Bishop Hill Harrabin on CMEP
Nov 29, 2011 BBC Climate: Sceptics Roger Harrabin has written an article responding to David Rose's article in the Mail on Sunday about the activities of the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme. This is most of it.
Climate sceptics seeking more space on the BBC helped provoke the Trust’s investigation into science impartiality but the Trust said we were already giving them too much space – not too little. We should bear this in mind when we hear new accusations of bias. Take the Mail on Sunday’s latest articles, which focused partly on the BBC ‘Real World’ seminars I helped to run. They began in the late 90s after I wondered which stories would still appear significant in 100 years. I concluded that longterm changes in environment and development might prove very important, and judged that these slow-burn issues were under-covered at the time.
In those days the environment was a lower order story and leading scientists were already complaining that we treated environment science like politics – as though the weight of opinion on each side was equal. There was also a gathering consensus among UK parties and corporate leaders on the issue. That’s why Tony Hall, then Head of News, asked me to create seminars for editors and managers to discuss global environmental change and development. Over several years I worked under the supervision of senior BBC management with Dr Joe Smith, a senior lecturer at the Open University, to devise meetings with politicians, business people, thinktanks, academics from many universities and specialisms (science, technology, economic and social sciences, and history), and policy experts and field workers from NGOs – particularly from the developing world.
The seminars, held under Chatham House rules, have contributed to the BBC’s strong reputation for reporting on environmental issues – not just on climate change. Lifting editors away from deadlines for creative conversations proved popular, so the environment seminars morphed into diverse gatherings ex- amining trends in society, the economy and culture as well as the environment. They include a broad spread of views and if they had been captured by any agenda, BBC management would have squashed it instantly. One meeting proved contentious in the blogosphere after a climate sceptic invitee wrote about it. A senior scientist present had told us the debate on climate change was ‘over’ and urged us to stop reporting the views of climate sceptics. I said the balance of the science suggested that we should not always feature sceptics but that we should continue to represent their views on a case-by-case basis because many legitimate science debates remain and because of the politicised nature of the policy debate. Helen Boaden endorsed the advice.
The BBC paid its own way with the seminars but Dr Smith’s expenses and time were funded by a spread of organisations wanting a better public debate about the issues including HSBC, Vivendi, Bowring Trust, WWF, Economic and Social Research Council, Dept of Environment, Shell, and the Tyndall Centre for climate research.
Outside funds for the meetings have now stopped, but the Mail on Sunday singled out the contribution from Tyndall Centre, which is a consortium of several universities including the University of East Anglia, where the Climategate controversy happened Tyndall is a bona fide body and part of its remit was improving communication of climate science. The BBC sought advice from many different experts on trying to make climate change coverage more accessible and interesting to our broad audiences. Professor Mike Hulme – the director of Tyndall – proved particularly influential in his advice for us to adopt measured tones, avoid inflammatory reporting, accept that some areas of the science are impossible to resolve and to treat the issue more as one of societal risk than scientific certainty. He is an odd target for sceptics as some mainstream scientists think he’s too sympathetic to sceptic views.
The BBC has told the Mail on Sunday that the funding arrangements for the seminars raised no issues about impartiality for the BBC or its output. I believe we can be much more robust over our coverage. Our journalists have met and interviewed many of the world’s leading climate sceptics, some of whom have actually praised both our reporting of the Climategate affair and my own Uncertain Climate documentaries. Correspondents and editors strive to be fair at all times when reporting this vexed topic. Generally, though, we seem to be trusted by our audiences to be offering impartial information. However controversy about our coverage won’t disappear, because some players on either side will never be satisfied with that.
Reader Comments (142)
MM
I understand that Harrabin in his speech highlighted at the Royal Society the problems had to be overcome in order to deliver the message on Climate Change, one of these was the concern that there is/was a "temptation for news editors to want to instil drama into the debate by highlighting the conflict between "climate sceptics" and the mainstream"
It is interesting that "climate sceptics" were bracketed and the mainstream not so. You can see even back then that Harrabin was arguing that sceptics should be treated differently.
These Royal Society sesssions were an official response to IPCC TAR.
At Harrabin's session 'Communicating climate change science' one of the official discussants was a lobbyist from Greenpeace.
