Tuesday
Dec182012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill 28gate in the Express
Dec 18, 2012 BBC The GWPF letter to the BBC has been picked up by the Express this morning, with the main points of the letter covered in a fair amount of detail. The BBC look as if they are going to tough it out.
The Corporation said yesterday: “The BBC’s climate change coverage is balanced and impartial despite pressure from all those who would seek to influence the way this story is reported.”
No questioning of any aspect of climate science then.
Reader Comments (34)
Never stick to the letter of things. They say it IS balanced. However we all know it recently changed, with Black out and Harrabin vanishing. So they're admitting it WASN'T balanced.
Also note reference to "all those", implying former bedfellows WWF and Greenpeace.
Impartial (ho ho).
They really have no shame, do they?
“the GWPF claims that only two of the outsiders were scientists.”
Nothing about the role of Morabito and Newbery; or the FOIA, Justice Cocklecarrot, and the six redbearded barristers. The story is being rewritten as a straight political fight between a Tory Lord and a lefty BBC.
They have little concept of what balance is, or where it lies. It seems to apply to most if not all opinion formed and then presented on most subjects.
They also can't and won't accept critisism.
Harrabin vanished? Sure?
I know Black is on a sabbatical.
Roger Harrabin was on a sabbatical.= and is back, Richard Black has left the BBC.
The BBC will tough it out.
Clearly the large amount of money the BBC has used on covering CAGW (e.g. Climate Wars) would need to be justified, if they admitted bias. The BBC Trust has a history of delaying or ignoring complaints about the BBC's coverage of climate "science" and in effect sweeping under the carpet.
The BBC will only respond to threats to its licence income.
"The BBC’s climate change coverage is balanced and impartial despite pressure from all those who would seek to influence the way this story is reported.”
Excuse me while I throw up.
Compared to the 2007-2009 coverage, the BBC has changed completely, and Harrabin is a ghost of his former self.
As for the Express' spin on the thing, with two major discoveries in my personal folder I am the more of a threat the less my name is paraded around. Especially by the Daily Express.
"The Corporation said yesterday: “The BBC’s climate change coverage is balanced and impartial.."
Not sure if again trotting out 'we are right because we say so' is quite 'toughing it out' they way it used to be, especially with most senior editorial staff on 'stood aside' paid leave and various delayed inquiries and reports gobbling further licence fee money away from programming into lawyers' pockets.
But I guess that is what makes them so unique.
There could be a morsel of truth about their coverage, hidden in the Climate Change coverage storyline. The "news" may have a minor element of impartiality, although I have yet to see it. However, where they go astray is in the totally predetermined programmes on Climate Change (eg Climate Wars, & Attenborough et al) designed to appear scientific but almost wholly advocate in nature, to brainwash the public who they consider to be thick & stupid! Remember this is the BBC we're talking about, a publicly funded organisation that has lost its way & responsible to no one it would appear, they could never admit to impartiality, despite employing biased staffers like Harrabin with vested interests in greenalism! The BBC has been pro-AGW & anti-nuclear in all its programming for some time now!
omnologos
I don’t understand your comment. In a normal world, whistleblowers and lone Davids who defeat big Goliaths are news. The media may treat you as a hero or a danger to national security, but they’re supposed to take notice of you. “Two bloggers beat secretive BBC wielding six barristers” - that’s news. “Mysteriously-funded-crossparty-think-tank headed-by-Tory-peer criticises-BBC” isn’t.
I asked Roger Harrabin for his comment on the GWPF letter yesterday. This morning he replied to me that I'd have to "ask the corporation".
Not sure if I'd say they are toughing it out yet - maybe they are tight lipped until they see how the new Director General wishes to act.
Geoff - I understand. What I mean is...I am more useful if I am perfectly left alone and capable of finding something else. And again. And again.
Publicity isn't always good unless it's a goal in itself.
The point is surely that the BBC's policy was declared as NOT impartial, that the policy had been excused from the impartiality requirement because of the advice received from the mythical array of experts. If they are now saying they are unbiased, this is actually a reversal of that policy and worthy of note. Now, may we ask them if there really is a reversal? and if so, on what basis? That new advice has been received, or that the previous story was based on a falsehood?
Who speaks for the BBC on these issues? Is there anyone a newspaper might interview, or can the corporation be as opaque as it likes, above all that responsiblity and accountability nonsense?
I made an FOI request for the legal costs for the tribunal.
"The BBC has received an unprecedented volume of FOI requests and we are attempting to deal with them all as quickly as possible; we hope to be in a position to reply by 27 December but we will of course make every effort to respond earlier. We will also keep you informed should we anticipate further delay."
I think we have started to see how the BBC may deal with a new line in being 'impartial' about AGW hysteria in the future. The event was relatively minor, being an interview by Evan Davis on Today with a scientist on the issue of the depletion of cod stocks in the North Sea - not, as far as I know, a hugely scientifically controversial issue of itself (though politically highly so I think). Some of you may wish to correct my opinion there but that's not the point.
Davis first asked the speaker: "Are all scientists agreed on that or are there scientists arguing both sides of this?" The answer: "I think there's general consensus in science...". Now that may have been entirely appropriate to the points at issue (I've no idea) but it seems to me that this is how the BBC will argue in future that it is being impartial in its treatment of AGW issues. It's not a new trick and is depressingly familiar to most of us here but I suspect it will be used more and more to throw a sop to the idea of impartiality without ever having actually to be impartial .
