Sunday
Nov252012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill 28 gate still running
Nov 25, 2012 BBC Tony Newbery has found some more rather startling information about 28gate. He and Maurizio have been studying the changes made to the website of the International Broadcasting Trust as regards the BBC seminars.
Both the timing of the changes and the words that were changed are...revealing.
In addition, Maurizio (in the comments at Tony's) has been noting that Joe Smith has been editing his website too.
Read it here.
Reader Comments (49)
IMNSHO the Chatham House Rules defence has been thoroughly and conclusively destroyed. Everybody who has written about the various seminars including the IBT has always included names of participants.
And why not!!
Apart from Joe Smith and the BBC management post-FOI request, no one among the attendees had the inkling they were doing anything that needed secrecy.
Now what? NOW more than one Tribunal will have to answer on why they acquiesced to such a silly excuse.
rewriting history - very naughty and of course to be expected of the intellectually dishonest.
Makes them look guilty of something ! ;-)
Whitewash is a strange beast:-
It is much more difficult to apply than you think.
It never lasts as long as you anticipate.
It very quickly cracks and flakes resulting in an inordinate amount of ongoing maintenance.
Its application always results in significant personal staining.
===========================================
To any engaged in the application of the beast, enjoy the initial warm splish, splash, feeling of endeavour, because no matter how studious and comprehensive you think your application has been it will inevitably be seen by all, including yourself, as flaky!
David Holland pointed out Joe Smiths' OU bio to me a while back now (got included in another BBC WUWT article) The link to Roger Harrabin's quote is now dead (- Wolfson College - and I can't find it under wayback)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/
“The seminars have been publicly credited with catalysing significant changes in the tone and content of BBC outputs across platforms and with leading directly to specific and major innovations in programming,” - Dr Joe Smith
“It has had a major impact on the willingness of the BBC to raise these issues for discussion. Joe Smith and I are now wondering whether we can help other journalists to perform a similar role in countries round the world” – Roger Harrabin
I've just rediscovered the magazine (looks like site reorg)
Roger Harrabin writes about how CMEP gets started in the Wolfson magazine:
The new chap in charge at the BBC (Tony Hall) gets a mention!:
extract - Roger Harrabin (last bit most interesting):
"I arrived on my Wolfson Press Fellowship in self-imposed exhaustion after a spell of work in which my editor (Roger Mosey, now Head of BBC Sport) had tantalisingly invited me to “do any story you want, anywhere in the world you want”. I responded by spending three years on planes chasing big themes then little discussed like globalisation and climate change. It was altogether too much fun, and by the end of that spell I could barely drag myself into the office, let alone to Heathrow.
So it was with enormous relief as well as pleasure to learn that I had been granted a summer in the Wolfson Sanatorium. I arrived over-brimming with ideas but on my first meeting with my wise supervisor (Susan Owens at Newnham) was sent away to “read and Wolfson College Magazine 2005–2006 No . 56 30 sleep for a few weeks”. To my astonishment I did just that, with the emphasis on the sleeping. But three weeks later I embarked on research into the media.I tried to take the perspective of an historian looking back at our period from the beginning of the 22nd Century. How many of the really big changes in the world were being captured by daily news: the boom in global population, the depletion of fish stocks and forests, the (unproven) threat to the climate from the (proven) increase in greenhouse gases, the globalisation of many aspects of our daily consumption, the monumental shift from countryside to town?
The simple answer was that News finds it very hard to respond to sprawling, complex, uncertain, slow-moving issues like these.I was hugely encouraged in my work by John and Bill – and my
ideas were tested in conversations with the other Press Fellows. And on leaving Wolfson after a splendid Summer Ball, I continued my research by writing on the reporting of sustainable development
for the International Institute for Environment and Development.
On my eventual return to the BBC I was invited by the Director of News, Tony Hall, to discuss my sabbatical ideas with the senior members of his editorial team at a seminar I organised in Cambridge
with Dr Joe Smith, now of the Open University.
