Biased BBC reader Robinhas kindly submitted this article:
For the BBC, natural disasters seem to be a golden opportunity to attack President Bush and to amplify the prevailing pro-climate change bigotry. Take the Californian bush fires, which some of the online reporting acknowledges have actually been part of the American climate scene for time immemorial.
Yet in paragraph five of BBC News Online’s main report of the fires, the finger of blame for some part of the problem is sneakily but firmly being pointed at George W.:
A White House spokeswoman said Mr Bush, whose administration was accused of a sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago, wanted to “witness first-hand” the crisis.
Not per se bias, but the implication is clear. Dear George W. He simply can’t get it right when it comes to climate change. Or anything.
In their background report on the fires, reporter Tim Egan raises the global warming problem in the intro by declaring that the fires “are set to become the norm” for many months of the year. Further down, he gives the reason, and begins to wax lyrical about the main theme of his piece:
We can expect longer, more damaging fire seasons. And they will threaten more homes. Two trends – climate change, and a population surge into the open country – are converging in a place where fire has long had a home.
Oh yes? He goes on to quote the UN’s notorious Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel as the main source that this is happening, and buttresses it with mentions of a geographer’s view that local tree-ring data supports the theory that California is getting hotter. No mention, though, as would be expected in reporting of this kind, of the balancing cautionary notes sounded by those such as Steve McIntyre on his excellent Climate Audit blog, where he points out, in an item posted on October 12, A Little Secretthat the very data that is being cited by Mr Egan as rock-solid proof of global warming hasn’t been properly measured or evaluated in decades.
The BBC – full of hot air, and making it hotter all the time.
Thank you Robin. Most appreciated. Other Biased BBC readers are very welcome to submit articles for the main blog too via biasedbbc@gmail.com, either as a one off or with a view to joining the team permanently. Your help will be much appreciated.
The Beeb was very direct about it on last night’s news.
Southern California is wealthy, and white. New Orleans is poor, and black.
Another fairly major cultural misrepresentation, but par for the BBC’s course.
“A White House spokeswoman said Mr Bush, whose administration was accused of a sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago, wanted to “witness first-hand” the crisis”.
Not sure about this. As a paragraph by itself (without reference to the full article) there’s a sense of delay, but it’s not so explicit.
Tim Egan. Another BBC journalist with a degree in English no doubt?
A common trend in the reporting of this story seems to be the contrast between the federal response here and with Katrina. What is strangely absent is any analysis of the contrast between the state responses to the respective disasters. No ‘blame Bush’ angle one assumes.
Arsonists, Illegal alien setting campfires, fallen electrical wires – “Global Warming made us do it!!”
NBC News here in the US tried the same thing last night on their “Nighly News” with Brian Williams: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2007/10/23/without-proof-nbc-presumes-global-warming-blame-wild-fires
and CNN: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/paul-detrick/2007/10/24/cnn-searches-climate-cause-wildfires-predicts-century-fires-due-warmin
Same old, lazy “same old.”
Tim Egan? There’s a Timothy Egan who works part time for the New York Times. Wonder if it could be the same man? (The one I am referring to is also a novelist, and is married to Joni Balter, who works for the Seattle Times.)
If it is the same man, I can tell you that he writes well — and should not be trusted with sharp knives or hard facts.
Californian bush fires for years to come? I think not.
In the arid south, trees and shrubs take decades to grow, so once the flames have passed through, residents can look forward to years and years of flame-free sunshine.
Is this not the same BBC that used shots of the Tsunami from a few years back in various articles on global warming? I still don’t work out what CO2 has to do with earthquakes but I’m sure some arts educated BBC reporter can make up a story.
What I find odd is that a story like the Californian fires are deemed more interesting for the UK domestic TV market than they are for BBC World Service Radio.
BBC TV news in the UK will push any story with dramatic pictures that are easy to get. That’s no way for a government funded, serious new broadcaster to carry on. The Californian fires have cost relatively few lives and have happened in a country that can cope very well without outside assistance.
So why sideline all the other, more pressing foreign news reports? The answer is simple – BBC news is sensationalist trash.
The Beeb was very direct about it on last night’s news.
Southern California is wealthy, and white. New Orleans is poor, and black.
Another fairly major cultural misrepresentation, but par for the BBC’s course.
Sarah | 24.10.07 – 7:28 pm
They were pushing exactly that line on the awful World Have Your Say on the World Service this evening.
The introduction to the programme went like this:
President Bush has decalared a state of emergency and many people are asking, Is the faster response to the fires in California compared to the dismal failings during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans two years ago because California is richer and whiter.