It appears that no "climate sceptcs" were invited to these sessions either as speakers or as discussants - it was all mainstream.
My, my Mr Harrabin that hill climb back up to the pinnacle of journalistic integrity is looking very steep. Just a few searches from people commenting here would seem to trip you up!
"I wondered which stories would still appear significant in 100 years."
In 100 years it will be a case study of the corruption of science by a cabal of self-interested parties. Harrabin will be remembered with disgust.
Pete H
Well put.
The idea of trying to forecast which stories will still be important in 100 years' time is interesting but somewhat far fetched. A 50 year time scale would be more realistic. Someone in the 1911 could probably have been able to predict that the relative decline of British power and the rise of Germany and the United Sates would be an important issue for the next few decades. The growing importance of oil in comparison with coal and the increasing importance of electricity generation would also have been predictable. The main developments in transport (the motor car and aviation) and in mass communications (radio becoming an important rival to the newspapers) should also have been apparent. Greater equality between the sexes is another development that was already becoming apparent.
Most of those things are still important today. Even German power is making a comeback, albeit in a peaceful manner. However it is likely that the only things a forecaster in 1911 would have got right were those that could be expected within the 50 year timescale. Making forecasts for new developments in the second half of the century would have been much harder.
Roy,
Michael Crichton's essay on this topic, written in 2003, is as relevent now as it was then:
http://s8int.com/crichton.html
@Roy: When it comes to predicting, as you say, how things like aviation and radio may affect the world, it is interesting to note two predictions in the field of computing:
1. Following the war, the then government set up a committee to discuss where the UK would go with computers. It figured that there would only be a need for THREE. One for government, one for the military and one, would you believe, for the Ford Motor Company.
2. Much later on, in '80s (iirc), Bill Gates was on record as dismissing the need to accommodate the internet in his Windows SW.
Tricky thing this predicting lark, isn't it Mr Harribin?
Is it the job of BBC News to think about what people may think about reporting in 100 years time?
Surely there is the possibility that in 100 years time the climate change panic might be regarded as a blip.
A friend of mine who used to work for the BBC told me that Harrabin's influence at the BBC in the late 1990's on head of News Tony Hall led to a restructuring of the entire science coverage of BBC news leading to the sacking (creative dismissal) of a senior BBC journalist who took a different line. I don't know who that might be.
I think it is quite telling that Harrabin's article is in the BBC's in house magazine and not in a newspaper.
The Tory was Tim Yeo.
It transpires that the Greenpeace discussant for the Royal Society session, in which Roger Harrabin spoke in 2001 about the problem with "climate sceptics", is Steve Sawyer. Here is how Donna Laframboise describes the activities of Mr Sawyer;
Good question.
Not unimportantly, how did Mr Sawyer become invited to be a discussant on communicating climate change at Royal Society sessions alongside Roger Harrabin?
Further, we know that Greenpeace held sway over significant sections of IPCC AR4; but knowing this about (paid) connections between Mike Hulme and Greenpeace .............
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/27/hulmes-greenpeace-and-un-consultancies.html
............ are there more paid links between Greenpeace, Tyndall, the BBC and even the Royal Society?
I feel that we don't have anyone to follow up these connections at the moment. With the media, govt and academia all in cahoots and all implicated, who on earth is going to prosecute such an investigation?
I hear M Mann knows some people in the US who might dig around for us.
It would appear that the Royal Society wanted a representative from FoE to give a speech, but ended up convincing Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace to do so.
Also Roger Harrabin was not forthcoming in sending a summary of his intended speech at this session. Why the hesitancy?
It is interesting that the Royal Society describes this session as belong to Mike Hulme.
I wonder if Hulme, Harrabin and Sawyer all met up?
Here’s Sir Paul Nurse talking about balanced reporting of science on the BBC yesterday:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b017m14t
Well when you listen to scientists argue, when they’re doing their trade, it wouldn’t sound very balanced at all actually because they get pretty passionate, you would have some trouble working out whether they were balanced, but what makes it balanced is that they carried out their debate by certain rules, so they respect data, they don’t cherrypick observations that just can support one view or another. They’re logical, they’re rational. If they don’t use those rules, then of course their reputation goes, so there’s a restraint to keep like that. But, when you get to the media, of course, you don’t always have those rules being carried out. You can get two people discussing something. One might keep with the rules and sound boring, you know, the data doesn’t support this, or we don’t quite know what the data might mean and we’re on the left and we’re on the right, then you get someone really passionate who isn’t playing by the rules, and wow the argument’s gone. So I think there’s a real issue here, that if you’re going to have balance on the media, you’ve got to keep to the rules, and I think that’s the big problem.
