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The BBC 10 o’clock news has just had a long article about a Channel 4 programme being broadcast tonight concerning Prince Charles.
Yet there is still complete silence about the “Great Global Warming Swindle” broadcast by that same channel which covers a subject they never cease to ram down our throats.
Why the difference?
I heard on the radio today – not the BBC – that Johnston’s business card was found at the scene of his abduction. Looks like he had the presence of mind to drop it there. Then again, things seldom stay secret in the Middle East for long.
I agree with Biodegradable that the BBC is being extra cautious re its reporting on Johnston’s abduction while they try to get him back. Strange that he’s due to complete his Gaza posting in a few weeks. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he was kidnapped. The Palestinians want to keep him in Gaza. They probably know it wont be easy to find a more sympathetic BBC propagandist for their cause.
Just listening to the BBC Ten O’Clock news and there was some reporter on there blaming coastal erosion in East England on rising sea levels caused by global warming. Am I living in a madhouse. The sea has always eroded cliffs in East England and deposited matreial further down the coast. This has nothing to do with global warming. I can’t make up my mind if the reporter is an idiot or just a very brazen propagandist.
I had to get up and leave the room when the Norfolk thing was on the Ten O Clock News otherwise I would have had a coronory. I was so angry. GCCooper is right, the Norfolk coastline has been changing for millenia. To claim it is anything to do with climate change is a disgusting lie.
Regarding the BBC 10 o’clock news item, the south and east of England has been slowly sinking, and the north and west correspondingly rising, since the Loch Lomond stadial came to an end over 10,000 years ago! That anyone can wilfully conflate this empirically verifiable process with the theory of anthropogenic global warming really is cause for despair.
In the global warming Newsnight debate tonight concerning the Channel 4 film (I think this is BBC’s first reaction) a pro-warming Reading University physicist was pitted to debate the film against an expert on tropical diseases from Paris. Who said that the BBC is not impartial?
“I can’t make up my mind if the reporter is an idiot or just a very brazen propagandist”
If its the BBC I think you will find he is both.
“The wooden sea defences built in the late ’50s at Happisburgh, North Norfolk have been failing over the last few years, and large chunks of the sandy cliffs are regularly falling into the sea. Homes and businesses are at imminent risk.
Starting in February , limited works are being carried out by North Norfolk District Council to build on the emergency works carried out in 2002 – this is a temporary measure designed to buy time while a more sustainable solution to the situation is sought.
The next few weeks presents a unique opportunity to make a real difference to the protection of Happisburgh’s cliffs – by donating to Coastal Concern Ltd’s Buy a Rock for Happisburgh appeal, all monies raised will be added to the amount commited by NNDC to put more rock on the beach at Happisburgh. ”
http://www.happisburgh.org.uk/
Also read the history of that part of the shore
“Happisburgh has lost land to the sea throughout the centuries. The rate of erosion has been erratic – at times large areas have disappeared overnight, and at others the cliff has remained virtually the same for some years.”
http://www.happisburgh.org.uk/campaign/history
The BBC reporter and his editor are idiots.
Jon writes;
“The BBC reporter and his editor are idiots.”
I think it’s worse than that. They are liars.
Funny how the BBC posse (Reith et al ) falls silent when something like this hapens, only to reappear to nit-pick some trivial point, a few days later.
a pro-warming Reading University physicist was pitted to debate the film against an expert on tropical diseases from Paris. Who said that the BBC is not impartial?
Dong | 13.03.07 – 12:09 am
The tropical disease expert, Prof Reiter, spent most of the time alloted to him explaining that he wasn’t a climatologist and therefore wasn’t qualified to reply to Esler’s questions about climate change. He wasn’t allowed to finish even one of his replies, even the one about him asking for his name to be taken off the IPCC report.
Prof. Reiter appears in the Channel 4 documentary to denounce the myth that global warming will mean malaria and other diseases will invade more northerly areas – he points out among other things that mosqitoes are very common in the Antartic and can survive at very cold temperatures. He quite rightly had not much to say to a physicist who waffled on about CO2 causing global warming. It’s not his field and no, the BBC is not impartial.
The BBC is just hysterical whingers…screaming banchees trying to create fear….
Shame for them that people are waking up to this lie now……
Bye Bye BBC…..you are obsolete now. A joke.
Alan Johnston kidnapped in Gaza
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1173700683851&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
This personal experience will probably not remove the blinders.
And of course I wish no harm to Mr Johnston and pray for his speedy unmolested release.
—–
In Gaza City, a spokesman for Hamas, condemned Johnston’s abduction.
“We call on these criminal groups to stop this destruction of our reputation and to let this journalist free,” he told The Associated Press.