I’m not kidding. I’ve highlighted many people are asking because it’s such a typical BBC ploy. That’s how the deceitful, propagandist BBC puts its own spin into the public domain. It pretends that it is broad public sentiment when it really is just the misguided opinion of a few embittered lefties who will twist anything in order to disparage Bush.
The BBC is going from bad to worse.
Martin:
Tim Egan. Another BBC journalist with a degree in English no doubt?
Well, if he has only an English degree, he has – but if he hasn’t he hasn’t. If you know, say so. If you don’t your comment, despite your lack of doubt, has zero value.
“Is the faster response to the fires in California compared to the dismal failings during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans two years ago because California is richer and whiter.”
Err no. It is because they are lead by a Republican Governor who kicks bums to get things done unlike the Democratic Governor/Mayor in NO/Louisiana….PLUS Californians tend to be rather more energetic and hard working than most States (apart from the anti war nutters at Berkley) – hence why they are something like the 6th largest economy in the world in their own right.
White people are officially in the minority in California, and this is especially true in Southern California.
“It is because they are lead by a Republican Governor who kicks bums to get things done unlike the Democratic Governor/Mayor in NO/Louisiana….”
Yes. Exactly. New Orleans is a terribly dysfunctional place.
P.S. I knew even before logging onto the BBC that they would be pushing a global warming angle. Sure, I can see that drier conditions might be tied to global warming. But the Santa Anna winds? Arson? Accidental fires? Forest fires in general?
Forest fires have long been a part of life in Southern California. I can remember an old Johnny Carson joke from 20 years ago about how the mudslide were putting out the forest fires.
In the light of their eagerness to point up the California fires it is interesting to note the stories the BBC chooses to ignore.
There have actually been riots in Amsterdam for most of the last ten nights. These have been largely unreported presumably because the rioters are Muslims.
In addition tonight (Wednesday evening) for apparently seperate reasons, heavy rioting erupted in Turkish quarters of Brussels, the capital of Belgium. Buses and trams were attacked. Several cars were torched and shops destroyed.
Police forces were unable to restore law and order in the boroughs of Sint-Joost-ten-Node and Schaarbeek where since last Sunday the animosity among Turks is running high. Turkish flags are omnipresent. In some streets the Turkish crescent and star adorns almost every house. (Brussels Journal)
Our news editors seem to believe that preventing the rioting from spreading to British towns is more important than reporting the news. They may be right.
I mention this because it is only via the internet that we hear of news that our governments and media would prefer to quash.
I seem to remember that in the wake of the floods, the BBC, or someone at the BBC admitted that it was wrong and misleading to link individual events with global warming. So, I wonder, is it sloppy journalism again, or just outright promotion of an agenda? To make a mistake once is forgiveable, to do so twice is worse than careless.
The other point worth raising was (quote Bryan):
President Bush has decalared a state of emergency and many people are asking, Is the faster response to the fires in California compared to the dismal failings during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans two years ago because California is richer and whiter.
Other than declaring a state of emergency, is there anything Bush has had to do? To the best of my knowledge it is the State that has responded. An honest journalist would contrast the Californian response to the fires with the Louisianan response to Katrina and conclude that the former deserves praise and the latter criticism. Another valid response would be to suggest that people had learned valuable lessons from Katrina and put them to good use. A third would be to contrast the behaviour of the public in each state.
However, to use this to suggest, as the BBC have, that George Bush has acted quicker because he feels whites are more important than blacks, and thus because he is racist, is disgraceful journalism. It is also untrue, California has a large black population – maybe it’s the journalists and paparazzi who are obsessed with the white people evacuating their homes rather than the black people?
Barry Wood I asked the same question about the riots in an earlier thread, OT I know, but as it was haunted by Beebzoids I thought that I would get a response, the total silence to my question and I expect your question says it all.
Its not what you report that really defines the bias, its what you chose not to report that defines the bias.
‘Its not what you report that really defines the bias, its what you chose not to report that defines the bias.’ – David H.
🙂
Meanwhile, over here in FL we’ve had no hurricanes for two seasons now…as predicted by the AGW excitables. Wait…that can’t be right.:)
.
Heron | 25.10.07 – 9:41 am
There is this piece on the BBC news site: “Hurricanes and global warming – a link?”
They are also being extremely quiet about the record extent of Antarctic sea ice at the moment… remember folks, according to the computer games, the anthropogenic global warming signal should be strongest there… whoops!
