Times – “Bias at the Beeb – Official“
There are some things you do not need an official report to tell you – that John Prescott thinks he is a babe magnet, that President Mugabe is not entirely in favour of white farmers and that Al-Qaeda takes a pretty dim view of the West. The report commissioned by the BBC into itself concluded with something equally blindingly obvious. It said that the organisation is institutionally biased and especially gullible to the blandishments of politically driven celebrities, such as Bono and Bob Geldof. Almost anyone in Britain could have told the BBC that for free, but maybe it’s better to have it in an official report.
Even taking into account the small but insistent internal voice pointing out that the Times is part of the Great Satan Murdoch’s media empire, there’s not much to disagree with there.
” … what emerges from the report is a picture of an organisation with a liberal, anti-American bias and an almost teenage fascination with fashionable causes … the BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club.”
Telegraph – “BBC report finds bias within corporation”
The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded. The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased – and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.
After a year-long investigation the report, published today, maintains that the corporation’s coverage of day-to-day politics is fair and impartial. But it says coverage of Live 8, the 2005 anti-poverty concerts organised by rock star campaigners Bob Geldof and Bono and writer Richard Curtis, failed to properly debate the issues raised. Instead, at a time when the corporation was renegotiating its charter with the government, it allowed itself to effectively become a promotional tool for Live 8, which was strongly supported by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Geldof, Bono and Curtis were attempting to pressure world leaders at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, which was taking place at the same time, to help reduce poverty in developing countries under the banner ‘Make Poverty History’.
Mr Blair said the campaign was a “mighty achievement”. The huge Live 8 concerts across the world were its culmination and the BBC cleared its schedules to show them, with coverage on BBC One, Two and Three and Radio One and Two. Around the same time it also screened a specially-written episode of Curtis’s popular sitcom The Vicar of Dibley that featured a minute long Make Poverty History video and saw characters urged to support it. And it aired another Curtis drama, The Girl in the Café, in which Bill Nighy falls in love with an anti-poverty campaigner – even giving Gordon Brown an advance copy. The BBC also ran a week long Africa special featuring a series of documentaries by Geldof and a day celebrating the National Health Service, prompting Sky News political editor Adam Boulton to tell a House of Lords select committee it was in danger of peddling government propaganda.
The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.
(En passant, the BBCs uncritical coverage of the millionaires Geldof, Bono and Curtis illustrates neatly a feature of modern philanthropy. In Victorian times a rich man with a conscience would put his hands in his own pockets to fund a worthy cause – a tradition which continues in America (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett) to this day. Across the water the favoured option of a charitably inclined multimillionaire is to get poorer people to fund your favourite causes via higher taxation – while in some cases avoiding such taxes yourself.)
Strangely the Observer headlines its report “Vicar of Dibley accused of breaking BBC guidelines“. Can’t imagine why. But they also have BBC insider Richard Tait’s view of the report.
UPDATE 18/06 – Commenter Richy is clairvoyant !
“If overly critical then surely the it’ll be placed in the “england” section or the “entertainment” section.”
“Entertainment” it is !
You can find the report here. Plenty of pdfs to get through. The “impartiality monitoring group” doesn’t look like a diverse cross-section of British political opinion to me – you do wonder what political perspectives the man who “co-founded the Democracy Coalition for Children and Young
People” or Kat Fletcher bring to the party.
More coverage at Times (also under Entertainment), Telegraph, Mail, more Sunday Times. Oh, and apologies for calling a BBC Trustee a BBC ‘insider’. Cultural misunderstanding … via commenter JBH, the Michael Crick anecdote about BBC execs all being Guardian readers. Sounds too good to be true – Mr Crick seems to have a puckish sense of humour. But I’m sure it “illustrates a wider truth”, as Dan Rather and Piers Morgan would say.
hillhunt BBC
Yes but Reuters, AFP, channel 4, guardian and voice of america are so very different.
Great organisations, lovely people and a joy to work for who really care about what happens in the world.
Its nice to have organisations like this that can be relied upon to have absolutely no opinions they just give facts and whats more facts that always agree with out beloved BBC.
