Bishop Hill The BBC and its experts
The BBC, which claims to agonise over neutrality in matters environmental, has come unstuck again. In the comments at Biased BBC comes an amusing story from reader Fred Stubber, who explained in a letter to the editor that an interviewee on the corporation's Look North Leeds show, was not quite what he seemed:
Your package on the closure of part of Ferrybridge Power Station was severely biased because of the follow-up interview, which was with John Grant, who was described as ‘an expert in renewable energy and climate change’. Why didn’t you describe him as a hard line environmentalist, which is what he is? Then the viewers would have known where he was coming from and could have adjusted their credibility accordingly. And why did you chose this man anyway, with his known bias on the subject? Why didn’t you interview someone who was a true expert in the whole field of energy production; someone who would take a more balanced and broader view? John Green [sic] gave totally one-sided answers which were narrowly focused on the conventional environmentalist mantra. He is absolutely committed to the environmentalist cause, unsurprisingly because he makes a good living from it.
In fact it's worse than we thought. Grant turns out to be a Green party politician. He is also an academic of sorts, who is working on his PhD at Sheffield Hallam University alongside his teaching duties. According to the university's register of experts, Grant knows about:
- Energy consumption of buildings
- Resilience and adaption of buildings to climate change
- Building integrated renewable energy systems
- Energy efficiency technologies and strategies
- Environmental impact assessment
- Sustainable development
If you go back a couple of years, however, he was described as a "Senior Lecturer in Real Estate" in the Faculty of Development and Society. Elsewhere, he describes himself as an expert in sustainable construction. I'm struggling to find any papers he has published at all.
So I wonder how it was that he came to be chosen as the person to give words of wisdom about the closure of a coal-fired power station.
Reader Comments (43)
But how did the BBC reply to this accusation?
If anyone from the BBC deigns to reply the gist of their answer will be how can we possibly be biased when we choose a speaker who clearly represents the views of all right-thinking people?
Dodgy
I've amended the link to point at a different BBBC thread, where the full story of the correspondence unfolds. I wasn't actually very interested in this, because I assumed there would simply be the usual fobbing off.
BBC Press Office @bbcpress · May 27
Daily Mail says buying 80,679 copies of Guardian is evidence of 'left leaning bias' at @BBC. Doesn't mention the fact we bought 78,436 Mails
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · May 27
As a proportion of ssles. you buy way to many copies of Guardian.About third of whole circulation! @bbcpress @BBC @jimmcquaid propping it up
Barry Woods @BarryJWoods · 15h15 hours ago
ahem - Thus, @BBC buys about 43% of @guardain daily circulation. vs 4.9% of Daily Mail daily circulation. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/10/national-daily-newspapers-lose-more-than-half-a-million-readers-in-past-year
-------------------------------------------
the BBC buys 80,670 copies out of 174,941 of the Guardian daily circulation
the BBC buys 78,346 copies out of 1,600,000 of the Daily Mail daily corculation
Barry,
I dont have the figures immediately to hand but a more important point is where the BBC recruit from. They spend something like 10x more in job advertising in the Guardian than they do in the Mail.
I'll see if I can find the figures
Barry Woods, I am flabbergasted.
How does the BBC justify buying those kinds of numbers of any newspapers? Think of the trees.
@Barry Woods
In short, the Guardian is essentially subsidized. It cannot but die of this.
Is this chap's name John Grant or John Green? Or is it two people?
Found it here
2007: £275,412.05 spent with Guardian, £0 with Daily Mail, £1,392 Daily Telegraph
The next top spend (excluding EMAP) was the Sunday Times with £81,600.00 and in 3rd place was .. Online Guardian with £58,110.
Out of a total spend in 2007 of £1,016,560.87 nearly a third went to the Guardian.
The figures for 2008 and 2009 are also in the document.
It looks to me like the BBC basically funds the Guardian.
I sent in my own request last year for updated information. here is their response.
Sheffield Hallam University. It was Sheffield Polytechnic in my days. I don't suppose it is much different.
oops - I got it wrong,, that figure is per year!!!
http://leftfootforward.org/2015/05/daily-mail-accuses-bbc-of-left-wing-bias-because-the-guardian-is-more-expensive/
The Daily Mail has accused the BBC of ‘following a left-wing agenda’ based on which newspapers it purchases for staff.
The story notes that in 2014 the BBC spend £127,643 on copies of the liberal Guardian, versus only £40,482 for the Daily Mail itself: “The startling figure is nearly 45 per cent higher than its bill for any other title, despite the Guardian accounting for a tiny fraction of Britain’s newspaper sales.”
What the Mail doesn’t tell readers is the number of copies purchased by the BBC for the two papers is almost identical.
The Beeb bought 80,679 copies of the Guardian compared to 78,463 copies of the Mail. That’s a difference of a mere 2216 over the year.
Across a year, that amounts to 221 copies of the Guardian a day, (not many for an organisation the size of the BBC) versus about 214 for the Mail – in other words, very close, and not anything like a big enough difference to justify the charge of bias.
Sheffield Hallam - University ????
Millions of kids started going to sixth-form colleges or polytechnics which with a magic star-spangled Disney tap of the educational Fairy Godmother’s sword on their shoulder were told to arise Sir University
Pointman
I have never understood why TV broadcaster are so interested in what print journalist have to say, surely they are the opposition, but still vast amounts of their output revolves around 'what the papers say'. Is this just laziness or making friends in case they need a new job?