—–
I don’t have my nit-picking hat on today chaps – sounds like the report from Norfolk was a bit bobbins – I mean, even I learned about coastal erosion in the UK, and I went to school long after the education system had apparently come crashing around our ears.
One compliment, one complaint to the BBC
Compliment – I actually heard a Today presenter ask a question from the ‘right’. Humphrys actually asked Andrew Lansley this morning what business it was of Government whether we got too fat or not, surely it was down to the person to decide that?
Complaint – Comic Fame does Relief Academy (or whatever) the phone calls cost 50p and “at least” 34p goes to the charity. Why is the BBC accepting/running a 30%+ tax on donations?! Doesn’t the operator make it possible to pass on all 50p of the 50p to charity?!
The BBC “News” website currently has three stories about “global warming” on its front age.
Yesterday, Radio Bloke (ie 5 Live) was receiving text messages and e-mails from listeners pleading with it to shut up about the subject.
Just as the BBC swings into a phase of manic overkill, is the great British public finally starting to say ‘enough!’?
>> Complaint – Comic Fame does Relief Academy (or whatever) the phone calls cost 50p and “at least” 34p goes to the charity. Why is the BBC accepting/running a 30%+ tax on donations?! Doesn’t the operator make it possible to pass on all 50p of the 50p to charity?!
The short answer to that? No, the operators don’t make it possible. I used to do quite a lot of work on interactive voting, and it was always a topic of much debate about how much could or couldn’t be charged. The BBC doesn’t own their own telephone voting infrastructure, and so someone has to be paid to do it for them
O/T, but isn’t there a question here to be raised by our BBC journalist?
Cannabis farms uncovered ‘treble’
Druglink said over 60% of cannabis sold in the UK was grown here, compared to 11% 10 years ago.
The charity said analysis of police raids showed up to 75% of cannabis farms were run by Vietnamese gangs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6444357.stm
So just how many Vietnamese are there in this country, that Vietnamese gangs can operate cannabis farms? Shouldn’t the police have an easy job to identify Vietnamese gangsters & close down their operations?
dai: ‘Just listening to the BBC Ten O’Clock news and there was some reporter on there blaming coastal erosion in East England on rising sea levels caused by global warming.’
What is so scary is I’m sure they know it’s caused by glacial rebound but are so desperate to preach on GW that they lie to themselves and us about it.
Martin: ‘The BBC doesn’t own their own telephone voting infrastructure, and so someone has to be paid to do it for them’
Not ‘has to’, ‘is’ paid for it.
A telecoms company like BT et al would jump at the chance to have ‘phonelines provided free by BT’ displayed every time they put the pledge number up.
Martin Belam writes:
“The BBC doesn’t own their own telephone voting infrastructure, and so someone has to be paid to do it for them”
But the BBC chooses to use these swindlers. I think you will find that hiring a hitman makes you legally as culpable as being one.
Swindlers? So charging a price for services provided is evil now?? Capitalism’s in trouble then. Obviously flashing up ‘provided free by BT’ signs would effectively be a ‘payment’ for advertising (just cutting out the cash flow) which the BT ain’t allowed to partake in.
The quote saga continues…
BBC news headlines right now:
OTHER TOP STORIES
Cannabis farms finds ‘treble’
Have they trebled or not – it should be a simple sum?
BBC in urgent search for reporter
Scrap women’s prisons, peer says
Direct speech – surely this merits quote marks ?
UN nuclear chief in North Korea
UN ‘progress’ over Iran sanctions
Why the quotes ? At work something is still a “progress report” – even if there has been no progress at all
Stallone charged over hormone
Its becoming more and more bizarre.
@Ralph and GCooper
“Product placement
We must never include a product or service in sound or vision in return for cash, services or any consideration in kind. This is product placement. It is illegal to make any such arrangements in the EU.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/editorial/productplacemen.shtml
Robbikeane writes:
“Swindlers? So charging a price for services provided is evil now??”
Yes, swindlers. The ‘premium rate’ phone business in the UK is a scam, with outrageous charges being levied on people, many of whom have no idea how much they are paying. Ask ITV viewers.
It’s worth taking a few minutes out of your busy life to read the side of the next soap carton you find, where you will often see a list of contact numbers for the manufacturer. In most countries these are free calls – as you would expect when companies are actually looking for feedback. In the UK they are almost always charged at premium rate (and 0870 is a premium rate number).
The same is true of the number of commercial organisations whose only published telephone number (even for placing orders with them!) is charged at a premium rate. That is a swindle and it is one that has been connived at by a tenth rate government and a toothless, supine ‘regulator’.
