courtesy of Youtube, here are excerpts from last night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News and Sky News at Ten programmes, their respective headlines and their coverage of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Al Gore and the UN climate change panel:
BBC Ten O’Clock News headlines, followed by Al Gore, lead story.
Sky News at Ten headlines, cutting to Al Gore, the third story.
Unfortunately I don’t have time just now to transcribe both sets of headlines and reports and write up a comparison – leaving an opportunity for a spot of DIY, and perhaps collaborative, comparing and contrasting in the comments. Have fun.
If I didn’t know better I’d think one of these broadcasts had an agenda.
Yep, the BBC allowed about ten seconds of the contrary view in their entire report (as if there is little or no controversy here) while Sky was balanced.
That’s the difference between propaganda and objective reporting.
BBC
FIONA BRUCE: US Vice President Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign against global warming. The Nobel committee said climate change could threaten the world’s living conditions and increase the risk of wars.
[Al Gore soundbite] It, it, it truely is a planetary emergency, and, and we have to respond quickly.
BRUCE: We’ll be hearing from our correspondant in the Arctic where the ice is melting faster then scientists predicted.
Also tonight…
[Other national news headlines – Postal strike, Robert Murat breaks his silence, unveiling of a new war memorial. Plus BBC London headline – Nightclub doorman trial and flooding in Maida Vale]
BRUCE: Good evening. The movement to tackle global warming today received the support of the Nobel prize committee, when it was announce that the winner of this year’s peace prize is Al Gore. The man who was once nearly US President, and has since campaigned about the threat of climate change and the urgent need to combat it. His film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ won him an Oscar though this week a judge here ruled it contained some inaccuracies. Al Gore shares the prize with the UN panel on climate change. The Nobel committee said global warming could trigger mass migrations and lead to wars. Here’s our environment analyst Roger Harribin.
[Al Gore soundbite] If you look at the ten hottest years ever measured they’ve all occurred in the last 14 years.
HARRIBIN: Big Al. Vice President turned green crusader, pouring his life into his film, his book and his live presentations, delivered to almost 2000 audiences in more then 30 countries. The message – that we need to cut CO2 emissions now. It won over the Nobel committee
OLE DANBOLT MJOES, Chairman, Nobel Committee: He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.
HARRIBIN: Tonight a delighted Gore, wife at his side, didn’t miss another chance to sell the message.
GORE: It is, the most dangerous challenge we’ve ever faced, but it is also the greatest opportunity, that we have had to make changes, that we should be making for other reasons anyway.
HARRIBIN: In India they were celebrating the Nobel prize too. Shared with Gore by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the word’s scientific authority. It supplied evidence of a warming world.
In the old days peace prizes went for peace deals. In 1993 Mandella and de Clerke in South Africa. In 1998 Hume and Trimble in Northern Ireland. Then a switch. In 2004 the Kenyan tree planting campaigner Wangari Maathai won the prize.
Today the Nobel committe suggested that climate change bears directly on world peace. That’s a view supported by most scientists. In Darfur for instance, drought has made an existing conflict worse, leading to a savage struggle over water. In other places, more flooding, already common in Bangladesh is projected to displace millions of people. That’s another recipe for strife. And as crops fail more food shortages are predicted. Again, raising the prospect of conflict over scarce resources.
Al Gore’s even tuned pop to global warming. Live Earth put climate centre stage. But this week a judge said Gore’s climate messages were simplistic. And for the dwindling group of climate sceptics today’s Nobel award is a mistake.
MARTIN LIVERMORE, The Scientific Alliance: It seems to me that this is actually being given to someone who’s promoting a fashionable, high profile cause. And really it should be going to someone who is actively working for world peace or resolve conflicts in the here and now.
HARRIBIN: But Gore the politician won’t be swayed by criticism like that. He’s a man on a mission. Some think he wants another chance to be President, or at least a high profile political post to turn his green ideas into policy.
Roger Harribin. BBC News.
