn’t belong

3
strativarius
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 1:23 am

Freedom of speech? Impartiality?

Has anyone told Posy Parker?

2
Alpha
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 1:57 am

“… even letting refugees stay in his own home.”

letting selected students from Pakistan and Turkey stay for 3 weeks in his £4 million mansion… my hero.

6
CampsieFellow
Reply to  Alpha
March 14, 2023 3:30 am

The bigger issue is the extent to which the people coming across the English Channel in small boats are “refugees”. Approximately one-third of them are Albanians and there is no need for anybody to flee from Albania. And how is it that these “refugees” are moistly young men? Where are the women, the children and the older people who are supposedly fleeing from whatever it is that these “refugees” are fleeing from?

13
Greytide
Reply to  CampsieFellow
March 14, 2023 9:18 am

Whatever they are fleeing from, they are fleeing from a “Safe” country, France. I understood that you were meant to claim asylum in the first “Safe” country you entered.

8
nurtureyourchild
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 2:19 am

Umm you, and the extremely overpaid and arrogant Lineker, forgot to add the word illegal before immigrant, big difference!
Personally I don’t give a shite about football, the BBC or Lineker and I haven’t paid for a licence for years and don’t miss it at all.
Hopefully soon the bloated BBC, who refuses funding by adverts, and yet uses licence payers money to fund their private business companies, will be forced to finally fund themselves!

8
Right-Handed Shark
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 2:22 am

For me, the most shocking thing about this whole episode was learning that the BBC is impartial! They kept that well hidden..

13
Redge
Reply to  Right-Handed Shark
March 14, 2023 11:35 am

I think they just redefined the meaning of “impartial”

In reality, the charter states they have to give “due impartiality” and I think we all know what that means

0
CampsieFellow
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 3:17 am

That’s a very good description of the affair – from a pro-Lineker angle. Some might disagree with your way of describing the events. What was particularly gratifying was that the audience for Gary Lineker’s programme increased by 500,000 on the Saturday when he was absent.

5
Ben Vorlich
Reply to  CampsieFellow
March 14, 2023 5:02 am

After the free advertising MOTD got I was surprised it was only 500,000. Unless the regulars switched and it was all new viewers.
I don’t watch it, usually doing the final tidying and switch offs while my wife watches her team. Being a StJohnstone supporter in Derby the opportunities for watching highlights are limited to the odd match on BBC Alba, that’s even when they became double cup winners.

Had that been the format for a month then we might have had a better idea on the preferred programme type

What were his actual words in that tweet, and did they include the word Nazi?

1
Steve Smith
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 3:32 am

The concern was not that he disagreed with the government, it was because he compared them to nazi Germany in the 30’s

1
Ben Vorlich
Reply to  Steve Smith
March 14, 2023 5:03 am

What exactly did he say? Did it include the word Nazi?

1
MCourtney
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
March 14, 2023 6:23 am

No. He did not. Yet the implication was clear. But he was talking about the type of language being used, not a Kristallnacht.

From TalkSport.
Earlier this month, Lineker quote-tweeted a post from the UK Home Office, where home secretary Suella Braverman announced her plans to detain and return migrants seeking asylum.
Lineker replied: “Good heavens, this is beyond awful.”

One Twitter user responded, in a now-deleted tweet, that Lineker was ‘out of order’.

Lineker replied: “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries.
“This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”

-1
Alpha
Reply to  MCourtney
March 14, 2023 7:59 am

Sorry I must of missed the part where Braverman described illegal immigrants as “parasites” or “vermin”.

Anyway, so you have large numbers of young men coming from the middle east and north Africa, standing in Calais, in France, having travelled across other European countries, that are still willing to pay criminals lots of money to take a perilous boat journey where many have died previously to get to the UK.

Why?… why are all these people risking their lives to get into, according to Gary, the fascist islands of the UK.

Rather odd behaviour for “refugees”.

7
DavsS
Reply to  Alpha
March 15, 2023 6:09 am

Lineker’s thought processes demonstrate why it’s a stupid idea to give the vote to 16 year olds.

-1
Alpha
Reply to  Steve Smith
March 14, 2023 1:10 pm

… and here are Gary Lineker’s National socialists looking like they’re about to invade Poland…

sunak braverman.png
3
Eric Schollar
Reply to  Alpha
March 16, 2023 2:01 am

As far as I know, it is Russia that they want to invade

-1
gezza1298
Reply to  MCourtney
March 15, 2023 8:13 am

I liked the new Match of the Day format which looked very much like the Sky Sports youtube 3 minute clips without the commentary stitched together. A bit odd that it was so short as I thought they were allowed 45mins of action but maybe their editors were on strike as well. The big increase in viewers was good but sadly since there is the FA Cup this weekend followed by internationals there won’t be a normal MOTD for 2 weeks. Yes, the runt is back on Saturday for Burnley v City – which will likely appeal to club fans only – and won’t do the evening show to see if there is a big fall off.