"You can get two people discussing something. One might keep with the rules and sound boring, you know, the data doesn’t support this, or we don’t quite know what the data might mean and we’re on the left and we’re on the right..."
Yes I agree, I always enjoy listening to Prof. Lindzen too.
Mike Hulme and Greenpeace.
and
and
and
finally;
These emails highlights an unhealthy relationship between Hulme, Tyndall and Greenpeace.
Note that the alleged "scientific consensus" on catastrophic warming (the BBC having been unable to name a single scientist anywhere who supports it and isn't paid by the state) has morphed into "a gathering consensus among UK parties and corporate leaders". Even were that true (it isn't of UKIP or the BNP who have a significant vote even if no seats) it is simply an acknowledgement that the BBC's alleged "news" reports are deliberately driven not by facts but by what the politicians tell them. Mussolini's corporate state ran its news reporting on the same lines though slightly less blatantly.
I also seriously doubt Harrabin's alleged justification that even if the BBC seem to be distorting the news now in 100 years it will look right. I very much doubt if all the stories about how the sea level will have risen 100 feet or Antarctica being the only habitable continet then will then be seen as thousands of times more important than the almost entirely unreported fact that China, India & co's economies are growing at 10% while the BBC enthused over Brown's 2.5% or that Dubai is developing its own space port
If limited to one dimension, I would place BBC journalists, producers, and managers involved in any aspect of their shameful performance with regard to climate on a scale calibrated as 'Feeble' as one end, and 'Despicable' at the other. The placing of anyone in this range would depend on the extent to which they might be regarded as dupees or dupers. The poor old old general public will of course largely be in the duped category if they happened to form the opinion that 'climate change' (that slippery term, used to mean either the platitude or the catastrophe to suit the 'spin du jour' of any propagandist deploying it) is a foregone conclusion, is bad, is due to CO2, is all our fault, and that fortunately we are as gods and can control it by turning down the knob marked 'man-made emissions'. That this is all fatuous beyond belief is yet to get through to the political class (of which the BBC is but a component), but get through it will. Mother Nature herself is doing a pretty good job of exposing the nonsense year after year, as do the capricious weather gods who gave us the Gore Effect for example. But a good few humans, including notably our best atmospheric scientists and many distinguished physicists and statisticians, are helping too. The signs are good. Harrabin's pompous self-aggrandising wondering about 'which stories will still appear significant in a hundred years' will I fear be lost in the mists of time. Time which will not provide a kind perspective on the BBC for its blatant role in the disgraceful propagandising about climate variation that has taken so much of the world by storm over the past thirty years or so. All for what purposes? To gratify the egos of jaded, malevolent, and wealthy busybodies in such as UNEP and the Club of Rome looks to me to be one of them. Whatever the reality of that, we would still have been better served by a broadcaster and by journalists who investigated the news, and challenged grandiose claims instead of daydreaming around their own ones and relentlessly promoting them.
links!!
Greenpeace abnd BBC's Roger Harrabin, on the advisory board of Tyndall Centre...
email 1038 Hulme::
“1. We invite three more members to our AB:
Roger Harrabin (media; Radio BBC) - reserve Paul Brown (The Guardian) Bill Hare (NGO; Greenpeace) – reserves Mike Harley (English Nature)” (email 1038 – Hulme)
----------
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/
It would appear Roger Harrabin's and Douglas Parr's paths have crossed quite a few times in the past.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6957328.stm
http://www.economistconferences.co.uk/sites/www.economistconferences.co.uk/files/uploaded-resources/Shell%20Debate%20-%20Greener%20Britain%20Summary%20Paper.pdf
What a small world the Hulmes, the Harrabins, Parrs all live in.
Well spotted Barry Woods
The connections between Tyndall, the BBC and Greenpeace are certainly worth investigating.
