, James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University, asks What’s Auntie for, exactly?
Getting into his stride on the second page, the Prof. writes:
Recently:
- Science ran a piece on how changes to the stratosphere will affect surface climate. It concluded [PDF] that predicting the dynamics was “a substantial task”, and one not yet undertaken by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
- Nature had an essay on the dynamics of ocean mixing, which in the long term could offset slowing of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation brought about by more rain and more melting at the North Pole. It argued that “much remains to be discovered” [PDF – subscription required].
- The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published on the “irreducible” imprecision of computer models of atmosphere and oceans.
Each of these uncertainties has a texture as chocolatey as the BBC Trust’s beloved Wagon Wheel. Yet the BBC insists on the old dry Seesaw approach. It repeatedly puts reporters in front of fast-dripping glaciers or spreading deserts and gets them to express their personal shock, awe, loss, and disgust. Then, back in the studio, a gnarled “sceptic” may occasionally be wheeled on to show that the Beeb still gives a voice to Creatures from Another Planet.
What we need from the BBC is leadership, and – as far as is possible – dispassionate enquiry, objective facts, and dispassionate presentation of those facts. Instead, we get dumbed-down moral absolutes, far-out footage, and a sprinkling of “balance”. Nobody at the BBC says this is the strategy; but BBC News, in particular, applies it with the utmost vigour.
Do read the rest, and the comments too. As Biased BBC reader 1327, who spotted the Reg article says, it is “interesting (and heartening) that the bread and butter topics of this blog now seem to becoming mainstream”. Beeboids take note.
The BBC don’t care about FACTS. They only care about their Islington dinner party friends who read the Guardian.
The biggest reason for the BBC going along with this nonsense is that they want to bum lick Nu Labour and as we know Climate change taxes are new stealth taxes on the white working class scum that the BBC despises.
The rich (like the BMX 4X4 driving BBC presenters) will continue to go on their long haul holidays, but white trash won’t be able to afford their two weeks in The Costa del Sol.
Martin
I really don’t want to “bum lick” New Labour. And while I hesitate to contradict a Professor of “Forecasting and Innovation” I think the whole issue of how to report this is much more complex that he makes out. Indeed much thought goes on about just these very thorny issues.
The Editors blog carried a thoughful post about all this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/11/climate_sceptics.html
What I would like to know David is how many people in the real world actually CARE about climate change? I suspect far less than Al Beeb have ever bothered to ask.
If this is so, Al Beebs reporting on the issue is totally out of proportion with the audience it serves.
Surely this means it is acting against it’s charter.
I don’t really care how impartial the BBC attempts to be regarding climate change, what concerns me is the inordinate amount of OUTPUT regarding this subject. I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of hearing them drone on about it. The law of diminishing returns seems to mean nothing to obsessed leftists with a bee in their bonnet.
It is NOT the BBCs job to decide what the general public should be interested in. It is the BBCs job to FIND OUT what the audience is interested in and fulfil that instead.
So why don’t they?
The Editors blog carried a thoughful post about all this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ theed…e_sceptics.html
David Gregory (BBC) | 22.11.07 – 5:20 pm
The climate questionnaire for the sceptics…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7081104.stm
Does the BBC do this sort of thing for the IPCC wallahs (i.e. make them justify their stance)?
Personally, I’d like to see Roger Harrabin answers questions 23 and 24.
Reg: Well of course the BBC do do surveys etc to find out what the audience thinks about various topics. Indeed I believe shows like the Six have pretty instantaneous feedback on what sort of stories are popular. As indeed does the websites.
But to take your argument further, tomorrow I’m going to do a story about a new medical innovation from a small company in the Midlands. I’m doing it because I think (as Science Correspondent) stories about practical applications of research being turned into products by local companies are important. I also think it’s a pretty cool gadget.
Under your system do I do the story? Or conduct a survey to see if people want to see it?
David Gregory:
“But to take your argument further, tomorrow I’m going to do a story about a new medical innovation from a small company in the Midlands.”