We then formed the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme with public and private funding to continue challenging the media to find ways of making news out of long-term, slow-moving environmental change. The seminars programme is still running under the auspices of John Naughton and the Wolfson Press Fellowship Programme and has attracted many of the UK’s most influential journalists. It has had a major impact on the willingness of the BBC to raise these issues for discussion. Joe Smith and I are now wondering whether we can help other journalists to perform a similar role in countries round the world.
It all stemmed from the Wolfson Press Fellowship.
May the Fellowship live long.
-----------------
http://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/media/magazine-30.pdf
did someone already notice that Doug C had posted something that would have been totally irrelevant?
A BIG thank you to Tony and Maurizio for turning over this particular stone and exposing the loathsome creatures writhing beneath.
I'm looking forward to the responses of the BBC Trust and my M.P. (I'm sure more whitewash will be applied) to my letters of complaint.
I've now got MUCH more information.
Maurizio looked at changes to Dr Joe Smith's bio at the OU
I wonder why and when he changed it. Why did this:
"The seminars have been publicly credited with catalysing significant changes in the tone and content of BBC outputs across platforms and with leading directly to specific and major innovations in programming, including Africa Lives on the BBC 2005 and the Climate Chaos season 2006, as well as other environment and development related seasons/projects."
change to this:
"The seminars have been publicly credited with catalysing fresh thinking in BBC outputs across platforms and with leading directly to specific and major innovations in programming, including Africa Lives on the BBC 2005 and the Climate Chaos season 2006, as well as other environment and development related seasons and projects."
Well - David Holland made a complaint to the ICO about the OU, and in it he quotes the original phrase from Dr Joe Smith’s bio….. David Holland's complaint was dated 15th July 2009:
So were changes to Dr Joe Smiths’s bio made after the ICO and OU had received David Hollands complaint!?
I wonder why ;-) :( !
The investigative journalism that we have been following for the last week or so has been of the highest standard and of even higher significance, but where do we take the information in order to receive the justice that is required?
I am sure there is no regular on BH who has not written to their MP, to the BBC, to the Labour government when they were in power and to the current government about the corruption and lies that we observe.
I do not know if any of us have tried to encourage people like Roger helmer or even Nigel Farage to visit this blog and maybe get some facts that could help them?
Barry
Smith can poo-poo his own work until the Sun goes Red Giant...still the IBT documents about the seminars (in both the short and long forms) have this important (and Chatham House Rules-breaking) text:
" (and Chatham House Rules-breaking)"
Omnologos, as a point of detail, there's only one Chatham House Rule:
www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/chathamhouserule
@Don Keiller
I wonder if deliberately destroying documentary evidence (viz. "taking down" or re-editing website pages) while an appeal against some decision or other may be pending could attract criminal charges ?
If one shreds a sensitive document between a court case and an appeal ...
A) July 28, 2008: ICO writes to BBC requesting explanation
B) July 30, 2008: A revised (SANITIZED) version of IBT document is created**
**sanitized IBT document makes changes crucial to BBC interests: 1) deletes participant list (which would show the lie of BBC pretence that the “Brainstorm” on climate science was a “high level” meeting with the world’s leading climate scientists); 2) modifies background text to omit prior description of lobbying the BBC to influence their policy on reporting about climate.
Anyone who thinks that B) occurred immediately after A) without influence from A) via some BBC to IBT connection is too naive, ignorant, and/or incompetent to discuss public policy, media, and governance issues.
Latest lies by the BBC/Big Grant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20461646
Transparent Gubmint - c2012-48.
No-one was available to comment.
And by tomorrow no-one will give a sh*t
Welcome to the 21st Century - Goodbye to what our forbears died to preserve - Yes, they sacrificed in vain - and yes why did they prosecute that daft wee bloke that pi**ed on the memorial rather than make him PM?
I find it as interesting as I find it depressing that our government whether in power or on the periphery appears so anarchic and destructive to our national interest as it has become.
Increase Energy costs-Save the Planet
Moral High ground -> Make me rich -> f*ck the poor
Ask a question-> No one from this department is available to comment
Numbers, numbers.. Stop asking about numbers. What colour should the wheel be?
Thankfully, I've got but a few years left to live but where are my kids going to end up with these greedy and inept bast**ds in control?