So different from the vile Fox, Sky, Times, Sun, Mail, ITN, Express and Telegraph.
confused.com:
Yes but Reuters, AFP, channel 4, guardian and voice of america are so very different. Its nice to have organisations like this that can be relied upon to have absolutely no opinions they just give facts and whats more facts that always agree with out beloved BBC.
Channel 4’s licence has much in common with the BBC’s; it is expected to be impartial. AFP as a leading international agency supplying other media with news would not succeed in many different markets if it had a reputation for bias and inaccuracy.
Voice of America is an American Government broadcaster.
The Guardian acknowledges its liberal-left leanings. It frequently disagrees with the BBC – check out its Media Guardian pages – but its overall philosophy is supportive of a public broadcaster, so its criticism is less relentless than the Mail/Murdoch papers, for example.
David Gregory (BBC) first of all, thanks for coming on to this site and debating with us.
I guess that as a scientist working in the BBC you have at least 2 challenges:
(1) Covering specific science stories – new technologies, medicines, concerns.
(2) Trying to explain the basis of science – the scientific method.
I am very concerned that you keep using words like “consensus” and “majority”. These have no place in the scientific methodology.
Science teaches that there are some absolute truths, laws, facts. These are basic and immutable – rather like, err, the laws of physics.
We may or may not understand all of these. There are gaps in our understanding and knowledge. Unknowns. Areas of confusion.
But the basis of knowledge and understanding keeps ratchetting up and increasing. Things are not unlearnt. Not forgotten. Techniques are not uninvented. Each generation can build on the work of previous generations.
Nowhere does any of this involve “consensus” or “majority voting”. No – an idea or theory is either correct or its incorrect – compared to the laws of physics. Not the habits of man.
Time after time a maverick or radical will overturn the orthodoxy of the time with a new – and correct – way of seeing things.
Notice what the test is – the idea is correct or its not. The test is not of popularity or modishness.
“Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was one of the first Canadian Ph.Ds. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Jack Hughes | 22.06.07 – 7:42 pm
It may be the case that David Gregory is unwilling to depart from the BBC orthodoxy re MMGW. He may have a mortgage to repay. The BBC pays his salary after all (well actually daft sods like you and I pay his salary, whether we like it or not). I bet no one got very far in the BBC by rocking the ‘groupthink’ boat.
Melanie Philips at
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/
quotes from an article by R. Timothy Patterson, professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University.
If he is right – we are in for a cooling period – we may need Al Gores hot-air to keep us warm.
NeoMancunian | 22.06.07 – 10:03 pm:
I bet no one got very far in the BBC by rocking the ‘groupthink’ boat.
You got that right. And the groupthink phonomenon is not limited to the BBC either. My last effort for Granada resulted in the NW Royal Television Society (RTS) shortlisting me as Best Reporter of 1997. However, during the edit I’d had an almighty row with my producer over her insistence that I put a Leftist spin on my reports. Accordingly it was the last thing I did for them. Cute eh? Sacked for a report that won me an RTS shortlisting!
I’m left suspecting that there must be several other instances where non-Leftie TV reporters got booted out of the broadcast media, whether by Granada, the Beeb, or any of the others.
JBH
I believe you live on SG.
Do you know the pub in M20 that does the cheese ?
Plett’s tears: She made an error of judgement which has been widely criticised. You seem to be suggesting that criticism (including that from within) is not enough, and only blubbing over Sharon and Reagan would end the bias. It would do the reverse – prove another BBC corr showed bias, just in a different direction.
No. I’m merely pointing out that no BBC staffer to my knowledge has admitted to blubbing over anyone. Not when Rabin was assassinated nor any other tragic event concerning a public figure.
Y-e-s, if such events took place it would indicate bias and I am not asking that BBCoids take out onions every time a politician passes on. All I’m saying (s-l-o-w-l-y for your benefit) is that a BBC reporter doing what Plett did, shows bias.
That she did it for a corrupt, blood-stained terrorist makes it even worse.