Anyway, last year there was a bit of a drought in the UK so the BBC told us that this was global warming and that we could expect more of the same. This year there was incredible rain and floods, so the BBC told us that this was global warming and that we could expect more of the same.
one point I fail to understand. Wild fires are very commoen in this part of the USA, yet there appears to be no fire breaks or areas near to homes kept clear of forest. I heard that this was because environmentalists didn’t want the land touched.
Martin, environmentalists have also opposed scrub clearing under the canopy of forests, which obviously allows fire to spread much faster
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7054949.stm
“Outgoing Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco chose not to run again after she was widely criticised for her handling of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina crisis.”
Not reported by the BBC!
“In his victory speech, Mr Jindal repeated his election pledge to fight corruption in the state.”
We never heard anything about that either.
Such a short article as well. That always seems to happen when real news goes against the BBC narrative.
Nep. Yes I did hear that one as well. You only have to look to see how badly overgrown the forests are. There appear to be no built in breaks and the forest is right up next to the houses of people.
Like I say this was discussed on Fox News last night but not by the BBC. The burning of forests is a natural event, but in this case made worse by the inability of the local Government to get by the stupid environmental lobby.
The USA like us has an ever growing population (something the left want to promote) yet where are all these people supposed to live?
I heard Galloway on the radio the other day saying the same thing that we have lots of space in the UK. Yet the BBC and other media outlets never see increasing populations as bad when talking about climate change. Why not?
BBC Newsnight described the fire victims as ‘mainly white and rich… very rich’. Really? Has the Beeb done a survey and established the income of all the victims, more than 50% ‘very rich’, or are they just gloating?
Radios 4 & 5 this morning said that President Bush would be visiting California to see for himself the devastation ‘because he had been heavily criticised for his sluggish response to the effects of hurricane Katrina two years ago’.
Is it the BBC’s job to state as a fact motives for politicians’ actions?
How can they possibly know?
Pete:
“What I find odd is that a story like the Californian fires are deemed more interesting for the UK domestic TV market than they are for BBC World Service Radio.”
Erm, I think the key difference is one is TV and one is radio. Big fires naturally attract the interest of tv editors. Great pics.
Martin | 25.10.07 – 1:46 pm |
“one point I fail to understand. Wild fires are very commoen in this part of the USA, yet there appears to be no fire breaks or areas near to homes kept clear of forest. I heard that this was because environmentalists didn’t want the land touched.”
I don’t know how it is these days, but I used to live in LA, and spent two summers in Ojai, where there were fires every year. In 1990 the fires were very bad, and practically the whole county was evacuated. It almost took out Reagan’s ranch in Santa Barbara. It was not on the scale of the present fires, but the causes and effects were the same (mostly arson or campfire stupidity, except one time when a controlled burn got out of control).
In general, there is no state organized maintenance that would be able to put in fire breaks everywhere they’re needed. The area is just too big, and that’s not really how things work anyway. The government agencies will do controlled burning and things like that, but they don’t do anything to protect vast areas, never mind individual homes. It’s just not possible, even if it’s rich white people that need protecting.
In this case, it’s usually up to the homeowner to build a fire break. It can be done, and it’s not easy. Most people won’t do it because it’s too much work, and even then it’s really difficult to coordinate the efforts of everyone who lives in a given danger area.
The BBC won’t tell you that, though. It’s easier to say that it’s all down to global warming, plus it’s rich white people who are being well taken care of by the government.
Wildfires are endemic to California. This year’s are just burning closer to the homes of the rich and famous than usual and so getting more press.
As was pointed out back in the Katrina aftermath in our Federal system the state authorities have to *ASK* the President for help before he declares disaster areas et. al. Schwartzenager was faster than Blanco – that’s the reason for the difference.
No mention, either, that tree-ring data are the cause of much of the corruption of data in climate panic, including the false but widely-used “hockey-stick” graph. Trees often grow more quickly in high temperatures. However they also grow more quickly if carbon dioxide levels are high, as they use this for photosynthesis. So tree rings correlating with carbon dioxide levels is no indication of temperature relationship! Fairly obvious really.
He is, as usual for the BBC, ignorant of basic GCSE-level science.
Of course a little diversity in employment might help, rather than having English or Socialiology grads talking about science. So “diverse” in areas that make no difference, they fail to see that where it matters to their task, in knowledge and in opinion, they have no diversity at all.
David Gregory
Surely that is bad journalism.
All news outlets, BBC especially, should be giving priority to stories based on their importance, not wide-eyed “look a’ ‘xciting pic’ures on da telly”. They are not writing news for children. So why should they have a unique funding arrangement, if they edit news like that? Or is this the BBC’s public-service remit?