Sir Paul has once again forgotten to engage his brain. From the Climategate emails it is clear who played by the rules and who didn't.
@ ThinkingScientist
Is Harrabin really saying that not one argument from these highly intelligent and capable people is worthy of reporting in such a contentious and important debate?
He's saying the Team decides on this and he accepts their answer whatever it is.
I thought it was interesting when Jones said the consensus view could be found by asking about 4 people.
Steve Jones's report for the BBC said this on page 69: "Accusations of bias fly, together with claims of fraud ( a simplification of an image for the cover of a report means that climatologists are doctoring a graph to hide global cooling....)." It is evident that Jones does not understand what "hide the decline" is about. His report still contains this error, though he has had to acknowledge and correct another error, as Your Grace knows well.
Jones has contacts and working colleagues within the BBC where he makes regular appearances. A reasonable inference is that no-one in the BBC has told him about this error. If he has been told he should make a correction and perhaps explain what "hide the decline" means. Perhaps you might ask him, Bish? Please be sure to remind him that "accuracy" was among his terms of reference.
Alison Hastings is a BBC Trustee and Chair of the BBC Editorial Standards Committee. Ms Hastings responded to Steve Jones's report on 21 July 2011. Her blog article has been unchanged since that date. It contains an error. Her title is: "Trusting what you see and hear: the media's role in covering science accurately." The opening paragraph says: "Climate change is 90 per cent likley to have been caused by humans. That was the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007."
Ms Hastings later makes it clear that the IPCC report plays a part in the decision to change the BBC's stance on the impartial reporting of climate science. She says: "A body of evidence - like that assessed by the IPCC repport - changes how the BBC's obligation to cover issues with "due impartiality" is applied."
Ms Hastings has it wrong - in spades, in my view. First, she has misquoted the IPCC. What the IPCC said in 2007 is: "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas conceentrations." So, to correct Ms Hastings, not all warming is due to mankind in the period but "most" is, according to the IPCC. Also, "very likely" means confidence of more than 90% in the claim, not 90%.
Ms Hastings' error remains uncorrected since its appearance on 21 July 2011. Perhaps her colleagues in the BBC Trust, including Patten, the Chair, have not yet read her report. Perhaps they have read it, but are as ignorant as Ms Hastings about the incorrect quotation of the IPCC. Perhaps her words are not read by Black or Harrabin or anyone in the BBC. Perhaps they,like the Trust maybe, are aware of the error, or are indifferent to it. Do you think Bish, you might take up these questions with Ms Hastings and Mr Harrabin? If you are willing to raise the issue might I perhaps add a letter I have for Trust members?
Now, ruling out that observed changes in temperature are not to do with natural variability is the first step in attributing them to amn-made greenhouse gases.It is not straightforward. A summary from IPCC AR3 ( I am not now able to provide better reference) says: "These findings emphasize that there is still considerable uncertainty in the magnitude of internal climate variability."
It is difficult to see how such high confidence ( more than 90%) can be given to the IPCC conclusion in 2007 misquoted by Ms Hastings when there is so little precision about the term, "most".
The IPCC invited the InterAcademy Council to examine how it, the IPCC, dealt with, among other aspects of its work, uncertainty. In its "Review of the IPCC" the InterAcademy said thhis: " IPCC's guidance for addressing uncertainties in the Fourth Assessment Report urges authors to consider the amount of evidence and level of agreement about all conclusions and to apply subjectives probabilities of confidence to conclusions when there was "high agreement, much evidence". however, such guidance was not always followed, as exemplified by the many statements in the Working Group II summary for policymakers that are assigned high confidence but are based on little evidence. Moreover the apparent need to include statements of "high confidence" (i.e. an 8 out of 10 chance of being correct) in the Summary for Policymakers led authors to make many vaguely defined stateements that are difficult to refute, therefore making them of "high confidence". Such statements have little value."
Ms Hastings made an error. Had she not misquoted she would still have told us that the move away from impartial reporting of climate science rested, in part anyway, on an IPCC statement of "little value".
It is not too unkind or untrue to infer that Ms Hastings and Steve Jones are pretty ignorant of climate science. The same may reasonably be said of Ms Hastings' BBC Trust colleagues. to these criticisms might be added the words, "lazy"; "complacent"; "stupid"; "arrogant".
