Monthly Archives: November 2009

DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH….

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So far, the BBC has done virtually nothing about Climategate, and as David notes in the previous post, if anything, has cranked up its AGW reporting to fever pitch. This is what Richard Black says on his blog this morning:

As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, climate politics elsewhere remains unimpressed by allegations that the CRU documents undermine the very basis of the forthcoming negotiations; but it’s a question that I will be asking when the Copenhagen talks open.

I don’t know where he’s been doing his “ascertaining” (he could try, for simple starters, here,here or here)but such a response is deeply, deeply dishonest, and illustrates just how seriously wrong the BBC is on this issue.

I will await with interest to hear just how hard he pursues the question he intends to put. But don’t hold your breath. He’ll probably be as tough and persevering as Evan Davis was when he ‘interviewed’ Bob Geldof this morning on Today (that is, he listened admiringly to every word of nonsense he uttered).

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AND STILL IT COMES..

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The BBC has gone mega-hysterical on AGW in the run up to not so wonderful Copenhagen. This morning, Today had Saint Bob Geldof on claiming that global warming had caused crime in Ethiopia as well as the Cockermouth floods. On the BBC1 Breakfast programme this morning the debate was all about getting people to accept that they will have to fly less if we are to save the world. Drip, drip, drip – this is the insidious evil of the BBC in action, propagandising, not reporting.

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Mann Made Climate Change

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The BBC has a new article on its website about the latest work from Michael Mann, and it’s as if Climategate never happened. Gerald Warner mocks the BBC, while Watts Up With That mocks Mann’s apparent discovery of the Medieval Warm Period

The BBC clearly thinks it has “done” the CRU scandal and is now carrying on as before, faithfully reporting the carefully orchestrated release of Copenhagen climate propaganda.

(Hat tip ibjc and Marky)

Update 19.05: IPCC climatologist says Mann no longer credible, acknowledges career probably screwed for daring to say so.

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Richard Bacon,Twitter & the BBC

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In the latest issue of Standpoint, Nick Cohen argues that the recent Twitter campaign against the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir was less about “‘reader power’ in action” and more to do with like-minded people “affirming their membership of the liberal tribe…”

The use of Twitter to affirm one’s trendy, right-on credentials is especially noticeable among the UK’s tweeting celebs and media luvvies. The most followed of the lot is the BBC’s Richard Bacon who, as one of the chieftains of Twitter’s “liberal tribe”, cheered on the hunt for Moir.

He was asked about Twitter by Matthew Wells on this week’s Guardian Media Talk podcast (16 min in):

Wells: How do you feel, Richard, about your personal power to influence people by what you say on Twitter?
Bacon: It’s an issue for me because I work for the BBC, and I work for Five Live and I do programmes that are news based. And it’s difficult, and I think there’s a grey area at the moment. I’ll often re-tweet – you know what re-tweeting is? You can put up a link to an article that I like, and on occasion I’ll be re-tweeting to an article that may well express an opinion that I’m sympathetic towards. That’s not the same as me expressing an opinion, but you could argue that it is. Now that…to me this is a grey area that I imagine one day they’ll legislate.
Channel 4’s Benjamin Cohen: We’re having a policy launched very soon at ITN to say what we can and can’t say.
Bacon: There’ll be some committee…
Guardian’s Emily Bell: Are you going to have non-tweets, things that you cannot tweet?
B.Cohen: We’re going to have subjects that you shouldn’t tweet about.
Bacon: Are you?
B.Cohen: We’re trying to keep the broadcasting [unheard] in what we tweet, so – don’t express an opinion.
[Crosstalk]
Bacon: What about that grey area that I mentioned? Re-tweeting a link to an article, often I’m just saying here’s an interesting article, but occasionally – and I guess I did do this with Jan Moir – you’re going look at, you know, here’s what Charlie Brooker says about Jan Moir and really I agree with that. And so it’s a grey area and probably someone from the BBC Trust will be listening to this podcast and the rules will all change and I’ll regret saying these words.