0
Ed Zuiderwijk
March 14, 2023 2:54 am

Actually, the first episode was very watchable. Absolutely Stunning footage and no preaching about you know what. Only at the end a mention that nature in Britain is under threat, which it is in places.

0
Ben Vorlich
Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
March 14, 2023 5:16 am

Any programme that includes a reference to Climate Change, which it did is propaganda. The main problems in my opinion are habitat loss and over exploitation. Planting and introduction of non-native species. Sitka Spruce, Douglas fir, Norway spruce and Larch monoculture for commercial crops and Rhododendron, Himalayan balsam,Water Primrose accidental plants and Grey Squirrel, American Mink, Signal crayfish accidental animals and even the native hedgehog has been a problem after being introduced to areas where it hadn’t made it on its own. Climate change, natural or manmade, not involved in any of this

6
Tom Abbott
March 14, 2023 4:21 am

From the article: “The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.”

What rightwing politicians? What rightwing press? Does Britain have any of these? It looks like it’s all leftwing in Britain to me, except for Nigel Farage.

5
Ben Vorlich
Reply to  Tom Abbott
March 14, 2023 5:23 am

The press, in main, is not left wing in the UK. The Guardian/Observer, Mirror Group. The Morning Star, The News Line only the first two sell in any sort of numbers.
Right Wing would be Daily Mail. Daily Telegraph, The Times, Daily Express, The Sun, The Financial Times all right of centre

1
MarkW
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
March 14, 2023 9:36 am

The problem is that center for Britain is solidly socialist.

2
Tom Abbott
Reply to  MarkW
March 14, 2023 10:44 am

That’s right.

What defines a rightwinger in Britain?

0
MarkW
Reply to  Tom Abbott
March 14, 2023 12:40 pm

As near as I can tell, it’s anyone who wants to slow down the headlong rush into full socialism.

1
Pat from Kerbob
Reply to  Tom Abbott
March 14, 2023 10:26 pm

Anyone with that one extra brain cell needed for logical rational thought.
You don’t need to be a genius, just that one extra brain cell.

0
cwright
Reply to  Tom Abbott
March 15, 2023 4:21 am

The Daily Telegraph is certainly right of centre.
But sadly it prints climate propaganda like all the others.
Chris

2
michael hart
March 14, 2023 5:44 am

Sounds like a storm in the BBC tea cup.

Yet, “Helena Horton Environment reporter…” sends spooky shivers down my spine. The English language works that way sometimes.

0
ResourceGuy
March 14, 2023 6:51 am

That excuse sounds suspect. When have they ever held back on something like that? Is the real danger that the BBC will broadcast something that wakes the general population into questioning other programming bias or elitism? Or is it because the UK economic system is more cracked than before?

3
Kip Hansen
Editor
March 14, 2023 7:04 am

Pragmatically, the episode is probably so filled with untruths and half-cocked anti-human progressive nonsense that they fear lawsuits over the episode….

5
mikelowe2013
Reply to  Kip Hansen
March 14, 2023 11:46 am

Like that previous Attenborough programme which included filming walruses. With nary a mention that their falling off cliffs was due to the scare-tactics of his film crew!

1
JiminNEF
March 14, 2023 7:29 am

To immerse myself in British Culture, I just loop episodes of Clarkson’s Farm.

3
gezza1298
Reply to  JiminNEF
March 15, 2023 8:07 am

Yes, the second series was brilliant at making his local council look idiots working against the local farming industry. Oxfordshire has gone lefty these days.

0
nailheadtom
March 14, 2023 7:32 am

Ah, the BBC is depleted. A few years ago they’d have been rescued, “Jim’ll Fix It”.

0
mikelowe2013
March 14, 2023 11:32 am

Of course, the BBC and others are trying to conceal the fact that Attenborough’s senility is a major worry, and many of his views are manufactured to match his erroneous story. Why not show a realistic modern photograph of their all-knowing guru?

0
Philip CM
March 14, 2023 7:53 pm

Why would there be a “right-wing backlash about a film of people working to preserve and restore the biodiversity of the British Isles??? Are right-wingers’/conservatives supposed to be anti-conservation??? Asking for a friend. 😏

1
DavsS
March 15, 2023 6:10 am

The Guardian is the natural home of right whingers.

0
gezza1298
March 15, 2023 8:17 am

Perhaps Gary Lineker hasn’t decided whether they can show it yet.

I did come across something that suggested during the series they had to be careful with the camera angles to avoid showing all the windmills on land and sea that spoil all the views.

0
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