Well I applaud you for that David. I live in the Midlands and I agree that this type of reporting is of great importance and a refreshing change.
However, perhaps you intentionally skewed my original comment to validate your own point (which needed no validation anyway), or I didn’t make myself clear; occasional reporting about ANYTHING is acceptable under any charter. But the BBCs output on both climate change and Islam is dispraportionate to audience interest and should therefore be capped.
Without doing so they have no argument whatsoever about appearing anything other than agenda driven and politically biased.
Reg: Ahhh, I see what you mean. I guess it can seem Islam does rather dominate the news. But then here in the Midlands we’ve got the ongoing row about the C4 Mosque documentary and the Police. And as for Global Warming, well I’ve just been invited to a CBI event to be told what Midlands business’ want to do about it.
If I report the later am I slavishly following the BBC’s obsession with climate change? (One could argue a critism from the right) Or simply following the greenwash agenda of big business? (a critisism I’ve had forcefully put to me from those on the left)?
Want me to do the story or not? (Now THIS is interactive television! You don’t even need to press the button!)
David: Surely the answer to your question above is you go to the event and probably report briefly that you have done so. But detailed coverage should depend on whether anything new or interesting arises from the event • the event itself isn’t news.
I’m with Reg on this one. I accept that our climate is changing and I accept that man may be part of the cause (though I’m not convinced this has been proven yet), but I’m not at all sure this is de facto a bad thing, as the BBC always implies.
And I know without a shadow of a doubt it isn’t something which is discussed regularly in the office.
Rob
Well we may be wallowing in our “jacuzzi of cash” but that’s a bit extravagant.
If we’re not going to do the story I can do something else. But if we commit then to make it interesting you’d use the event as the peg and then visit one of the companies involved and see what they are doing (more interesting than filming a seminar)
So the question remains. You may not be talking about climate change but the CBI certainly are. Should we report what they’re members are doing and saying about climate change?
David: I’m intrigued. I spend my life (well, not so much now, to be honest, but in the not too distant past) going to press conferences and launches.
If someone says something interesting or important, you follow it up, try to get an interview, look into things a bit further etc etc etc. If, as is more often the case, they don’t, you report it briefly and move on.
I agree you have to attend because you don’t know in advance what’s going to happen. If the CBI is just talking about, that’s not really news; if some of its members are making radical changes to the way they operate, that most certainly is (though misguided IMHO, but that’s another story).
Rob
Oh I agree with you. Nothing worse than a dull press conference. Can suck the life out of the best story.
I’m just interested in the opinion of B-BBCers with “real world” stuff like this. I mean the CBI aren’t Friends of the Earth. If we agree the story is “CBI members announce (interesting hopefully) action in light of what they see is risk of climate change” should I also try and find a clip from a sceptic like yourself to say they are “misguided” or is that not what the story is about?
David: Oh no, I’m not one of those people who think you have balance every single individual story. If firms are taking action, that is newsworthy.
But I would like to see you pose a question such as ‘Why has your firm Reckitt & Son decided to take this action?’
Now it may be that you personally do this, David • I’m not in the Midlands so I’m not qualified to say • but too many of your colleagues take an unquestioning approach. Just because a CBI member has decided to take action, it doesn’t meant they’re right or even, frankly, that they’re doing anything other than pandering to the current obsession to be seen ‘doing something’.
David: Apologies, gotta run, children to pick up! (mine, I hasten to add)
Rob Clark:
“But I would like to see you pose a question such as ‘Why has your firm Reckitt & Son decided to take this action?’”
Which is a nice segue into a further point…
David Gregory:
Surely David, you accept that this Islamic and climate mania is a case of the tail wagging the dog. Because the BBC have prioritized it so excessively over the years, it has now entered the public consciousness as being of major importance. When the truth is, it simply IS NOT.
Do you think companies reach their own independent conclusion on what is good for public relations? No. Like politicians they listen to the media and echo back what they hear.
The BBC (and it’s partisan lefties in the media) have influenced a nation into believing that accepting anything other than lefty lunacy will result in being ostracized from society or will in some way threaten their liberty; or in the case of industry – threaten their profits. They don’t believe all this gobshite because they WANT to, they believe it because they feel that they HAVE too.