BRUCE: Speaking earlier this evening Al Gore talked about how rising temperatures are affecting the polar icecaps. Our science correspondant David Shukman is travelling through the North West Passage. For centuries impassable because it was frozen solid. But now, as climate change melts the ice, navigable by ships for the first time.
DAVID SHUKMAN: I’m travelling through the Victoria Straits, a key section of the North West Passage. As you can see, completely clear of ice even as winter approaches. Now for the scientists on board who are studying the warming Arctic, the news of the Nobel peace prize is very welcome. They see it as recognition of all the efforts they’re making in these difficult conditions. But there is one note of caution. That the prize is share by Al Gore, a campaigner, with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body trying to establish the most rigourous understanding of global warming. As one scientist told me, the risk is the public might misunderstand what campaigners are saying with what the scientists are actually finding out.
BRUCE: David Shukman there, travelling in the Arctic ocean. And he’ll be reporting from there on the Ten o’clock news next week.
SKY
STEVE DICKSON: Tonight on Sky News at Ten; Rugby Fever. Extra Eurostar trains are laid on for England fans heading for paris. A desparate hunt for semi-final tickets begins for those who’ve already made the journey. We’re live in Paris as the build-up begins. Also tonight – striking out. A solution seems imminent as a judge outlaws next week’s postal walkout. Bootcamp death – the guards cleared of the manslaughter of a 14 year old boy. Green Gore – the former Vice President wins the Nobel peace prize but it proved to be an inconvenient truth for some. On trial – the nightclub bouncer accused of stalking and murdering two female students.
VOICEOVER: Live, from the Sky newscentre, this is Sky News at Ten, with Steve Dickson.
EDITED
DICKSON: Former Vice President Al Gore says the climate crisis is not a political issue, but a moral and spiritual challenge to humanity. He was speaking after being awarded the Nobel peace prize for his campaign on global warming, an award he shared with the UN climate panel. But the award’s come in for some fierce criticism, as Sky’s Ian Woods reports.
[Excerpt from US Presidental Elections. Voiceover: Florida goes for Al Gore.]
WOODS: Gore wins. And perhaps this time it won’t be taken away from him.
[Al Gore soundbite] I am Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States of America.
WOODS: Some of his figures have been disputed but there is no doubt climate change has had a dramatic effect on the popularity of the man who so controversially the 2000 elections.
[Al Gore soundbite] Thankyou, for being a part of Live Earth. Answer the call.
WOODS: Since then he’s emerged as the figurehead of a growing environmental movement, becoming positively cool in the eyes of supporters.
AL GORE: I will accept this award on behalf of all of those who have been working so long and so hard, to try to get the message out, about this planetary emergency.
WOODS: Al Gore’s film won an Oscar for best documentary but many of the claims in it have been questioned by critics, and only this week, a British judge listed nine errors.
[Excerpt from An Inconvenient Truth showing calving ice and rising sea level animations: GORE: If this were to go sea level worldwide would go up twenty feet.]
WOODS: That catastrophic prediction was described as distinctly alarmist as such a rise in sea levels could take thousands of years. Mr. Justice Burton has been asked to rule on the legality of the Government sending a copy of the film to every school. Though it will continue to be screened the High Court heard there was no proof hurricane Katrina, or the melting snows of Kilamanjaro were a result of global warming.
MARTIN DURKIN, film director: I think it’s a complete farce. I mean the, um, the, the Nobel prize now has all the respectability of the Eurovision Song Contest. I mean, what a complete… What’s it got to do with peace anyway, apart from the fact that Al Gore’s clearly telling lots of convenient untruths in his film.
WOODS: The former Vice President will share the Nobel peace prize with the United Nations team of scientists who’ve also been examining the rise in global temperatures. It marks a high point in the campaign to put the environment at the top of the world’s agenda.
ROGER HIGMAN, Friends of the Earth: He may have exaggerated a bit but he’s within the mainstream, and the broad message he’s making is fit to put into British schools. So I think, er, the, the award for the Nobel peace prize is a marvellous vindication, along with the fact that the judge has said that Al Gore is fundamentally right in what he’s doing.