This is surely the dawning of the Age of Rotherham, the age of kamikaze-destructionalism and the emergence of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by the vapid collectivism of telephone-hygienists and X-factor texters!
RoyFOMR These Gaiaists don't even deserve an Ark-B
Problem is that apart from a few nutty sceptics venting their anger, what did any of this actually change?
It is strange that Joe Smith tweets that IBT posted the list publicly 'in error', when in fact, it was the BBC which is interested in protecting its sources from public disclosure 'for the purpose of journalism'.
Funny that a source wants to make itself public when the handler wants the source to remain hidden !!
These guys have so many stories hanging loose at so many ends. I've never seen such a mighty organisation look so foolish.
Dear BBC and eco-fascists,
Stop putting your self-taken naked alarmist photos on The Internet. Don't you know The Internet SEES EVERYTHING, KNOWS EVERYTHING, REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.
Delete all your compromising data, emails, and faked research while you can! FOIA is coming for ya!
Cassio - I remember having been told for years that the CHR (singular) "only" meant that no quote could be attributable. Wrt 28Gate I discovered there is a CHR about hiding the list of participants too. Perhaps I have been told incompletely all along.
Update: the CHR seems to have included the clause "nor that of any other participant" all along since 1927.
Common suggestion however is to invoke it explicitly at the beginning of a meeting and IF IT IS REALLY IMPORTANT get participants to sign a confidentiality agreement.
Perhaps it was unimportant for the people of January 2006 but then became very important as soon as Tony asked for details?
@omnologos
I don't mean to be a nit-picker, but it would seem very odd to expect people to sign a piece of paper agreeing to keep their attendance confidential....All a dedicated detective such as yourself would need is the piece of paper to absolutely confirm the attendees and that they were present.....
But since the perps don't seem to have been very good at covering their tracks (Kudos Maurizio and Tony!) maybe they did....
"On my eventual return to the BBC I was invited by the Director of News, Tony Hall, to discuss my sabbatical ideas with the senior members of his editorial team at a seminar I organised in Cambridge
with Dr Joe Smith, now of the Open University".
The magic roundabout turns and turns and the same names crop up again and again. Tony Hall- now there's a coincidence....
FarleyR, it changed history...
Jiminy, I think you're on exactly the right lines.
During research for his Channel 4 series "The Secret Rulers of the World", first shown in April 2001, Jon Ronson asked Max Hastings, editor of the Evening Standard and before that editor of the Daily Telegraph under Conrad Black, if he'd ever been invited to the Bilberberg Meeting. Jon shared this anecdote at an enthusiastic meeting about the making of the series at the Horse Hospital off Russell Square later in 2001, which I attended. Note that Bilderberg has used a form of the CHR since its inception in 1954 and has always had strong links with Chatham House, through its steering group and other malarkey.
Hastings said yes, of course.
"Have you ever attended?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I never had any desire to rule the world."
That got a good laugh from the couple of hundred crowded in to the small room. But it was the follow-up that was for me most revealing.
"So why don't you and your newspapers write about Bilderberg?"
"It's like this. Today I can ring Henry Kissinger and he takes my call. If we write about Bilderberg he won't return the call and I won't have the quote or contact I need."
I applaud the persistence of Tony, Maurizio and friends in uncovering the duplicity and hypocrisy of the organizations concerned in this case, through significant, strangely-timed edits to the websites of both the IBT and Joe Smith, all triggered by FOI requests to the dear old BBC. You're quite right that the CHR doesn't stand up as a defence in this case. But the Rule has never solely been about what is written down and signed. It's been about engendering a certain kind of fear. That makes the incompetence you're uncovering in its invocation this time far more significant. Keep at it.
Nov 26, 2012 at 6:10 AM omnologos
That has been my understanding of the CHR also. (Not that I ever get invited or attend any meetings where the CHR would be in play).
Guys - don't get agitated about MSM disinterest. Think of all those Savile victims, our predicament is nothing compared to.theirs.
I am confident "we" know the truth on this topic, the BBC know.it and especially the restricted cabal of apparatchiks whose names keep popping up left right and center, and whoever has understood the situation will slowly and gently push them out, not for the Greater Good but for their apparent incompetence at finding a good excuse.