I have no hesitation in concluding that Harrabin is one of those responsible for moving the BBC away from impartial reporting on climate science. Nor have I any doubt that a reputable climate scientist like Judith Curry, rather than a geneticist like Steve Jones would have made a different recommendation to that of Jones.
Barry Woods said:
I doubt it. The media have successfully minimised the historical quirk that was 'global cooling' despite it making a celebrated appearance on Time Magazine covers and being woven into popular culture from the time.[Sufficient to be mentioned by The Clash in London Calling.]
It's not that global cooling was actually all the rage in science in the 1970s it's that it was the alarmist story the media picked up on in spite of other scientists predicting further warming and others saying 'natural variation'. At that time a little more warmth couldn't be spun into a threat. Now it can thanks to computer projections.
It transpires that it cost the taxpayer over £35,000 in DEFRA funding of Tyndall's climate stabilisation project, on which Greenpeace was invited to shape by Mike Hulme.
Gareth - don't fall for the Lie, even if it's only Half a Lie. There is a peer-reviewed paper stating
Global cooling was actually all the rage in science in the first half of the 1970s. Still in 1979 there could be scientific meetings discussing global cooling and global warming on a par level.
Maurizio Morabito:
“Sir Paul has once again forgotten to engage his brain”.
Sir Paul has never ever considered the sceptical position. We know this from the Horizon programme, in which his only encounter with climate scepticism was a minute with the 87-year-old Professor Singer in a noisy New York diner, and three hours with Delingpole, in which Sir Paul interrogated him on the subjet of treatment for a hypothetical cancer.
However, Sir Paul is a model of open-mindedness compared to Brian Cox. here they are at the end of last night’s BBC Science/Comedy programme:
Sir Paul: ... when you’re talking as a scientist, you have to stick to you data, you have to stick to objective argument, and often we’re a little reluctant to express a view of where we go from there and what conclusions you’d make from that, simply for this very good reason. But we can do so, but I think what we have to do is sort of change our hats. In other words, we present our argument, based on data, objective facts and the like, and then we say: “And because of this I passionately believe x”, and I think we can just switch, but we probably have to change our hat half way through.
Brian Cox: It’s an interesting opinion though isn’t it? “The computer models and the data in terms of climate science say that if you put this amount of CO2 into the atmosphere there is a possibility that we’ll have a 4°, 5°, temperature rise and civilisation will be decimated, there’s the data. Now putting my opinion hat on, therefore I think we should stop ...”
What a pompous, stuck-up, pommy arse..
I wonder if Harrabin or anybody from the BBC could comfirm the BBC organised similar seminas on other pressing issues such as cancer, obesity, etc or is AGW a special case?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_to_defraud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#United_Kingdom
The BBC bias REQUIRES them to report in detail the content of the emails.
These are MAINSTREAM scientists talking and acting unfiltered.
MAINSTREAM scientist are offering their views more openly and detailed than any interview or report could reveal.
MAINSTREAM scientists confirm in dozens of emails that McIntyre is right and Michael Mann is wrong or worse or much worse.
MAINSTREAM scientist confirm that climateaudit.org is the place to follow climate science, while realclimate.org is a propaganda tool with deliberate deletion of opposing scientific views.
MAINSTREAM scientist report massive uncertainties in temperature records, cloud formation, on UHI, etc., and most importantly even about basic physics and processes of climate models. Some MAINSTREAM scientists report that climate models are crap.
Many MAINSTREAM scientists share sceptical views but do not tell publicly. MAINSTREAM scientists and MAINSTREAM journal editors have been intimidated.
Many MAINSTREAM scientists were involved in unethical or even illigal deeds.
And now, BBC, start reporting about MAINSTREAM as your bias commands.
What did he say?
All about flim flam and hogwash and a typically banal BBC statement but subtext as ever is a BIG brush off.
And we don't have any big guns to call them to task over it. We're totally powerless.
Maurizio, Gareth --
I agree that Mitchell's results, which concluded that temperature was (on the average) falling in the mid-20th century, were well accepted. But I remain to be convinced that the "ice age is coming" proposition was widely held. Rather, I think it more likely that only a few scientists projected a continuation of the trend far enough into the future to suggest that there was an incipient ice age, and that the media seized on those projections to turn them into attention-grabbing stories.