BBC reporting is onerous and foreboding to the extent that people believe that any opposing views against multiculturalism and the environment is borderline criminal.
This isn’t being cynical or paranoid, it’s pragmatic. If I hear one more person discuss the negatives of multiculturalism in private without having to use the opening gambit of “I’m not a racist or anything, but…” I’m going to scream.
Modern Britain is starting to become a bloody Orwellian polemic, and that in itself is something the BBC should report upon and a greater evil than both Islam and climate change put together.
Reg: That’s an extremely powerfui argument and obviously one you really believe in.
Surely it’s possible to discuss the downside of multiculturalism without being racist? Maybe if you had more black and asian friends to discuss the issue with you you wouldn’t hear the “I’m not racist but…” opening gambit so often?
Sorry, I jest 😉
It’s hard to discuss this properly without really giving away more about my personal opinions and life that is really proper as a BBC stooge on here… maybe we can keep this one for the pub sometime?
But I really do take on board what you say.
David Gregory:
“Maybe if you had more black and asian friends to discuss the issue with you you wouldn’t hear the “I’m not racist but…” opening gambit so often?”
No, but sometimes – you may instead hear them say: “I’m not one of these people who expects to be treated differently because of my race.” The sort of comment that would have your average BBC lefty screaming in horror at.
“maybe we can keep this one for the pub sometime?”
Okay. But it’s your round David. 🙂
Reg: You know I can’t put alcohol on expenses don’t you?
😉
Just to slightly go back to the subject. Living in Birmingham I have a much higher number of black and asian friends now than I ever did growing up in rural Hertfordshire. (Black and Asian pupils at my secondary school? 1 out of 400!) But at the office or at home I honestly don’t think I or anyone I know has been so mealy mouthed about wanting to discuss these issues. We’re all pretty straight up about it.
I would say that when it comes to broadcasting you do need, well not to tread lightly that would be wrong. But you do have to be responsible and to be more aware broadcasting is actually something of record these days (ask Jane Garvey!) and as ever being polite costs you nothing.
But that hasn’t stopped us tackling the Black v Asian unrest in Handsworth (partly triggered by reporting on unsubstantiated rumours on pirate radio – an example of why you have to be certain of your facts with your reporting) the problems of massive east european immigration into rural areas (and at the same time the advantages for the business’ that employ them), the rise of the BNP and Respect, the preaching of Muslim clerics.
It’s all out there and we shouldn’t shy away from discussing it and reporting on it. I know my friends and colleagues don’t!
Anyway, I’m sure I could stretch to a pint or two from my own pocket!
we shouldn’t shy away from discussing it and reporting on it
Indeed not, these issues should be discussed and debated openly in a free society. Stange then that of the three areas you raise the rise of the BNP and Respect, the preaching of Muslim clerics two should receive such very different treatment.
The output of the BBC shows that it is consistently anti the fascist BNP, it never reports or actually engages the BNP in any real debate but is in general pro the fascist Islamist tendency within the Muslim community. So much so that it rarely, if ever, reports anything to do with the msulim community that might be seen as negative.
Open debate, I don’t think so
David Gregory:
Dare I be so bold as to suggest (bearing in mind generalizations don’t go down to well) that your black and asian friends are predominantly media class types, who dictate the issues anyway, so could hardly complain about being the victim of them.
How many of your friends are labourers, shop keepers, nightclub doormen or the unemployed?
I think you’ll find an entirely different set of values, beliefs and complaints away from your own class. A class that Beeboids are entirely disassociated from and therefore never have to experience the effect all this leftie lunacy is having upon them.
Reg: You know I can’t put alcohol on expenses don’t you?
Not Expenses? Are you mad? What are you missing David? Last time I saw the BBC in a bar in London doing some TV docco nonsense they were sucking up the bar like it was going out of fashion. They also took great lengths in ensuring the bar staff wrote out laborious receipts for them so they could claim back every penny off the Telly Tax payer. Shame on them. Unless they were ordering soft drinks of course, which I assume IS okay?