WOODS: The Nobel prize and his high profile appearances are the perfect springboard for another Presidential campaign. He insists he isn’t tempted, and anyway, Hilary Clinton is probably too far ahead in the polls and fundraising among Democrats. Al Gore might not yet have changed the world, but at least he has change the world’s perception, of Al Gore.
Ian Woods, Sky News.
When Paxo said “I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue (climate change) abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago” was he thinking of Roger Harribin I wonder?
The sceptic Roger Harribin includes in his piece is at best, a climate change pragmatist. Livermore doesn’t deny the world has warmed, but he doesn’t put all his eggs in one man-made basket and thinks the world’s attentions could be better directed:
“Increasing food security, providing access to clean water and basic education, building defences against the floods that inevitably hit low-lying regions: these are the sort of initiatives that [will] have to take second place to the drive to reduce carbon emissions.”
All those scientists may still be wrong.
Fiona Bruce’s assertion the NW Passage has been impassable for centuries is patently false.
Ian Woods’ piece should surely have mentioned that Martin Durkin directed The Great Global Warming Swindle rather then just bill him as a ‘Film Director’.
On a more general note Sky’s reporting displayed a healthy cynicism about both the allegedly settled science and Al Gore’s motivation, and gave a clearer indication of the recent High Court ruling.
If we’re going to compare The Inconvenient Truth to The Great Global Warming Swindle then it is clear that the later has been shown to be utter rubbish and would never even get past the judge who also described Gore’s film as “broadly accurate.”
I have plenty of gripes about the BBC’s coverage (politics in particular) but I’m not going to be taking any tips on journalistic professionalism from Sky, Britain’s equivalent of Fox News.
“But this week a judge said Gore’s climate messages were simplistic. And for the dwindling group of climate sceptics today’s Nobel award is a mistake.”
The judge said Gore’s messages were WRONG in parts not simplistic! Dear BBC – stop LYING OK? Just stop LYING!
You only need to compare them. That includes similarities and differences. That is, it encompasses contrasting them.
“it is clear that the later has been shown to be utter rubbish”
Er, no it hasn’t. There’s been a lot of bluster about The Great Global Warming Swindle from believers, and some minor errors pointed out, but in fact it’s been surprising how little its critics have been able to come up with.
BBC’s 6 O clock news stated that Bush had congratulated Gore, “but through gritted teeth”.
They failed to back up this interpretaion of Bush’s mood by providing the audience with the video. Instead they showed Bush closing a WH lawn address saying only “goodbye”.
Couldn’t they back up their slur?
DAVID SHUKMAN: I’m travelling through the Victoria Straits, a key section of the North West Passage. As you can see, completely clear of ice even as winter approaches.
Isn’t that the time of minimum ice cover?
The BBC news woman sounds like a man, is ‘she’ a transexual? We don’t get her on BBC world here in South Africa.
Us? Impartial?
Gore Blimey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/10/gore_blimey_1.html
I thought this coice of words interesting:
According to the BBC, The Global Warming Swindle “sparked controversy” for having “significant factual errors“.
Gore’s Inconvenient Truth neither ‘sparked controversy’, nor contained any errors of ‘significance’, just that nine errors were ‘pointed out’ by a judge.
Broadcasting bias is easy when you know how….
Record sea ice levels in the antarctic and mean temperatures down by one degree! Does anyone recall the BBC reporting this? I didnt think so! It looks like if the facts dont fit the AGW fairy tale then the facts arnt worth reporting? How long can the BBC refuse to report the truth? How much more evidence has to come out that explodes the AGW myths before the BBC admits its huge and shamefull errors?
Doug:
“If we’re going to compare The Inconvenient Truth to The Great Global Warming Swindle then it is clear that the later has been shown to be utter rubbish and would never even get past the judge who also described Gore’s film as “broadly accurate.”
The difference is Doug that when challenged about one or two mistakes in the Great Global Warming Swindle, Martin Durkin agreed and made some changes to the DVD.
