Anthony Watts, of the admirable Watts Up with That? blog is currently at the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, where genuine climate scientists – as opposed to the buffoons who advocate global warming – are currently gathered in Chicago. It transpires that an amateurish, grubby, sharp-practice, wet-behind-the-ears BBC-funded crew is prowling the corridors of the conference hotel trying to misrepresent what is going on and to twist the words of participants. Anthony has filed an account of his meeting with this sordid BBC operation, and I reproduce it in full because every word deserves to be savoured:
I gave a couple of interviews today. The interview I had in the evening after the keynote dinner with an independent crew working for BBC on some documentary on “The Skeptics” was unscheduled. They caught me in the grand hall asking if it could do an interview. It started out pleasant enough, but soon deteriorated. They had no organization at all and had no idea where to shoot it. They suggested we shoot the interview in my room, because they wanted to have me set in front of my computer. I thought that was more than a bit forward and suggested the foyer, we got there, setup and then after starting decided they didn’t like the setting. They they suggested that we go to the media room (which they apparently just discovered) so they tore down and went there.
After a couple of false starts the questions started coming. I started to wonder where they were going with this, and when they started asking about what I thought about Dr. Phil Jones “wanting to commit suicide” I realized that it wasn’t going to be factual, but more emotionally spun. I told them flat out that question and what went on in Dr. Jones mind/intent wasn’t something I could or would comment on since I have no information beyond the press report.
These two independent filmakers were just kids, early 20′s and were struggling to come up with questions. They kept trying to get me to use the word “fraud” as applied to Dr. Jones. There were about five attempts to do so in questions, asking essentially the same question over and over again in different ways.
They also asked why climate skeptics are so “angry” and why there are so many nasty comments on forums. I pointed out that they should visit some of the entertainment forums where people talk about celebrities like Britney Spears etc if they wanted to see some real vitriols, and that nasty comments are a part of the blogosphere, particularly when anonymous commenting is involved. Alarmists make a lot of nasty comments. Look up dhoghaza and Joe Romm.
The capper came at the end when they asked me to sign a release form. I was shocked, because standard procedure is to have the interviewee look over and sign the release form before the interview.
Reading it was like reading no other release form I’ve ever seen. It had a clause that said “gives us the right to use your content however we see fit” which concerned me because usually an interview for a documentary is limited to that venue. For all I know they may put me on a political comedy show.
Then there was something I’ve never encountered in all my years of television. An oath of “honesty and factual accuracy” was in the release. While I certainly thought I answered honestly and factually, this clause concerned me. When somebody interviews me on a contentious subject like climate, I’m giving my opinion. Opinions are almost always disputed. I was sure mine would be. To have such a clause connected to one’s opinion is just insane because then someone can hold up anything and say “but scientific consensus says..etc…etc…so Mr. Watts lied and violated his contractual oath in the release form”. It’s not a court of law, it’s an interview. Jeez Louise!
The release was obviously written by amateurs, and I refused to sign it. They then admitted that “it’s being revised to ‘simplify it’ and ‘could we send you a revision?’. I said I’d look at it, gave them my card with email address, told them that I thought they had the process backwards and that I was unhappy with being confronted with flawed legal language after giving a good faith interview, and left.
How low can the BBC stoop? Let’s remind these cretins that Anthony has spent 25 years in the weather business and unlike the BBC, bends over backwards to ensure that the warmists he so fervently disagrees with are properly represented in both postings on his site and in cross-links. The BBC, for its part, distorts everything it reports to include a warmist spin. And clearly, it doesn’t give a damn how it gets there.
The ONLY interview to do with the BBC is a live one where some drugged up twat can’t edit your words.
Harrabin appears to be at the conference this week. On Today this morning his report suggested it was funded mostly by rightwingers – but he failed to report on the substance of any of the speeches.
The Hockey Stick will have been well and truly demolished again, for example – but Harrabin and the BBC generally resolutely avoids discussing even this fairly simple aspect of the debate.
All a bit like the BBC reporting on the Tea Party movement. Guilt-by-association stuff, never any real focus on the issues.
Harrabin, university degree english, can’t discuss the science as he is too ignorant to understand it.
Before Mr Harrabin rushes to intimidate Mr Hornbury into silence with the threat of using endless barrow loads of license payer money to fund legal action against him, let me just state that what I take Mr Hornbury’s piece to mean is that Mr Harrabin’s one-sidedness and partisan political comments are a sign of his irreproachable journalistic integrity.
Totally exposes the childish amateurism of the BBC. Third rate garbage.
Did anyone catch the admission from Mark Mardell (a “journalist”) on the BBC Radio 4 News this morning that he was shown the first slicks of oil hitting the US mainland while enjoying a sea trip courtesy of Greenpeace? Now, this report might very well be true (although since it’s Mark Mardell some independent verification would be welcome) but I fail to understand why the BBC bothers with employing middle men. Why not just dispense with the pretence of practising journalism while, in reality, simply relaying Greenpeace press hand-outs and give Greenpeace its own news slot of 5 minutes every hour? It would be cheaper and there’d be no embarrassing distractions while BBC mouthpieces tie themselves in knots trying to act “impartial”.
The BBC has history with clambering on board Greenpeace ships and accepting their version of events as gospel. Those with better memories than myself may be able to recall more detail of this – I think it was Brent Spar, but stand to be corrected.
The BBC thinks it’s just fine that some of the IPCC’s “scientific facts” are based on Greenpeace “reports”. Say no more.
I’d like to see the oath of “honesty and factual accuracy” applied to and signed by the BBC itself, including its news reporters, its editors etc.
The BBC has sunk to a new low with this juvenile stuff!
Did he get the name of the production company? He says that they stated they were working for the BBC, well what proof did they give of this?
It’s fairly routine for shite, lefty film students to make rubbish documentaries on spec (and on message) for the BBC just to have them rejected, so I very much doubt this was sanctioned or commissioned by the BBC.
As for the release form, it’s only journalists that ask for a signature before shooting starts. And this always puts the interviewee at a disadvantage. If he says something he shouldn’t have said halfway through, then there’s nothing he can do about it. And if Anthony Watts is so familiar with interviews and release forms, why didn’t he ask to see the thing BEFORE he started the interview?
The BBC are scum, sure. Warmists are wankers. Film students are mostly tosspots. But in this case all the dots don’t join up.
What is the point of trying to smear Antony Watts? If this is some kind of Watts-inspired conspiracy to make the BBC – or independent producers – look bad, please join up the dots for us.
AW is honest and open enough to let commenters on his blog say what they like as long as they’re civilised about it. Indeed, your points – without the smear – are made by many of those commenters, several of whom mention their own similar experiences with this form of “journalism”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/17/iccc-conference-day-1-chicken-of-the-sea-and-bbc/#more-19570
Ofcom went after the BBC for their last attempt at a “documentary” about those standing against Warmism. And they did a “documentary” on carbon credits that was funded by the very subject of the “documentary”.
Apparently Sacha Baron Cohen is more professional at this sort of thing than the outside producers the BBC hires – and expects you to trust.
This guest article posted at Watts’ site suggests that on a simple headcount, there are more sceptical scientists than Warmist scientists, The mythical “2500” of the IPCC are mostly non-scientists, the corrupt hardcore of scientists associated woith the IPCC’s frauds – the “Hockey Team” – are just a few dozen in number.
The writer has just given an interview to Harrabin who is following the conference. I bet Harrabin does not relay the argument to the BBC’s audience.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/18/consensus-what-consensus/#more-19653