There was a U.S.(?) report from the time -- sorry, can't put my finger on a proper reference -- which concluded that meteorological understanding was insufficient to predict future trends with any confidence at all.
Plus ça change...
Geoff, Lazlo: With you both regarding Brian Cox. He gives physics a bad name, not that it needs a lot of help with that at the moment.
Bish, I don't think he'd dare put this piece on the web, he'd get crucified in the comments.
"...Dr Smith’s expenses and time were funded by a spread of organisations WANTING A BETTER PUBLIC DEBATE about the issues including HSBC, Vivendi, Bowring Trust, WWF, Economic and Social Research Council, Dept of Environment, Shell, and the Tyndall Centre for climate research."
(capital letter mine)
Now that sentence in connection with WWF and Tyndall is pretty amazing. Now even the last in dubio trust is gone.
FunnyIsn’tIt at 2.21PM makes an excellent point that the rest of us have missed.
Trouble is, there’s too many scientists on these threads and not enough experts in Media Studies.
The BBC will never be objective or truthful with regards to reporting so called green or climate issues. Their leadership saw a money making opportunity by investing heavily in the green energy related scam with their pension funds and promoted their investment with biased coverage.
The politicians saw the 'green' opportunity and joined in.
The masses that trust the MSM, thus ignorant, support these issues. There will likely be no truth forthcoming from the BBC. When a real issue arises and is reported on will anyone listen? UK in decline, compliments of the BBC. History in the making. At this rate, will there be a UK in 100 years?
Climate sceptics seeking more space on the BBC helped provoke the Trust’s investigation into science impartiality but the Trust said we were already giving them too much space – not too little.
What the hell is this? I've not heard of any such drive for more space on the beeb by skeptics. Bish do you?
Hell, one time Harrabin asked me for a quote, I gave him one, then he proceeded to use it as his own because he thought it was so good. I have an email where he actually says this. I'll have to dig it up.
More dishonest science from the WMO, and more dishonest reporting from the BBC.
"2011: world’s 10th warmest year, warmest year with La Niña on record,"
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/gcs_2011_en.html
"Warm blast hits UN climate summit", Richard Black, BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15941820
WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud was quoted as saying, "Our science is solid, and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities."
These reports make continual reference to La Nina but not a mention about El Nino.
In fact the WMO release mentions La Nina 10 times, but never mention of El Nino. WMO's figure/graph of yearly temperatures dating back to 1950 which shows 9 La Nina years but not one El Nino is highlighted. Since 1950 there have been 19 El Nino events compared to 13 La Nina events. In 1998 and and 2009 we had what many considered to be super El Nino events.
WMO does not show satellite data, data that shows a significant divergence between surface temps and tropospheric temps over the past 30 years.
WMO also tries to connect recent and extreme weather events to Global Warming, this after the IPCC have now conceded that there is no science to back such attribution.
The weather for Durban is in direct contrast to these heated reports - it is going to be unseasonally cold for the COP 17 delegates.
http://www.iol.co.za/mercury/raining-on-cop17-parade-1.1186675
The Al Gore effect strikes again.
RE: HaroldW, [my edit]
"Rather, I think it more likely that only a few scientists projected a continuation of the trend far enough into the future to suggest that there was [catastrophic global warming], and that the media seized on those projections to turn them into attention-grabbing stories.
You think that the current scare is more than a few scientists? It's probably less than 40 scientists in total - Wegman looked at this.
Here we go. Harrabin pinches a quote from me but provides no credit:
From: Roger Harrabin - Internet
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 9:12 AM
To: Surfacestations Admin
Subject: RE: Quick BBC query
So good in fact that I have shamelessly stolen the line for my radio piece - and don't have a spare 2" to credit you with it.
It is a sod being hamstrung by broadcast durations (a problem which lies at the heart of a lot of communication in this issue)
But thanks, anyway.
RH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Surfacestations Admin [mailto:xxxxx@surfacestations.org]
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 4:37 PM
To: Roger Harrabin - Internet
Subject: Re: Quick BBC query
Since the climate science community is so small, I would say that finding qualified and independent scientists from both ends of the spectrum is the same problem as finding an untainted jury pool in a small town.