Whereas why didn’t the BBC or the Chief Scientist to the Government pick up the errors in Al Gores film and ask him to correct them, they must have known that they went far further than the evidence in the IPCC report?
Or could it be that the propaganda suited the story they wanted us all to believe.
“If we’re going to compare The Inconvenient Truth to The Great Global Warming Swindle then it is clear that the later has been shown to be utter rubbish”
Since all debate on the latter has been shutdown in MSM no such conclusion can be reached. As with all these things the “”inconvenient truth” is that the reality is somewhere in between the two but being force fed the version that suits the BBC, politicians and scientists who know where their bread is buttered (no million pound nobel prizes or big research grants for being a sceptic) just turns people off what is in fact a serious issue.
It always irritates that errors in “Swindle” are deemed by critics to make the entire film not worthy of conisderation.
Errors in Gorefest however are dismissed with a wave of the hand and deemed acceptable because of the broad thrust.
As for the Beeb’s own advocate for MMGW, were is his evidence that critics are “dwindling”?
The BBC (radio news, various stations) has been telling me all day that “The Obesity Crisis” is a greater threat than global warming (it’s been the top item many times so it MUST be true). Al and Michael Moore will help us with this one, I just know it.
offtopic, however, here’s the beeb can’t not help but put another ‘che’ tidbit:-
in at number 10…
Children in Cuba say “I want to be like Che” every day at school.
Thank you Gareth for transcribing the clips.
You accuse the BBC of bias!
Sky lead on Extra trains for Rugby fans. The story – lots of people want to go to France to watch the rugby – and guess what – there are extra trains being provided to get them there. The scoop of the day for Sky then?
Or could it be? Rugby at the weekend, lets hype it up and perhaps, just perhaps, we can persuade people to pay what equates to 1 week of BBC licence fee to watch the match on our sports channel.
[The Moderator: Nobody is forced to pay for Sky. It’s voluntary. Unlike the BBC]
You accuse the BBC of bias!
Anon | 17.10.07 – 12:23 am
Think logically. The fact that other news services are less than perfect does not negate the BBC’s bias.
Today the Nobel committe suggested that climate change bears directly on world peace. That’s a view supported by most scientists.
Really, I wonder if the BBC have an evidence for that statement – or would they just like to think that it might be true?
Chris Palmer,
It’s just something the Nobel Committee made up out of whole cloth. For the last few years, they have been defining down “Peace” so that their definition encompasses almost anything they can think of.
They have already set a precedent for giving the Peace award for environmental activism, with a fig leaf of human rights activity. Take a look at the Peace laureates since Bush was first elected in 2000. Notice what percentage of them have taken active anti-Bush stances at one point or another.
Notice what they have – or have not – contributed to actual peace compared to laureates before 2000.
One of the committee members even admitted that they gave it to Carter as a slap at Bush. Bet the BBC loved that.
The BBC just parrots the Nobel Committee line. It’s obviously Gospel, so why question it?
“You accuse the BBC of bias!
Sky lead on Extra trains for Rugby fans. The story – lots of people want to go to France to watch the rugby – and guess what – there are extra trains being provided to get them there. The scoop of the day for Sky then?
Or could it be? Rugby at the weekend, lets hype it up and perhaps, just perhaps, we can persuade people to pay what equates to 1 week of BBC licence fee to watch the match on our sports channel.”
Anon | 17.10.07 – 12:23 am
Except the match is not on Sky Sports, it’s on ITV1 and if I want to watch it I still have to pay the BBC.
Neomancunion, it is on Sky Sports as well.
But Sky don’t put me in jail if I decline to fund them.
Neomancunion, it is on Sky Sports as well.
But Sky don’t put me in jail if I decline to fund them.
Anon | 18.10.07 – 10:56 am
Well if I am wrong then I apologise.
However, maybe someone should tell Sky that they are showing the RWC Final because according to their Web site they aren’t.
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12946,00.html
[The Moderator: It isn’t on Sky.]