It's the 8.10 segment on this page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9779000/9779017.stm
Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.
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RichieP: the tactic here is depressingly familiar. the intention is to have Marxist science where the consensus, aimed at supporting the politics, is part of the political process and you won't get funding for real science.
The CO2 scam wasn't the first attempt at this. Beforehand we had global cooling then ozone and the CFCs. Not many will remember the late 1980s when the Natural History Museum tried to introduce Marxist principles into Evolution with accelerated evolution as an analogue to political revolution.
Agreement, consensus, on certain facts or measured rates of change in the facts (facts about facts) does not amount to a consensus on the conjectured causes. There may be a majority opinion which, incorrectly, calls itself a consensus but that proves nothing with regard to the truth of the opinion or the trustworthiness of each professing opinion holder.
Wherever there is disagreement there can be no general agreement: consensus.
AlecM:
Oh it still goes on all the time, of course. I believe, for instance, that there was an intention to rename the Imperial War Museum as the Peace Museum. Not a lot different from the EU official description of the Second World War in their museum as the 'European Civil War'. Pernicious Marxism is still alive and well in all of Europe - indeed, most of the EU structures are run by its acolytes.
RichieP, AlecM:
Accelerated evolution and the EU renaming the Second World War may be examples of intellectual fashion, or political correctness, or plain stupidity, but they have nothing to do with Marxism. (Marx was a big fan of evolutionary theory, and wanted to dedicate das Kapital to Darwin. Darwin politely turned him down).
Linking every discussion about the BBC to Marxism obscures the argument. When it comes to discussing climate science, the BBC are just wrong - about the nature of science, economics, forecasting, mathematical models, of rational discussion itself.
The BBC may well be the nest of blinkered trendy lefties that Daily Express readers imagine, or it may be that they’re just typical 21st century middleclass types who’ve overdosed on homeopathy and feng shui and left their brains behind in their cottage in Tuscany. It’s nothing to do with Marxism.
Now look here you proles. The BBC is right. It always has been and always will be. Impartiality is our middle name. And if you don’t like it too bad. And don’t think we are going to let you off paying your licence fees, you bunch of upstarts. Now get back to work. And none of that IR35 stuff. That is strictly for the Beebs chosen few. You lot will pay your taxes, your PAYE your NIC and frankly any other tax that we choose to support.
Any questions? I thought not.
See my post at 1.21 on Dec 17 on the Bish's original 'GWPF calls for...' posting of that date....
geoffchambers; 'just typical 21st century middleclass types who’ve overdosed on homeopathy and feng shui and left their brains behind in their cottage in Tuscany. It’s nothing to do with Marxism.'
Disagree; most of these people were indoctrinated at school. PC is Cultural Marxism designed to break down the family and all other ties except to the State.
The BBC is infested with fellow travellers who, for the first time, in real scientists, have some proper opposition. You can't muck around with Science unlike most other aspects of Society. As for the Science, the behaviour of Nurse typifies the Marxists/Trots in Science who have been promoted for their political allegiance. It used to be just Freemasons, now it's UEA Common Purpose too.
In the comments to the Express story, one contributor who wished to complain strongly about the GWPF stated that Lord Lawson was expelled from the Doha conference for impersonating a delegate....they're well informed, those Express readers.
All these sceptic lords look the same to me. They also share the delusion that anyone disagreeing with their opinions is automatically biased.
The BBC is digging its heels in, and they haven't even been asked at this point to change their views.
All they have been asked to do is have a simple meeting with other than the usual suspects, and they won't even do that.
Are they so afraid they might be wrong that they won't even listen to an alternative view?
'Are they so afraid they might be wrong that they won't even listen to an alternative view?'
The question for which the word 'rhetorical' must surely have been originally crafted.
“The BBC’s climate change coverage is balanced and impartial ..."
It has to be asked: How do they know that?
Perhaps they asked the 28?
the murdoch media in australia, including the one linked here, have had this story up for 2 days, with an anonymous spokeswoman being quoted, and there has so far been no rebuttal:
17 Dec: Adelaide Advertiser: Rick Morton: It's OK to link climate denial to pedophilia, ABC tells ex-chairman Maurice Newman
A COMPLAINT by former ABC chairman Maurice Newman over a radio program that linked scepticism about human-induced climate change to advocacy of pedophilia has been dismissed by the national broadcaster...
***The ABC spokeswoman said the network did broadcast and publish views from dissenting scientists.
"Unlike the BBC, the ABC acknowledges there are climate scientists who question the core thinking about climate science," she said.
"The ABC gives them and their views air time."...
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/its-ok-to-link-climate-denial-to-pedophilia-abc-tells-ex-chairman-maurice-newman/story-e6frea6u-1226538690358
of course, u would be hard pressed to find any debate, or any sceptic, on ABC Australia, but i find it almost incredible anyone at ABC would make the BBC reference. but, as i said, there's been no rebuttal.
"People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago"
-Jeremy Paxman (January 2007)
graphicconception,
The BBC are certainly not alone amongst MSM journalists, readers, listeners and viewers when they parade their inability to understand climate-science, but are still sure that they know how to assess someone who does claim a degree of competence to understand.
It reminds me of the Spike Milligan poem:
"My father was a great man; he told me so himself. He said "I am a great man!"
And you can't argue with facts like that"
I believe the word you were looking for was "brazen," as in "The BBC look as if they are going to brazen it out."