It's their time and it's your time, Maurizio.
ianl8888
That had not escaped my notice.
Fortunately the BBC do not know just what a persistent pain I can be :-)
This quote from Harrabin keeps jumping out at me
"...the (unproven) threat to the climate from the (proven) increase in greenhouse gases..."
Has he publicly accepted that 'the threat to the climate' is 'unproven' before?
omnologos -
I am not so sure that the BBC will self cleanse as you suggest. Tony Hall is now the DG, the BBC Trust is not trustworthy and the whole management structure is fundamentally flawed e.g. Former BBC governor Sir Roger Jones says scrap 'crazy' BBC Trust
SteveW: It's a good quote from Harrabin and it doesn't cause me surprise. As we saw after Climategate he can report 'both sides of the story' very well. Because I knew the guy personally in the 1990s, as our kids grew up in the Gospel Oak area, I've never been able to buy into Harrabin-as-inner-core theories. I not only liked Roger but I thought he was reflective and intelligent.
When Peter Hall suggested this new series of meetings it was no doubt a feather in Roger's cap. I think that was a crucial moment. But the new organisation and meetings in themselves were not automatically evil. The ridiculous attempt to hide things from FoI and Tony Newbery has certainly been wrong though.
Steve McIntyre has been advising us to be tighter in our writings on this subject, in order to be fully effective, and I thoroughly agree with that. I've been mulling over Steve's implicit question about what so infuriates many of us, on this side of the pond, about BBC bias, however it has arisen. I may start a discussion on that in the next few days. I am conscious others have been looking at this much more than I have. Good on them. Because I may need some help. In fact, make that a definite :)
Perhaps they signed 'in' using the internet... :-)
Latimer and others - any such agreement in writing would've been produced in court and made my "revelation" legally troublesome. But the BBC failed at doing anything of the sort despite having multiple occasions to, so we can assume if people were told about CHR it must've been as an aside spoken remark at most and without giving it too much importance.
Without giving it any legal importance in the minds of one of the participants, IBT, clearly.
I note, purely in passing, that Common Purpose, which counts many BBC employees as "graduates", operates under the CHR which has the effect that no written records exist of its meetings:
"For the learning process to be effective contributors, participants and alumni must feel that they can talk openly and gain insights from each other, so we observe the Chatham House Rule"
from here:
http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk/courses/methods
AngusPangus on Nov 26, 2012 at 12:42 PM
CP have been mentioned in many other news items, such as here:
http://order-order.com/2012/11/24/progressive-culture-war-caused-rotheram-ukip-child-catcher/
Talking of Common Purpose, which we were, here is Cameron helping them along in India, soon after the last General Election:
http://ukinindia.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=PressR&id=22609209
No wonder the current government is still 'green'!
I hesitate to interrupt this thread to say I've just listened to a fabulous discussion on the BBC.
Start the Week with Andrew Marr this morning was about Germany in Europe and included two people born in Bavaria, one the great Labour eurosceptic Gisela Stuart, and the radical Tory thinker Douglas Carswell, whose book on iDemocracy I now know I must read. I learned a heck of a lot from this. I'm sure nobody here would agree with all of it but for me it would stand as a model of a properly balanced and intelligent BBC. Though not touching the climate area. Not quite yet. We still have some work to do there.
Available on the iPlayer for a good 86 years. That's optimism about the future of Europe and electricity supplies for you. At the same time as running across this I've seen talk of a Tory pact with UKIP from the same unreliable news source. But I'll point to that on the most recent UKIP-related thread.
I don't now if this has been mentioned but I noticed this comment piece on the Scotsman website appeared today.
Comment: BBC bias more worrying than Savile scandal
Ah, well spotted, Leopard, as they say. That's ThinkScotland breaking through in the Scotsman. They sound a good lot, based on Neil Craig the other day, who even James Delingpole found radical. But the MSM was bound to come along in the end.
From The Scotsman:
The BBC’s reputation for fairness and a high degree of objectivity in reporting news, especially political news, would be trashed – not just in Britain but around the world. ... The reason such damage would occur is twofold: firstly the BBC has probably the highest professional reputation of any broadcaster in the world.