Barry Woods. I noticed the other day when watching a BBC newspaper round up that stories with a political twist were read from the Guardian whereas foreign news or trivia or cross political agreement was read from the Mail, Telegraph etc. I don't know if it was a co-incidence or common but it would allow them to pretend they were balanced without actually being so.
It's time to scrap the BBC tax.
Under Grauniad economic understanding, it is only correct, that BBC Licence payers, subsidise the lifestyles of those that produce minority views, because otherwise no Grauniad journalists would have any motivation, to join the BBC, and preserve the income of failed economic theorists, at the Grauniad.
It is a self fulfilling fallacy.
Perhaps: John Grant AKA John the Green?
BBC: Guardian v Daily Mail bias or not ...
Surely, if the BBC were unbiased and did represent the views of everyone equally they would be expected to buy newspapers in the same proportion as the rest of the nation?
Buying equal numbers of both the Mail and the Guardian would appear to be exactly the kind of false balance they claim to avoid by ignoring the sceptical view of climate change.
graphicconception:
"Is this chap's name John Grant or John Green?"
-"Perhaps: John Grant AKA John the Green"
Maybe he's the Jolly Green Grant!
I think that worrying about how many copies of which papers the BBC buys is a red herring. They could read it off the internet if they wanted to. It's which they read and absorb that matters. A Mail sitting on a desk before it goes into the recycling is just a waste of paper.
Al Beeb 'look north', is run by a bunch of dizzy children who are all climate Kool aid drinkers, it and simply put would never occur to them to think that, everyone and his dogs and cats didn't believe in the great green warming fairies.
'Look North' and witless numpties, doesn't even begin to describe these eejits, and at the back of it you have a minor alarmist 'sleb' in Paul Hudson - he keeps the fifth form girlies in line and on message.
Is it a co-incidence that the BBC's respondent to the FOI request is named Jim Hacker?
BBC also reporting solar powered plane attempt fail
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32955880
So how would its panels survive a lightning strike.
"So I wonder how it was that he came to be chosen as the person to give words of wisdom about the closure of a coal-fired power station"
Sounds like a case for Fraser Steel.
http://bbcwatch.org/2015/05/25/bbcs-ecu-upholds-complaint-from-the-uks-pro-hamas-lobby/
He's really hot on poor framing of guest context.
Well, sometimes.
Barry Woods:
Perhaps the difference is that the Guardian copies go to news journalists and programme editors, while the Mail goes to the lighting gaffers and sound boom operators?
tvl well dave is not considering it a priority anymore to prosecute those who dont pay the tvl tax
So it has become a bit more of an optional payment for those who believe in marxism?
jamspid, noting that the solar plane has not managed to fly non stop around the world, wouldn't it be nice if Unreliable power generators were forced to report their failure to generate power due to unfavourable and unforeseen weather. It would demonstrate a level of honesty unheard of, at the BBC, for example.
Ah yes, Coal for Africa and India will bring the millenium. What happens when Bjorn and the Bishop get their wish
The connection between the BBC and the Guardian is given here.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349506/Left-wing-bias-Its-written-BBCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html
Miss posting by a Troll, nuff said.
TerryS
Good post about your FOIA request to the BBC.
Did you notice that the name of the person who replied to you was James Hacker?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-Prime-Minister-Diaries-Hacker/dp/0881623350
The fact that a BBC employee responding to a charge of bias is named after their best ever series on political satire is rather poetic
tonyb
Eli Rabbit,
What a disingenuous comment. The article you link to is illustrated with an image of illegal trash burning and talks about India's traffic with New Dehli's streets crammed with trucks at night.
How are modern coal fired power stations with flue gas desulfurization and particle precipitators going to stop illegal trash burning and trucks in New Dehli?
Billy Liar:, 8:27 pm: Unfortunately, the only things that rabbits show any degree of ability and competence in, are digging themselves into holes and producing large numbers of unwanted offspring.
Eli Rabbett, looks like an article making the case for decent reliable power stations in India, with non polluting means of transmitting electricity, direct to people's homes.
Thanks for reminding us all, how Greens have caused so much unnecessary death and suffering, by obstructing the types of power so relied on, in Europe and the USA.
The UN should prosecute Global Warming alarmists for crimes against humanity.
Self Blattering rabbits could save thousands of lives.
Warmists just can't tell the difference between CO2 and particulates.
TinyCO2, that is because they get steamed up about water vapour, and even they do not know why.
Coal, of course, is a major source of particulates and CO2. It's a toofer
Eli Rabett, so why are the poor being forced to burn hydrocarbons in their homes? It's a doofer loser.
The BBC is the mouthpiece of the British establishment (nowadays the city of London).
Re the BBC, following Stephanie Flanders 'fling' with Ed Miliband:
The poor burn hydrocarbons (wood, straw, sometime coal) in their houses to cook food and heat. Cheap is everything when you are poor. Of course, they will no longer be poor in the upcoming Lomborg Millenium.
"The poor burn hydrocarbons (wood, straw, sometime coal) in their houses to cook food and heat. Cheap is everything when you are poor."
well that's a revelevation, not !!! Drax has been reducuded to burning wood (The station is currently (c. 2010) co-firing biomass; in 2012 the company announced plans to convert up to three generating units to solely biomass, burning 7.5 million tonnes imported from the United States and Canada.)
" Of course, they will no longer be poor in the upcoming Lomborg Millenium."
get help Eli, Lew can help, maybe.