Random: Well first off… you raise an interesting point about science/environment journalists. It’s always been a point of debate, is it better to have a degree/PhD in the relevant subject? Some extremely good science writers on national newspapers have no science qualification. If you want diversity, I point out (once again and please for the last time) I have a science qualification.
Your second post raises another interesting point. TV and radio are very different media (mediums? Damn this comprehensive education!). Sometime tv pictures are so immediate it can push a story much higher up a tv bulletin.
It’s true of all sorts of stories and media sources. When TODAY launched as the UK it’s dummy runs used to feature a full colour forest fire destroying the South of France.
Mr Gregory
You need not point out your own science qualification. It only makes my point if it is a matter for comment – since a vast number of science degrees are awarded every year, why are so few BBC staff so qualified that an individual becomes a point of comment? There are many articulate people who understand science. Why does the BBC use people who don’t understand it at all?
I could say the same about other fields in which I have some expertise. Interestingly the common thread is that statistically all those fields have a right-wing tendency. On the other hand sociologists and English graduates tend to be left-wing.
“Media” is entirely correct. I thank my comprehensive education, although of course for being comprehensive in the education, rather than for being comprehensive in the educated. I went to an uncommonly good school.
My point is though that the medium should affect how a story is reported, not which stories are reported nor the importance given to the story. the media are different. The message should not be. “The medium is the message” is a trite phrase for the self-obsessed. Unfortunately the BBC is far too often trite and self-obsessed.
P.S. I suppose I ought to support my case by pointing out that I know something of science, the military and aviation, with a verifiable record in each area. I also am a former sole trader, and second-tier management in a small business, so while I do not have the experience of running a company I am a close observer.
The first is, within academia, relatively very much less left-wing than non-scientific disciplines, and often quite right wing. The other three are, for very good and important reasons relating to their entire purpose, unusually conservative. All are covered with an attitude varying from appalling indifference to (seemingly) conscious incompetence by the BBC, and to a degree much of the rest of the news media.
How remiss of the BBC’s army of reporters to have completely ignored the latest news – that the authorities are now treating the cause of the fires as arson!
But of course, they would then say that Bush or Cheyney started the fire, wouldn’t they.
My postings show I’m not an apologist for the BBC but I’m not convinced by this expert in the field argument for journalists.
If a science correspondent has to have qualification in science then why not political correspondents qualifications in politics – I know what I’m talking about, my degree is in politics.
Or economics – I am an accountant of many years standing and we often comment on the more than bizarre way of reporting economic affairs of almost all journalists, BBC or otherwise.
My ask for such cases is the ability to communicate and to know the field, whether someone holds a particular piece of paper is not the only factor in good or poor reporting.
I don’t think the claim is that all correspondents in x must have a degree in x, but that if in general the number of correspondents with a degree in x were much higher than standards would be raised.
‘All news outlets, BBC especially, should be giving priority to stories based on their importance’
I’m sorry, I can’t see this as evidence of either bias or sloppiness. For a start there will be different producers deciding which stories are the more important and hence the running order of those stories.
Secondly, it’s naive to think that what makes a good story in one medium will automatically make a good story in another. Television is primarily a visual medium; radio a spoken one. In the same way that not all good books make for good films, not all good television will make for good radio.
David Gregory, are you sure it is only great pics that attract TV news people? I’m not. Any old pictures seem to do. Watch the BBC TV news and it is full of the most dull and pointless pictures. An item on petrol prices will be illustrated by film of someone filling up their car. An item about food prices will have film of people strolling around a supermarket. I used to like pictures to illustrate my reading books when I was at infants school, but I can do without them now. BBC TV news should treat us like grown ups and scrap all the unnecessary pictures. Or is BBC TV news aimed at people with the mentality of a 6 year old? It seems so.
Random: From my experience academia is usually fairly left wing no matter which discipline.
Pete: Okaaay. Are you suggestion we should show a blank screen is the pictures we would otherwise use are “unnecessary” ?
The gratuitous shot that I hate is the one in anything to do with supermarkets where the camera is placed inside a shopping trolley, facing out through the front bars, then pushed around the shop turning sharo corners in as nausea inducing a manner as can be managed. Utterly pointless, but a staple of all BBC news bulletins, esp. BBC Breakfast – which brings us neatly back to utterly pointless…
Heron, re: “Other than declaring a state of emergency, is there anything Bush has had to do? To the best of my knowledge it is the State that has responded.”
Actually, there was NOT anything else Bush needed to do. As others here have already commented, Schwartzeneger was quick to ask for help, and Bush declared an emergency.
This is a HUGE difference between the fires and Katrina.