But this one incident, a broadcast of a pre-recorded piece, shows bias not just on Plett’s part, it shows it on the part of those with editorial control of the programme she was making, it shows it on the part of the those working in the Jerusalem/London offices who had pre-broadcast knowledge of it, and it shows bias on the part of those elsewhere in the BBC cocoon who high-handedly dismissed the initial complaints.
A Fable of Global Warming
See http://pennance.us/?p=4 for a parable showing that the same set of data is rigorously compatible with both global warming and cooling, ergo, implicitly proving that both sides in the nonsensical climate debate are correct.
NeoMancunian | 22.06.07 – 11:32 pm:
Sorry NM, I don’t. I live quite close by too – M16.
Jack Hughes. Quite correct. I fully accept the gist of what you are saying. But the point is I’m responsible for reporting the science as it is right now.
I realise I started this conversation by responding to something about climate change, but I’m outlining the general principals that I follow in all my science reporting.
So; Climate Change is real and man-made. Mobile phones are safe. MMR is safe. The Earth is more than 7000 years old. Power lines don’t cause cancer.
Now I love a good maverick scientist as much as the next journalist… but often these sort of stories say more about the vanity of the journalist than science.
If I could find the climate change equivalent of Robin Warren that would be really interesting
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori ) but nothing so far.
Can I just once again politely discount the views of Melanie Phillips. She tends to be a bit selective in her evidence.
NeoMancunian: You may not believe this but I’ve had robust discussions with other BBC staff about Climate Change, MMR and the safety of mobile phones. Group-think would make my life so much easier. Assuming everyone agreed with me, of course!
David Gregory writes:
“If I could find the climate change equivalent of Robin Warren that would be really interesting ”
Did you, by any chance visit the site I suggested the other day?
If so, you will have seen the e-mail from science journalist David Whitehouse, discussing this subject.
You will also, I hope, have read and considered Professor Bob Carter’s views on GW.
Quite how someone with Prof Carter’s credentials can be ignored, I simply cannot understand.
And in case you missed it, the link again is http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
Can I just once again politely discount the views of Melanie Phillips. She tends to be a bit selective in her evidence.
David Gregory (BBC) | 23.06.07 – 12:08 pm
Do you discount the evidence of the scientists Melanie Phillips quotes?
If so aren’t you being selective?
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1563
David Gregory: In response to your post at 23.06.07 – 12:08 pm ;
1. Climate Change is real and man-made
2 Mobile phones are safe.
3. MMR is safe.
4. The Earth is more than 7000 years old.
5. Power lines don’t cause cancer.
I agree with nos 2-5, I disagree with no 1, not because I accept or reject the “consensus”, but because I do not see compelling evidence to the contrary.
Jack Hughes @ 22.06.07 – 7:42 pm:
I intend to quote your last 3 paragraphs when I’m next in ‘pub philosipher’ mode – thanks for the ammo!
oops – name’s too short – should read; (formerly ‘smallheathen’)
David Gregory, consensus does not imply truth. There is a “consensus” in the literature that temperature is an interval random variable when the truth is that it is ordinal [see
(http://pennance.us/?p=32)]. This means that temperature averages are scale dependent and hence relative. The same data set can be consistent with an increase in mean on one thermometric scale and a decrease in another. Today’s climatologists do not take enough math courses.
You may not believe this but I’ve had robust discussions with other BBC staff about Climate Change…
David Gregory (BBC) | 23.06.07 – 12:08 pm
I assume they were “robust” since those other BBC people disagreed with the concept of man-made climate change? If so, they must be really frustrated since there’s no way they’ll see their views broadcast by their employer.
Face it, Mr. Gregory, the BBC may be 22000-odd strong but it’s a closed club with a narrow agenda on virtually any issue you care to name, from Iraq to fox hunting. And anyone who doesn’t go along with the general consensus is no doubt faced with extremely poor career prospects at the BBC.
“Can I just once again politely discount the views of Melanie Phillips. She tends to be a bit selective in her evidence.”