The premium rate scalpers have been allowed to get away with murder in the UK and it is shameful for the BBC to be condoning their behaviour.
You can call it ‘capitalism’ if you like. I’d simply remind you that your friendly local smack dealer could claim the same defence.
Martin Belam writes:
“We must never include a product or service in sound or vision in return for cash, services or any consideration in kind. This is product placement. It is illegal to make any such arrangements in the EU.”
So use a freephone number, like they do in the USA. Or a conventional regional one. You are a ‘public service’ broadcaster, aren’t you?
>> So use a freephone number
Erm, a freephone number to raise money for charity, that’s a new one on me….
>> You are a ‘public service’ broadcaster, aren’t you?
I’m not, no. I worked for one once, but that isn’t the same thing
FYI from the BBC’s Guidelines on telephone call charging:
“Telephone services
Telephone services are used for programme support, phone-ins, voting and interacting with game shows and competitions.
We should not use premium rate lines for help lines. Help lines should be offered as a free phone number.
We should not normally use premium rate lines for phone-ins.
We should normally ensure that premium rate calls are priced at the lowest tariff. They should not normally be used to generate a profit with the exception of BBC charity appeals.
With premium rate numbers we must tell people how much calls cost. With other numbers we should try wherever possible to tell people the cost.
We must prompt children to seek permission to call from the bill payer.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/interacting/telephoneservic.shtml
We must never include a product or service in sound or vision in return for cash, services or any consideration in kind.
So if the BBC receives no benefit, why do everyday the BBC newsreaders give us a good look at the Apple logo on their notebooks? How about a bit of masking tape? Or does Apple show its appreciation????
Martin Belam writes:
”
Erm, a freephone number to raise money for charity, that’s a new one on me….”
Yes, a freephone number so that people can make credit card donations.
It really is that easy. And it’s a lot more honest.
Honest Reporting’s Backspin blog raises some interesting questions about the Alan Johnston kidnapping.
Amongst them is:
Should UK license fee money be used to ransom Johnston?
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2007/03/johnston_kidnap.html
>> So if the BBC receives no benefit, why do everyday the BBC newsreaders give us a good look at the Apple logo on their notebooks? How about a bit of masking tape? Or does Apple show its appreciation????
Oh boy, remember the good old days when Blue Peter inked out the Kelloggs logos on Corn Flakes boxes. I haven’t watched Blue Peter for years so I don’t know if they still do that
>> Yes, a freephone number so that people can make credit card donations.
It is a vote
Martin Belam writes:
“They should not normally be used to generate a profit with the exception of BBC charity appeals.”
But they do make a profit – if only for the sharks and pirates who operate the “services”.
“>> You are a ‘public service’ broadcaster, aren’t you?
I’m not, no. I worked for one once, but that isn’t the same thing”
As you leap so consistently to the BBC’s defence, it’s a distinction without a difference.
Martin Belam writes:
“It is a vote”
It is also a scam.
>> As you leap so consistently to the BBC’s defence
And I do always try and be polite, and generally only post about things that I actually know about from the technical side of things.
Cross-platform interactive voting is one of the things I am a new media consultant on.
If you want a robust system that can handle peak voting load after a programme transmits, and accurately count the votes in time to have them live on air within minutes, then it costs money to run. That either meant the BBC investing considerably itself in infrastructure to handle it, which I think for regulatory reasons would be an area of the market they would not be allowed to move into, or paying someone to do it.
Even Humphrys was getting bored with Miliband on “Today” this morning (join the club!). However, Humphrys actually mentioned the Channel 4 programme on the climate change swindle and asked for Miliband’s comment. Miliband (refusing to engage as usual with any contrary argument) stated that we should put our faith “in the 2,500 scientists” who have signed up to this new religion. Yes, Miliband’s ultimate, slam-dunk argument is the “appeal to authority” – the trademark of an intellectual bankrupt. No surprise there mind you. When I was at LSE I had to listen to the drivel spouted by his father – the marxist political “scientist”. Like father, like son: both highly intelligent, both very fluent, both devoid of common sense, both devoted to telling the “little people” what’s good for them.
“It is his (Johnston’s) job to bring us day after day reports of the Palestinian predicament in the Gaza Strip,” said the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams, himself a former Middle East reporter.
Which is why Johnston, or the BBC, doesn’t report news like this:
IDF: 20,000 jobs created in Gaza
Yes – but how many of the 2,500 scientists are actually climatologists, the professor who asked for his name to be removed from the report was not qualified to express his opinion on climate change only about maleria. Maybe I could be called a scientist as I have MSc after my name but it does not make me an expert on the weather.
