New face, same old story

Here's a name that's new to me at the BBC - Tanya Syed. In fact I can find almost nothing about Tanya on the web at all, apart from a couple of articles she'd already written for BBC News, so I guess it's fair to say she's the new girl. Trainee perhaps. Straight out of her media studies degree.

Welcome aboard Tanya.

Tanya has been diligent and has paid careful attention to her training course. In fact she catches on very quickly indeed. Today's contribution to the news effort is about a report issued by a political pressure group called the Worldwatch Institute (good girl Tanya, box ticked there), calling for drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions (tick). Our Tanya carefully omits to mention that they are a political pressure group of course (tick). And then she dutifully provides some balance by quoting a different opinion on the report (careful!).

Well...sort of different. It's by somebody different anyway. Yup, balance is provided by quoting another political pressure group called the Australian Conservation Foundation (tick! tick! tick!). They think the Worldwatch report is just great. (I think we knew that though.)

Tanya, you will go far.

Brainwashing British Children

This morning I've been on childminding duty, with the smallest of the Baby Bishop keeping me occupied with a variety of more or less charming antics. The weather has cheered up (well, it's above freezing and the sun's out) and so we got out for some fresh air.

Duly refreshed and with fifteen minutes to kill before lunch, we switched on the television and caught a programme called Barnaby Bear on CBeebies. I don't know why I still let the children watch anything the BBC produces, I really don't, and true to form even Barnaby Bear managed to be infuriating. Yes folks, BBC output for preschoolers is just as disgustingly political as the rest of its output. Can anyone at the BBC stand up and tell me that it is considered suitable for preschoolers to watch a section about roads protesters at Twyford Down? Complete with Lord Porritt bawling into a loudhailer? I know he's a hero to those on the left, but this is meant to be a programme for the under fives, for heaven's sake! Barnaby Bear and the Twyford Down protesters? What planet are these people on?

That climate change seminar

Much of the interest over the whole Roger Harrabin/CEMP kerfuffle has centred on the ‘high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts' (as the BBC Trust put it) decided that global warming was settled science and that sceptical views could safely be ignored.

We now finally, after months of digging, have the first insider view of the seminar.  Richard D North, a critic of the BBC and apparently the lone sceptical voice on the seminar has emailed TonyN at Harmless Sky to tell us the real composition of the panel.

The BBC crew (senior executives from every branch of the corporation) were matched by an equal number of specialists, almost all (and maybe all) of whom could be said to have come from the “we must support Kyoto” school of climate change activists.

Oops! Read the whole thing here.

Extracting the Michael

More fun and games on the BBC/CEMP front. In the comments thread behind the last post, a visitor identifying himself as a former BBC exec has some interesting insider views on someone else who might have been the guiding hand behind the CEMP seminars. I've taken the liberty of reposting the comment in full so that readers can form their own opinions.

I (an ex-BBC exec) have attended a number of BBC "seminars" over the years. It seems that the climate change one may have been very similar to the most recent I attended, which was about the development of broadcasting in Africa (when I was chief exec of an organisation developing psb in Africa).

The idea was to help forge a strategy between "interested organisations". Those, it turned out, were almost entirely from the NGO or DFID sector, most of whom held views entirely in keeping with then government policy linked (in turn) to Bob Geldof/U2/Bono. My own organisation favoured a much more market led (as opposed to aid) approach - but surprise, surprise, the overhwelming majority there weren't interested.

I should add that I only got to attend the seminar by using old contacts - the first I knew the event was taking place was two days before. So I and my capitalist organisation only got in by gate-crashing.

My main point is that my guess is that the climate change seminar followed exactly the same lines - probably with almost the same cast of people present (ie from Oxfam, WWF, etc). It's the BBC hearing what it wants to hear via people who are government supporters and left-liberal think tanks/NGOs.

This part of th BBC was run by Michael Hastings, their head of "corporate social responsibility", now Baron Hastings of Scarisbrick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings,_Baron_Hastings_of_Scarisbrick). He has since moved on but he set the tone and tenor for this part of the BBC's operations. Michael now sits as a cross bencher in the House of Lords, but all his sympathies lie in the green/NGO arena and he is firmly in the NuLabour inner circle (I know him reasionably well, having once employed him).

There is not much of interest about Lord Hastings on the web - he appears to have left the BBC shortly after the seminar, apparently because his elevation to the peerage was deemed incompatible with his position - it remains unclear precisely why it took the BBC nine months for them to work that out. He has lectured a number of times on climate change. He's now head of corporate social responsibility at KPMG.

Interesting stuff. I shall have to work out how to follow this up.

Getting your argument straight

Some further thoughts have occurred to me after the recent posting on the Cambridge Environment and Media Programme. Joe Smith, you will recall, has argued that CEMP activities are not succeptible to Freedom of INformation requests because his activities on this front are private activities.

Meanwhile it is instructive to compare his position to that of his CEMP colleague, the BBC environment analyst, Roger Harrabin. The fine blogger, TonyN, over at Harmless Sky, has tried to get hold of the visitors of a CEMP get together, but was rebuffed, the BBC arguing firstly that these activities were not covered by the Environmental Information Regulations, and then stating that their exemption under the Freedom of Information Act, allowed them to withhold information relating to journalistic activities.