Reg: ooooh, and you were doing so well! Yes I have non-white friends in the media… makes sense it’s where I work. But plenty of non-white (and white) friends who work in bars and shops etc. I even know one or two bouncers, both black and white!
Today I was down at the Bullring market where we had a nice chat with the ladies on the knitting stall and came away with some excellent wools for a scarf before heading off to buy 5lbs of onions and a load of chillis.
I’m well aware of my class (I’m middle class how could I not be!) and I’m certainly not going to try and come across as “prolier than thou” but I don’t exist outside the “real” life of Birmingham in some middle class Waitrose bubble 😉
And hopefully if the BBC staff were working it was just soft drinks.
Arthur: Well I disagree with that.
Soft drinks, right, David, and a while back on this site we had a BBC guy who admitted making a mistake re Margaret Thatcher in an article (which people here saw as bias) because he had written the article after spending time at the bar. Doesn’t the BBC have any rules about drinking at work? And then we have thousands of you going onto Facebook and Wikipedia (during tea and lunch breaks of course) and fiddling with phone in competitions, all at taxpayers’ expense. And this is before we even get to the bias.
I’m gaining the impression that there is nobody in control and that you guys at the BBC have become a law unto yourselves. You have become bloated, indolent and unaccountable through feeding too long at the guaranteed public trough. How well do you think you would fare in the open market?
Try to complain about any aspect of the BBC’s output and you get led on a convoluted wild goose chase through the “complaints procedure” – which is designed to ensure that only the most stubborn continue to play that particular game.
Time to trim down, toughen up and take a long hard look at yourselves.
Bryan
If you think you can cope with the pressures and hard work involved in my job I’d be delighted to have you along to shadow me. To show just how far from the truth what you say is.
How would I cope in the open market? Very well I was a freelance journalist and was certainly able to run my own business extremely effectively.
As I’ve said before I can’t defend every aspect of the BBC, if people who deal with complaints are reading then I hope they could defend themselves. Making mistakes in an article because you have had a drink is appalling.
But I can’t imagine any of my colleagues doing that. It’s a sandwich at the desk where I work.
I simply don’t recognise this kind of description. More than that this insinuation that what I do isn’t hard work, that I don’t give my all, that I wouldn’t survive in the “real world” is just insulting and plain wrong.
David, thanks for your reply. I am sorrry if you felt insulted. My comment was not meant as a personal attack on you but a general outline of my perception of the BBC through long exposure to its modus operandum and its bias. I don’t believe that the BBC is rotten right through but that it is in serious trouble as a result of being pretty much a law unto itself for so long. The guy who admitted to working under the influence had no qualms about identifying himself. Barbara Plett had no qualms about revealing that she cried over that foul old terrorist Yasser Arafat. Why was Orla Guerin allowed to travel to Beirut to join in the BBC’s Israel-bashing fest during last year’s war when she had been transferred to Johannesburg? Did she have to ask for permission from her superiors or did she simply hop on a plane and send the BBC the bill?
These things add to the vast body of evidence that the BBC has become lax and ill-disciplined, with the staff cocooned in a comfort zone in which they feel they can do pretty much as they please and give their bias free rein because there is little control over them.
Am I wrong?
David,
You are taking Bryan’s comments personally. As in any large organization there are decent people as well as a minority of lousy ones.
I think his comment about how the BBC (not you) would cope in the “real world” still stands. I don’t think it would survive if the public were given the option to subscribe for 130 quid a year. Twenty-odd years ago I think it would have stood a chance, but not now.
The powers-that-be underestimate the resentment at what many in the public perceive as viewer deception, dumbing down, anti-America/Israel bias and aloofness.
Bryan is correct about the BBC complaints process, which speaking from personal experience, is a disgrace.
The BBC Purpose page it states that their object is to “to inform, educate and entertain”. That seems so old hat now! The BBC needs to improve and have something more to offer, especially when I can go online and my information, education and entertainment are available a click away, usually for free…