“stated that we should put our faith in the 2,500 scientists”
that would be the discredited UN backed IPCC report – which is a political, not a scientific report and which put scientists names on there without permission.
one of them appeared on the global warming swindle documentary.
The BBC use the broadsweeping term “scientist” as if every one of them is an expert in every scientific field. Scientists specialise in narrow fields. A physicist and a political scientist (a social scientist specializing in the study of government ) are both classed as scientists, but they would not normally be expected to comment on each others field of study. The use of the term scientist is used as a smokescreen by the BBC.
Andrew Pendleton, “climate analyst” with the charity Christian Aid. Is another case in point – the BBC know that Andrew Pendleton is not a scientist but they quote him as being a “climate analyst” – to fool peolpe into believing that he must know what he is talking about. He is in fact an exBBC journalist who has given himself this title. Its no different to the “community leaders” the BBC keep putting forward to represent ethnic minorities – in other words they have no legitamcy to thier titles.
Activist loses court race appeal
‘An anti-racism campaigner has lost his appeal against a conviction for the racially-aggravated harassment of two parking attendants.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/6443851.stm
I really don’t know what to make of this.
(a) The style of reporting that the BBC has used.
(b) The obvious oxymoron which they choose to ignore.
(c) Labelling this clown an ‘Activist’ without putting quotation marks around the word.
(d) The speed with which the BBC website disposed of the story, having hidden it in the ‘Oop North’ section, like shit off a shovel really.
Of course it bears no relation to the hysteria that the BBC tried to whip up on this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/6428865.stm
Martin Belam writes:
“If you want a robust system that can handle peak voting load after a programme transmits, and accurately count the votes in time to have them live on air within minutes, then it costs money to run.”
Indeed, I’m sure it does. It is also a massive profit generator – as any pornographer will tell you.
Once again, we are faced with the question why does the BBC feel the need to do this at all?
In the case of ‘entertainment’ programmes it is all part and parcel of the obsession with rivalling ITV ratngs, at whatever cost to quality programming. In other words, dumbing down.
In the case of ‘Comic (sic) Relief’ it is hard to see what the BBC’s motives mght be – particularly in the light of Prof Niall Ferguson’s excoriation of it in last Sunday’s Telegraph (which I presume will be available on its website).
Whatever the excuses, the point orignally made by the commenter here, stands: that of the 50p charged, perhaps 16p is being filched by a premium line operator.
As I say, it’s a scam.
“The UN report by the IPCC was published in February. At the time it was promoted as being backed by more than 2,000 of the world’s leading scientists.”
“There are 2,000 people on the panel, not 2,000 scientists. Most are bureaucrats and politicians”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover030607.htm
Now wouldn’t it have been interesting if Humphreys had put this to Milliband?
Jon
“Now wouldn’t it have been interesting if Humphreys had put this to Milliband?”
You got it in a nutshell: this is just the kind of question which is never posed and certainly not explored on “Today”. However, to be fair, I suspect JR could find a BBC site (beamed to Uzbekistan) where such a question was posed in 1976.
Martin,
Product placement is different to getting sponsership for a charity even.
Product placement involves putting a logo etc in a film or broadcast like Apple have done in a number of films.
The BBC are allowed to have a telecoms company sponser their phonelines but don’t. It would be an interesting FOI request to see if they make money out of it.
Jon: ‘the professor who asked for his name to be removed from the report was not qualified to express his opinion on climate change only about maleria.’
But that is not a one off case.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=ae9b984d-4a1c-45c0-af24-031a1380121a&k=0
George Monbiot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Monbiot
not a climate scientist. majored in zoology.
first job after college? the BBC.
Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear.
Reports say he was able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6441461.stm?ls
The BBC will scour the earth to sling mud at Israel. When is the last time you have heard any news from El Salvador?
Results 1 – 10 of about 4,770 from news.bbc.co.uk for “el salvador”.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?as_q=&hl=en&num=10&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=el+salvador&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=news.bbc.co.uk&as_rights=&safe=images
Jon
or Thailand? or Sweden? or even the Republic of Ireland? good point!
back to premium phone charges, it does not “cost” per call, it costs for the infrastructure which is fixed. It would be right to hire the kit / lines /people for the going rate, but to tax N-million charitable donations like this is a ridiculous solution.
Quite apart from the diabolical programme itself – Exceedingly Low Quality Output that we sadly expect from the modern BBC.
Why is it Channel 4 that can make the Global Warming Swindle programme anyway and our “we must always tell both sides of the story” 3 billion pound megalump can’t do anything of the kind?
It is good that this has been picked up by much of the media, actually. We might start getting some answers…