It seems to me that there is a contradiction here. Joe Smith says that CEMP is private activity, while the BBC says that it is BBC journalism and therefore exempt.

Which is it?

More Harrabin

I've previously blogged about the Cambridge Environment and Media Programme (which might be the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme; nobody seems sure). CEMP, as I'll call it, is run by the BBC's Roger Harrabin and Dr Joe Smith of the Open University, apparently to improve coverage of green issues in the media. As far as I can tell this involves using the BBC to promote environmentalism, but I recognise that my views may be prejudiced, so let me lay down the evidence I have recently uncovered.

CEMP's activities seem mainly to involve putting together BBC journalists and bigwigs and NGOs to discuss green issues. These meetings have lead to among other things the abortive Planet Relief day of BBC greenery.

CEMP is funded from a mixture of public and private sources - the BBC and the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia both say they have contributed. What the private sources are, or indeed what the legal status of CEMP is remain unclear, but it is not a great stretch of the imagination to believe that these are in fact the self-same NGOs who get to meet the BBC bigwigs.

In response to a Freedom of Information request, Dr Smith indicated that in his view, his work with Roger Harrabin is private activity.

Put these factors together and you have a disturbing situation which raises some uncomfortable questions for the corporation. For example:

• Why is the BBC funding the private activities of one of its journalists?
• How can the BBC claim to be editorially independent when it is engaged in a joint venture with unidentified private organisations to shape its own content?
• Who is authorising this expenditure within the BBC?
• What is the BBC getting in return?

Lots of questions, but precious few answers at the moment. I'll keep digging, but any suggestions as to ways of attacking the problem will be gratefully received.

Update on Jan 15, 2012 by Bishop Hill

The full story of Roger Harrabin and the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme is now available as a download here.

Tax revolts and the BBC

Jonathan Pearce at Samizdata points to an article by Charles Moore in the Tellygraph who is trying to foment a tax revolt against the BBC. Having read exactly what it was that Messrs Ross and Brand said, (the details of the whole affair had previously rather passed me by), I'm inclined to think that he's right. I'm struggling, in fact to think of any saving grace that the BBC has. Maybe it is time that we all just said "Enough".

I can hear it now, the masses in the streets chanting:

Remember Ross! Remember Sachs!

And then don't pay your TV tax!

Sends shivers down your spine, doesn't it? Viva la revolucion!...errm, old boy!

The amazing disappearing Roger Harrabin!

I've written a couple of posts on the subject of BBC environment correspondent Roger Harrabin's work with something called the Cambridge Environment and Media Programme, which appears to be a body which tries to ensure that the BBC adheres to green orthodoxy in all its output.

CEMP originally came to my attention when one of Harrabin's emails was leaked, revealing that he was spending time trying to come up with a party line to take about Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth being found to be misleading in a court case. The BBC's website at the time had a profile of Harrabin, which revealed that he was a CEMP director, and that CEMP itself was "supported" by the BBC. I assume that this means financially supported, although other interpretations are possible.

Then at the start of this year, I noticed that Harrabin and CEMP had been involved in trying to put together the Planet Relief telethon, together with a marauding horde of greens and BBC bigwigs. This was revealed by the blog of one of the environmentalists, Matt Prescott, who thanked Harrabin and his CEMP colleague Joe Smith of the Open University for introducing him to some of the BBC bosses at a CEMP-organised seminar.

CEMP has now come to my attention again, as Tony N at Harmless Sky has been taking a look at their activity too. He notes that the BBC profile of Harrabin is no longer online. On a hunch, I took a look at the Matt Prescott article too, and found that it no longer mentioned Harrabin either - only Joe Smith.

This seemed like just too much of a coincidence to me. I could have been mistaken on one of them, but not both. Fortunately, through the delights of the Wayback Machine, I was able to retreive the original pages.

Here's the BBC profile of Harrabin, from which the pertinent quote is

He co-directs the Cambridge Environment and Media Programme, which is supported by BBC News to bring together senior journalists with outside experts to discuss media coverage of long-term sustainable development issues.

And here's the Matt Prescott piece. It originally said

Joe Smith (Open University) and Roger Harrabin (BBC News) originally introduced me to Jon, in Cambridge, and also played a crucial role in helping to get things off the ground a couple of years ago.

It now reads:

Joe Smith (Open University) originally introduced me to Jon, in Cambridge, and also played a crucial role in helping to get things off the ground a couple of years ago.

Something to hide, gentlemen?

Update on Jan 15, 2012 by Bishop Hill

The full story of Roger Harrabin and the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme is now available as a download here.

Noel Edmonds

Interesting news just now, that Noel Edmonds has cancelled his TV licence, infuriated by the BBC's threatening infomercials - the ones that tell viewers, "We know where you live". 