Anthony Watts
From: Roger Harrabin - Internet
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 7:54 AM
To: Andrew Montford
Cc: Philip Stott ; xxxxxx@surfacestations.org
Subject: Quick BBC query
Gentlemen:
I am doing a piece for our 1800 radio news on the announcement below. Please could you give me a quick comment on the likelihood of the IPCC finding scientists considered both qualified and independent by the different ends of the spectrum of opinion on climate change?
Thanks,
Roger
The BBC
For public consumption-
'Correspondents and editors strive to be fair at all times when reporting this vexed topic.'
For private consumption-
'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.'
The Daily Mail said, from the memoirs of ex BBC news and current affairs anchor Peter Sissons-
'The BBC became a propaganda machine for climate change zealots, says Peter Sissons... and I was treated as a lunatic for daring to dissent'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350206/BBC-propaganda-machine-climate-change-says-Peter-Sissons.html
Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho
Has anyone noticed that in the last few weeks, when you click on "Richard Black" on the BBC Sci/Environment page (under "our experts" ... I have to compose myself for a few moments now) you get his twitter feed rather than blog articles? I wonder, could that possibly be related to the fact that he was always corrected by sceptics, who invariable received huge levels of endorsement for their comments?
Not everyone in the media is buying into the latest CAGW missive, "10th warmest on record, say meteorologists"
'This year is set to be 10th warmest on record according to 'Climategate' scientists. Includes data from University of East Anglia, criticised for colluding with politicians to 'massage' evidence of man-made climate change - By Ted Thornhill'
Quote: "Clive Crook, a commentator for the Atlantic, who described the earlier inquiries into the Climategate emails as 'ineffectual' and 'mealy mouthed', reportedly said: 'The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering."
Here is the link
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2067537/2011-set-10th-warmest-record-despite-cooling-effect-La-Nina-weather-system.html
Has anyone noticed ... you get his twitter feed rather than blog articles?
Nov 29, 2011 at 4:34 PM | Neil McEvoy
---
Short answer: yes.
But it is now pervading across the entire BBC blogosphere.
Many editors are either opting for the tweetfeed or broadcast only 'blog', which is not a blog, really.
On top of which, many interactive ones are either shut early, ruthlessly modded, Houseruled, posts 'lost' or, given the protagonist mentioned's (in)famous phrase, put into 'watertight oversight'.
All of which seems to occur when things don't quite pan out the way they had hoped or intended.
The move to twitter is an interesting and concerning one, and does get alluded to in the frequent social media discussive outings on 'The Editor's' thead, which likewise usually suffers from the feedback being as unwelcome to the authors as it is quickly dealt with, irrespective of value.
Where it matters is that as twitter is embraced more and more as a tool of dissemination, the BBC and its staff seem less and less keen to apply any sensible or fair rules of corporate responsibility or accuracy to what gets shared... and often ends up spun up into mainstream 'news' with little to no checking.
In fact I think Mr. Black was one editor quoted at another BBC event where the Wild West nature of twitter was not seen as an issue, or staff punting out opinion or agenda as fact.
I also wonder how, if these tweets are issued under the BBC brand, there seems the option of blocking any counterviews that are deemed unwelcome, even if fair and accurate.
All in all, the way blogs, tweets, etc are going, it seems the BBC likes the idea of social media outreach, but not the interactive part, and are trying to steer as much as they can back to a broadcast only model.
Not sure this will work. Or the wisdom of the attempt.
Absolute control of all messages and means of conveying them has poor historical precedent.
As does the consequences to those who think they know better and seek to restrict message control.
Nov 29, 2011 at 2:30 PM | HaroldW
"Global cooling" is not "upcoming ice age" of course. Google "snowblitz" for titillating stories though 8-)
"10th warmest on record"?
Not according to our glorious Met Office and CRU:-
"Warm global temperatures continue in 2011"
"29 November 2011 — This year is set to be the 11th warmest in a record spanning more than 150 years, according to climate scientists from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia."
The Met might also have a bit of a problem with their Dec 2009 prediction:-
"Looking further ahead, our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years 2010-2019 will be warmer than the warmest year observed so far - 1998."
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2009/record-levels
It will be interesting to watch.
Cos that means 5 out of the next 8 higher than 1998?