And the BBC gives us a whole range of views from Al Gore to David Pembleton (Ex BBC now Christian Aid) to Green peace and Friends of the Earth.
Can’t argue with that range of opinion.
While the BBC rely on “environmentalists” for their “science” –
Here are some “maverick” voices not heard on the BBC.
A new theory to explain global warming was revealed at a meeting at the University of Leicester (UK) and is being considered for publication in the journal “Science First Hand”. The controversial theory has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Vladimir Shaidurov of the Russian Academy of Sciences
http://www.physorg.com/news11710.html
Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama and climatologist Dr. David
Legates of the University of Delaware and others.
S. Fred Singer is the founder and president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. He is emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=212
Claude Allegre,(One of the most decorated French geophysicists and former government official and an active member of France’s Socialist Party.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=E58DFF04-5A65-42A4-9F82-87381DE894CD
Danish scientist: Global warming is a myth
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, March 15 (UPI) — A Danish scientist said the idea of a “global temperature” and global warming is more political than scientific.
University of Copenhagen Professor Bjarne Andresen has analyzed the topic in collaboration with Canadian Professors Christopher Essex from the University of Western Ontario and Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/danish_scientist_global_warming_is_a_myth/20070315-012154-7403r/
Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, is a renowned environmental consultant and former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg
Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide
Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
Could have gone on but haven’t the time.
I wonder if the BBC are going to act on this report (FROM SEESAW TO WAGON WHEEL )in the future so the public can have a range of views given to them and not the view of the journalist or corraspondent.
“Impartiality does not entail equal space for every attitude, but it should involve some space provided that points of view are rationally and honestly held, and all of them are subject to equal scrutiny. It is not the BBC’s role to close down debate.”
“It remains important that programme-makers relish the full range of debate that such a central and absorbing subject offers, scientifically, politically and ethically, and avoid being misrepresented as standard-bearers”
Click to access 18_06_07impartialitybbc.pdf
The BBC are the standard bearers of so-called MMGW without a doubt.
“Campaigners say the UN must take urgent action to protect six World Heritage sites, including Mount Everest, from the impact of climate change.
Groups, including Greenpeace and the Climate Justice Programme, have been petitioning the global body to list the locations as “in danger”.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6231358.stm
Need I say anymore?
“We can save our world heritage for future generations, but only if we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution,” said Phil Freeman of Climate Action Network Australia.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6231358.stm
No other opinion here – its on message.
They are even allowed to say “greenhouse gasses as polution”
Earlier up this thread, JBH referred to a “sustained ILLEGAL news blackout of the exposure of the cover-up.”
Assuming this exposure of the cover-up is a reference to his own work, can he explain where the illegality lies? I’d be very keen to know. Any chance of JBH vs BBC in the courts?
Thom Boston | 25.06.07 – 12:25 am:
Thom,
I’ve just seen your post. I’ll get back to you presently. In the meantime, you might take a 5 minute skim read of some of the docs in this folder:
http://www.esnips.com/web/Hunt-02
Followed by a similar assessment of the docs in this one:
http://www.esnips.com/web/Hunt-04
GCooper:
Did you, by any chance visit the site I suggested the other day?
If so, you will have seen the e-mail from science journalist David Whitehouse, discussing this subject.
GCooper | 23.06.07 – 12:21 pm | #
I didn’t see that particular email on the website no. But would that be David Whitehouse the former BBC Science Correspondent?
On the subject of Melanie Phillips. She’s selective with evidence and she wants to push a certain point of view. I did engage in a brief email discussion with her about a post on climate change and she closed it down pretty quickly.
I thought that was a shame because her original point was interesting. But by simplifying it she reduced a nice piece of research to the equivalent of “it’s really cold in NY right now, global warming PAH!”
Anyway, we seem to have reached an impasse. I’ve explained how I work as a Science Correspondent. And I also take on board your points and any research you think is interesting. Perhaps people may want to continue this via email david.gregory@bbc.co.uk rather than clog up the board with increasingly rarified point and counterpoint.