Bacon has just signed a three-year deal to present the afternoon slot on Five Live, during which time he’ll be covering, among other things, the next US midterm and presidential elections. His views of one potentially influential player in those elections can be gleaned from some of his tweets [click image to view]:

[For those who don’t know, Andrew Sullivan hates Palin with a deranged passion (he’s the “liberal blogger at The Atlantic” mentioned in this Jonah Goldberg article), and Levi Johnston is now a performing monkey for the Palin-hating media in America.]

And here’s Bacon on Obama:

I suspect that the BBC will indeed follow ITN’s example and issue Twitter rules for its employees, but I’d rather they just let them say what they want. The insight it offers is most instructive.

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THERE’S SUMMIT ABOUT GORDON…

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I have had a deluge of emails from enraged B-BBC readers in recent days over the way in which the State Broadcaster has chosen to cover the “Climategate” issue. When you see how the BBC is gushing over the way in which Brown has cynically hijacked the Commonwealth summit to evangelise further on AGW, I share their pain. It seems to me that the AGW industry is coming under some sustained scrutiny and being shown up for the grotesque hoax that some of us have argued all along – but the BBC will have none of this. In Beebworld “the science is settled” and when climate experts such as Marcus Brigstocke and Diane Abbot confirm this, who are we to argue back?

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Hudson Hushed

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Paul Hudson, the BBC weatherman who in October was forwarded some of the Climategate emails (those relating to his article “What happened to global warming?“) has been gagged by the BBC. From the Hull Daily Mail:

When contacted by the Mail, the weatherman said he was not allowed to comment and asked us to speak to the BBC press office.
A BBC spokesperson said: “Paul wrote a blog for the BBC website on October 9 entitled Whatever Happened To Global Warming. There was a big reaction to the article – not just here but around the world. Among those who responded were Professor Michael E Mann and Stephen Schneider whose e-mails were among a small handful forwarded to Paul on October 12.
“Although of interest, Paul wanted to consider the e-mails as part of a wider piece, following up his original blog piece.
“Last week, Paul spotted these few e-mails were among thousands published on the Internet following the alleged hacking of the UEA computer system.
“Paul passed this information on to colleagues at the BBC, who ran with the story, and then linked to the e-mails on his blog this Monday.”

Hudson posted a brief follow-up to his original article on October 12, the day he was forwarded the emails. The emails weren’t mentioned in that blog post nor in the five subsequent ones written prior to the CRU story breaking last week. If Hudson wanted to “consider the emails as part of a wider piece”, he wasn’t in any rush to do so.

(Note – the Hull Daily Mail article appears to misquote Hudson’s blog, stating: “I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on October 23”. It actually says: “I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October”.)

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COCKERMOUTH NONSENSE

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Diane Abbott MP, as those who worked with her in the early days of TV-am will attest, is not the brightest tool in the box. But she knows a political opportunity when she sees it. Last night – miracle of miracles – the BBC1 programme on which she reguarly appears, This Week, mentioned “climate change”, and there was a sensible exchange between Michael Portillo and Andrew Neil in which the ex-MP mentioned the CRU emails and said the affair illustrated the need for politicians to exercise caution in backing expensive measures that almost certainly were not needed. Bravo!

Ms Abbott’s response? To pronounce, without any doubt or hesitation (and no evidence, either), that the Cockermouth floods proved that “climate change” was definitely happening and must be halted. An audience member on last night’s Question Time made the same blunt assertion. The culprit responsible for this inanity? Well it must be in no small measure the BBC itself. On the back of its relentless tide of pro-warming propaganda, Ms Abbott – and millions like her – have become self-declared scientific experts, influenced by the “climate change” soundbites the BBC push out round the clock. And Ms Abott – as well as people like last night’s Question Time panellist the charmless Marcus Brigstocke – seize on this propaganda with relish because it accords with their lefty agenda to cripple our economy and create their ultimate goal of a Stalinist state.

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