And what you have pointed out is an example of the bottom-up levels of responsibility here in the US.
Proper Katrina response: If you live in a city that’s 12 feet below sea level and hear that a Cat 5 hurricane is heading your way, it is up to you to get your butt out. If you need help, you ask family. If your family needs help, you ask neighbors. If the neighborhood needs help, you ask the city.
This is where Mayor Nagin fouled up. He had thousands of school buses standing by, and claimed that he couldn’t find enough certified bus drivers to take people out. You don’t need a certified bus driver to evacuate in an emergency… ANYONE can drive one of those automatic transmission buses.
Nagin’s other complaint was, “But go WHERE?” Answer: Away from the city 12 feet below sea level. Away from the coast.
The governor blew it when she failed to ask Bush for help. The president can’t send in federal troops unless he is asked by the governor… the last time troops were sent into a state without the governor’s permission, that was the exact flash point of the Civil War.
California had a “reverse 911” emergency line. As fires approaced neighborhoods, the phone companies sent out warnings via the phone system. That was the initial response to getting people out.
Then Schwartzenegger got on the phone and yelled for help. Bush immediately responded.
Quite a difference!
I have to say as a life-long native-born Californian in my late 40s, the Beeb’s ignorant remarks about my state are utterly infuriating and possibly even more offensive than their ridiculous mis-understanding of the historical corruption and incompetence of Louisiana politics from two years ago. Point by point:
1.) The majority of people in Southern California are not white. They are Latino (mixed indigenous-Mexican and Spanish). There is also a huge Asian population. California is the LEAST “white” state in the Union next to Hawaii (which is around 60 Asian.)
2.) The fires were the result of the Santa Anna winds which are an annual occurence in Southern California, not something caused by “global warming”. There have ALWAYS been wildfires in Southern California and the Santa Annas aka “Red Winds” have always been dangerous. The only difference is that today the whole area is grotesquely overpopulated and developers have started building into the hills. There used to be strategic controlled burning of the hills to keep wildfires down in the past, but now the authorities can’t do that because there’s houses on those hills. The main reason that there’s overbuilding in SoCal is because of massive foreign immigration into California — both legal and illegal — that has doubled the population of our state from 20 million to 40 million in just 30 years. (The native-born population in California is at below replacement level population increase.) I’m sure that the Beeb glossed over this fact because it’s a huge supporter of massive immigration into developed Western countries.
3.) The fires were most likely started by illegal immigrants from Mexico. Illegal immigrants camp in the hills surrounding San Diego and cook on illegal, open campfires. In addition, Mexican people smugglers and drug smugglers have been known to set fires deliberately to distract the attention of the US border patrol so they can smuggle more people and/or drugs into the US. An illegal immigrant from Guatemala was caught trying to start a fire in another part of SoCal only a couple of days after the San Diego fires. A campfire or arson attempt could easily have gotten out of control when combined with the 80-mile-an-hour Red Winds. The Beeb of course does not report any of this being huge fans of both illegal immigrants and huge supporters of the “global warming is responsible for any and all natural disasters” meme.
4.) The California fire services, National Guardsmen, and other disaster personnel are highly experienced because we are the most disaster-prone state in the Union. I’ve experienced three major earthquakes of above 7 points on the Richter scale in my life time and countless smaller ones. 16 years ago — long before “global warming” — there was an incredible wildfire only a few miles from where I now live, that took out 10,000 homes and killed around 60 people. In my home town there was a terrible flood in the 50s that killed something like 300 people. Blizzards and avalanches are common in the mountainous part of the state. Even tsunamis have happened here before — one town on the North Coast was wiped out by a tsunami caused by the huge Alaska earthquake of 1964. In short, we have a lot more experience with this sort of thing than the Louisiana disaster personnel and as a consequence are much more prepared.
5.) As I pointed out here before, although the Beeb preferred to relentlessly hammer the Bush Administration for mis-handling of the Katrina disaster, most Americans know that the Democratic state and local governments were the main screw-ups. The voters of Louisiana know very well who screwed up, and that was proved emphatically when they voted out the incompetent Democratic administration in a landslide just a short while ago. The Democratic candidate only got 18 percent of the vote as compared to the Republican victor who got more than 50 percent of the vote.
Well, there you have it. Any competent journalist without an axe to grind could have found all that out. But the BBC is compelled to pump out propaganda rather than journalism. It thinks its role is to bring everyone into line with its own warped world view.
Thank you, Susan. And stay safe. I’m praying for California.
And I must say it was grand to see the Governator back confronting that prissy reporter after his long side-excursion into Weeniehood :).
The Governator Strikes Back