But I had another question, why are so many on this board convinced climate change as a piece of science is incorrect? Why has the science become so political (as opposed to what to do about it which is as I’ve said before is totally something of the political realm)
Hope that makes sense, long day with car parking robots.
But I had another question, why are so many on this board convinced climate change as a piece of science is incorrect?
David Gregory,
I’m not clued up at all on this issue, but I should point out that many feel it’s the concept of man-made climate change that is incorrect.
As regards why has the science become so political, thanks for the chuckle. The BBC has evidently played a significant role in this with its energetic endorsement of one side of the debate.
The BBC politicises everything it touches, even sport. At the risk of exasperating regulars who’ve heard this from me before, I repeat that the 2006 Football World Cup saw BBC journalists falling all over themselves to back any side but England, especially when it came to England’s opponents. It was apparently going against the flow to show just a touch of interest in the prospects of the home side, and commentators could barely withhold their disappointment when England scored and their glee when the other side scored.
Look around you at your BBC colleagues, Mr. Gregory. I can assure you it’ll be quite an education.
“But I had another question, why are so many on this board convinced climate change as a piece of science is incorrect?”
@David Gregory (BBC).
Well David, I’m not totally convinced that MMGW warming is false, but I can certainly understand why people have come to believe it is false. The reason relates to various myths that have been perpetrated on the public over the years:
1] The CO2 follows a hockey stick curve and so will temperature. Myth. The hockey stick temperature effect has been widely discredited.
2] Venus is much warmer than earth because of greenhouse gases, and so will the Earth. Myth. Venus has an atmosphere that is predominantly CO2 whereas in the Earth it is a trace gas (
sorry – last comment got cut off:
3] London will be inundated by the sea due to MMGW. Myth. London will be inundated by the sea as the land beneath it is subsiding.
4] The Maldives are sinking into the sea due to MMGW. Myth. The Maldives are built on coral right on sea level. The coral sits on soft sediment which is subsiding.
5] CO2 is pollution. Myth. It comes from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels were grown from atmospheric CO2. We are returning what nature extracted.
6] CO2 is at unprecedented levels. Myth. If we burnt all the fossil fuels we still wouldn’t return CO2 to prehistoric levels. Much is now in the form of limestone (calcium carbonate)
there’s more!
7] The climate is changing at an unprecedented rate. Myth. Natural climate change wiped out the Moche civilisation of Peru. Egypt was wetter when the Sphinx was built. It will also cause the next ice-age, just like it caused the last one.
8] Decreased snow in the Alps is caused by global warming. Myth. Ten years ago the Alps had their heaviest snowfall ever recorded. Last year Bavaria recorded record low temperatures – but there was very little snow. Snowfall is complicated…
9] Ice core data shows CO2 causes temperature increase. Myth. The ice core data shows CO2 increasing 800 years AFTER temp increases. Scientists try to explain this by saying that increasing CO2 feeds back and dominates temperature rise – in which case why does it fall at the start of an ice-age, when CO2 is at its highest?
10] Physics shows that the basic theory is correct. Myth? The basic theory is that CO2 bonds are such that they reflect the energy back towards the earth. No major test of the physics of the basic theory has been performed as far as I am aware. It has not been supported by satellite measurements.
The dissemination of too many myths leads to cynacism I’m afraid!
The climate changes all the time.
The questions are: does current man-made activity cause such change? And if so, what should be done about it?
The BBC promotes the “man-made global warming” answer to the first question because its answer to the second question is: state intervention, restrictions on personal consumption, higher taxes…and so forth.
That is the BBC’s answer to everything. As a state-funded institution it has a vested interest in doing so. The rest of the BBC coverage on this issue is just the usual slop from the usual sentimental leftists.
Fair enough
Crossbow: As I’ve explained I don’t promote anything. I just report the science. On climate change as on many other contentious issues. I’ve never “promoted’ state intervention on the issue.
Al Beeb promises to discuss a ‘wider range’ of views in future to counteract any perceived bias.
Will it discuss this, on Islam and the Haymarket bomb plot?:
“Britain, an unresponsive body being eaten alive by its enemies” (29 June)
http://amnation.com/vfr/