--
The only reason why the BBC has that sort of reputation is because the overwhelming majority of the punters are too lazy, too partisan or too brainwashed to think any different. The BBC has always been a propaganda outfit. That people are blind to the all pervasive propaganda of the BBC, is a demonstration of how good they've been at doing their job.
Yet Lord McAlpine, no less, said something very similar about the BBC, simon, after reaching a libel settlement with it. We have to deal the world as it is before we have a hope of changing it.
And this part of the Scotsman article will help with that:
That is very succinctly put by Brian Monteith. The only bit missed is the role of Tony Hall in encouraging Harrabin to set up CMEP in the first place. But this piece is so well-written that I think that matters little.
But Richard, the world is nothing like what you believe it to be.
simon: Of course you may be right about that. But this thread isn't about my view of the world in its entirety. In Lord McAlpine I was seeking to give one example of a (qualified) admirer of the BBC who is surely not "too lazy, too partisan or too brainwashed to think any different." And in Brian Monteith we have another skilled journalist who is on the case. Radical change remains possible and that was my point.
just for the record, as i've been holding these links for a month now, meaning to look into it further, but got no further:
October 23: Libya Herald: Maha Ellawati: A common purpose for Libya
Benghazi: Almost a thousand Libyans have so far attended courses designed
to help them better understand the working of civil society in a democracy.
So far, 26 courses and workshops have been run in Tripoli, Benghazi, Al
Beida, Derna and Misrata by UK-based charity Common Purpose. Project
Manager, Australian-born , Nacho Galvez, told Libya Herald that the European
Union (EU) founded the project “to respond to early Libyan requests for
support with training on leadership and managerial skills.”
The objective of Common Purpose in Libya said Galvez: “Is to build up the
management and leadership capacities of leaders and managers within the
emerging interim institutions and civil society in Libya, so that they are
able to meet the challenges of a society in transition”.
Some workshops were specifically designed for young people between the ages
of 20 and 35 who wanted to become effective leaders in their communities...
Since Common Purpose in Libya was established, it has worked with people
from numerous organisations, including the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and
Agriculture, AGOCO, the Libyan Red Crescent and the Voice of Libyan Women.
Galvaz added that Common Purpose is also working closely with key actors in
the emerging civil society and public service in Libya...
Common Purpose is a UK-based Charity, established in 1989, which runs
leadership development programmes. It delivers its leadership programmes in
46 cities across 18 countries.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/10/23/a-common-purpose-for-libya/
Nacho Galvez
Project Manager - Libya at Common Purpose
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nacho-galvez/13/44b/879
Nacho Galvez Twitter Leicester UK
20 Oct I've just spent 3 days delivering a leadership course in Benghazi for
an amazing group of young people. Very inspirational...
Hi there.Amazing people in Libya. The impact of our courses here is
incredible.In 2 weeks, course for NGO leaders in Tripoli...
http://twitter.com/NachoGalvez
wondered if this could be the Maha Ellawati who wrote the Libya Herald piece:
Maha Al-Lawati
Senior HR/Learning & Development Advisor at WorleyParsons
Oman | Oil & Energy
http://om.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Maha/+
Libya Herald
The Libya Herald was the initiative of Michel Cousins, a British journalist
raised in Libya who has worked in the Arab world for much of his career.
Cousins co-founded the paper together with Sami Zaptia, a Libyan journalist
who worked for the state-owned Tripoli Post for ten years but resigned upon
the outbreak of the Libyan civil war, frustrated at the Gaddafi regime's
strict censorship...
Editor-in-Chief Michel Cousins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya_Herald
Sunday 2nd December
I note that your link to Tony Newbery's site (http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=631) is dead.
Tony Newbury's site (http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/ ) is alive and still going.
Does Sir David Frost read Bishop Hill? Andrew Neil might I guess. Three days after I told the story about Max Hastings's fear that Henry Kissinger might not talk to him if he wrote about Bilderberg (Nov 26, 2012 at 8:40 AM) Frost told Neil on prime time TV how "Henry Kissinger did not speak to him for 20 years after a misunderstanding about a TV interview." I took that as some kind of encouragement. Thanks Sir David.