Almost inevitably the BBC misrepresents what he has done, saying that Edmonds is angered by the BBC's approach to licence fee evaders. He is in fact quite clear that he's angered by the fact that Auntie threatens everyone, regardless of their guilt or otherwise.

Edmonds was reticent about whether he has got rid of his telly too. Reading between the lines, my guess would be that he has not.

The climate wars

Just finished watching the BBC's history of the climate wars in which a geologist called Ian Stewart manages to emit more carbon dioxide than most people manage in a year. In episode one he managed to visit Hawaii, Greenland, Colorado, the south-west of England, California. A powerboat trip was, of course, essential to his historical case. which was largely a predictable environmentalist take on the last half century. .

It included a wonderful moment where Ian Stewart tried to write off a committee reporting on the issue of climate change by saying its head was "a passionate believer in free markets". Well, that settles it then. He did engage in some pretty grubby innuendo at times.

The programme adviser was Naomi Oreskes, which kind of gives you an idea of the integrity of the piece. Oreskes has a companion piece in the Sunday Times today, which rather suggests that the show is part of a campaign rather than a serious attempt at a history of the controversy.

One interesting point was that when they got onto the subject of temperature reconstructions, they only talked about ice cores and not tree rings. It's possible that they'll cover this next week, but could it be that they are going to skip over the subject of the hockey stick entirely? They couldn't could they?

BBC backing climate change alarmism - official

The Harmless Sky blog has discovered that support for the catastrophic global warming case is official BBC policy. Tony quotes a BBC report as follows:

The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus [on anthropogenic climate change].

The details of the seminar are, as one might expect from an organisation like the BBC which holds the public in such contempt, a secret. An FoI request has revealed that uber-warmer, Lord May, was the driver behind the decision, but the rest of the details are only going to be revealed if the Information Commissioner can force them to toe the line.

Update: Interesting also to remind ourselves that as recently as a year ago, the head of BBC news was claiming that the Corporation had no line on climate change. Well, what did you expect from a BBC man? The truth?

Petition to abandon the Lisbon Treaty

Richard North of EU Referendum fame is calling for people to sign up to a petition, demanding that the government abandon the Lisbon Treaty. They've signed up a very impressive seven thousand people in four hours.

Add your name here. 

Priorities

The BBC reveals an interesting set of priorities for its headlines right now. The headlines and "top stories" (in the BBC's opinion at least) are:

Youth anti-drink plans criticized
Police uncover body in suitcase
Blaze ravages Universal Studios
Stabbing woman detained under act
Israel sends back Hezbollah spy
MPs 'will support terror plans'
Bradford & Bingley chief resigns
Kampusch making chat show debut
McCartney set for Liverpool show

The story you don't find on their front page, or even on the front of the World section, but buried in the Middle East pages is this:

US Iraq deaths 'at four-year low'

I don't know about you, but I'd think this might be slightly more important than even "Beatles set for Liverpool show", but maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned about these things.

Ice sheet breakup - a biologist's view

One of the most prominent of the harrabinieri at the BBC (apart from Roger himself) is David Shukman,  the environment correspondent who seems to spend most of his life flying off to exotic locations to promote the green cause.

His most recent article is about some Canadian scientists who have found evidence that the Ward Hunt ice shelf is breaking up. He quotes Dr Derek Mueller of the Trent University, Ontario:

"I was astonished to see these new cracks. It means the ice shelf is disintegrating, the pieces are pinned together like a jigsaw but could float away."

Pretty frightening stuff then. And just in case we don't understand the point that he's making, David Shukman tells us

The fate of the vast ice blocks is seen as a key indicator of climate change.

I'm certainly terrified.

Let's find out some more about the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf then. Wikipedia has a page dedicated to Ward Hunt, which is "the largest ice shelf in the Arctic". It was discovered in 1875, although at that time it formed part of a larger ice shelf which broke up during the twentieth century. No doubt that was itself a portent of global warming to come.

And what's this?

The Ward Hunt ice sheet began breaking up approximately 100 years ago.

David? Why doesn't your article mention this?  Isn't this relevant? 

Let's be charitable though. Maybe Dr Mueller didn't tell you. Maybe he forgot, although let's face it, it's odd for a scientist to forget such a simple fact about his specialism.

Except it isn't really his specialism. After obtaining his bachelor's degree in biology, he studied polar algae for eight years and only recently has he switched to studying the effect of climate change on ice shelves. He's not even faculty at Trent University - he's a post-doctoral researcher. So to describe him as an expert on ice shelves would appear to be pushing a point. Perhaps this is why he was astonished by the cracks he found.

It may be that David Shukman just reckons he reliably toes the environmentalist party line. How else to explain the fact that this post-doctoral researcher has now been honoured with two Shukman reports on his work in the Arctic?

Keep on knocking

Ok, so the BBC won't let me see the emails. Information held for journalistic purposes is exempt, it seems.

This isn't the end of the world though, because all I want is some confirmation that there were some emails, and if there were, when they arrived at the BBC.

I've gone back to the Beeb and asked if I can see the dates and times of email correspondence between Roger Harrabin and the WMO.  Surely the dates and times of the emails isn't information held for journalistic purposes.