John Horne Tooke posed an interesting – if idealistic – question in his comment on my posting yesterday about Richard Black’s slavish continued reporting of climate change sensationalism. He pondered:
If only the BBC would employ people with enquiring minds, people who want to search for the truth, then they may be worth the licence fee.
Evidence that it won’t actually came my way when I was sent a copy of the latest application form for the BBC graduate producer training scheme. Question 1 for these BBC leaders of tomorrow is this:
Scenario: You are working as a researcher on the weekly science programme ‘Bang Goes the Theory’. The series is due to be broadcast in eight weeks. Your producer has asked you to write a brief on the subject of climate change and energy usage based on a recent article he has read by a highly regarded journalist in a leading science magazine.
What’s your approach?
Please rank the options below in the order you would do them.
Please select your 1st task.
( )Contact general experts in the field of climate change and energy usage
( )Contact the BBC producer who made a programme on climate change 6 months ago
( )Contact the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to secure an invite to their next session in Abu Dhabi
( )Read the original article.
( )Contact the two scientists who wrote the original research on which the article was based
( )Conduct google / web based research for wider background
( )Contact the journalist who wrote the piece.
( )Order tea and coffee for the Bang Goes the Theory presenters.
( )Contact scientists who disagree with the argument presented in the original article
Thus, right at the beginning of the recruitment process, it seems that those who run the BBC are now checking out attitudes to climate change. It’s a fascinating insight into how deep the propaganda culture pervades the editorial process and even recruitment. If the BBC had journalistic credibility, the correct answers would be first to read the original article and then pretty rapidly to dig among those who disagree in order to decide whether it genuinely merited a programme.
What Richard Black and his cronies actually do is a travesty of such inquiry. They usually a) find scientists who agree with the original piece and use their supportive comments to big-up the propaganda impact to maximum extent; b) worship at the altar of the IPCC and c) don’t ever refer to anybody else.
I think the purpose of this questionnaire is actually much more sinister and blatant. It’s to weed out anyone who disagrees with their worldview at the very first hurdle. It boils down to that they are actively seeking climate change propagandists. How much lower can you get in the deployment of Stasi methodology?
Do you not know someone who could fill in the application form, to determine how the bbc respond to it? It would have to be someone who is prepared for the low probability of being invited for interview, of course.
RH
Granted that the BBC is irredeemably in the warmist camp, I think you’re going slightly OTT here. This is a multiple choice question so I assume the answers were posed in a random order. I take your point that the assessment of the answers would be undertaken with the peculiar BBC take on “impartiality” (un)conciously in mind but, given that a multiple choice format is being used, this question and the possible answers chosen in and of themselves, are not examples of BBC bias.
I may be wrong (as everyone else has presumed it’s the order too) but I think the point is the SUBJECT of the question and that this is the FIRST question is the whole issue.
oops, didn’t see all the replies! :-[
@Umbongo – You really believe those options are in a random order? Note how the flippant “tea and coffee” is at the foot of the list of options. Only one more thing could be more silly than making tea and coffee to these people – and there we see it at the very bottom of the list. Random?
If the BBC was seeking to weed out the sceptics then they might have put the answer – to seek out sceptics for comment – at the top of the list. In my experience of sitting multiple choice exams (anecdotal evidence, I admit) either I tried to find the answer (particularly to an arithmetic question) which was uniquely correct or (in a, more or less, open question like this one and depending on the organisation posing the question) tried to identify the response most closely mirroring that which I assumed the organisation wanted to see.
In this case, the order of the answers posed is almost immaterial since an intelligent examinee would either have the required BBC mindset to start with or be aware what the BBC mindset is and answer accordingly. If the last question had been first, I suspect only a lazy examinee would have put it at #1. BTW, as RH writes, the #1 answer is to read the article which is set out at 4th position on the paper.
However, even the BBC, when dealing in theory, would not I think consider that its journalists should not read the offending article (if only to decide later how to deal with it). Evidently in practice its most eminent practitioners (eg Black) fail to read much of the offending literature especially when it contradicts their religion. Alternatively, in the unfortunate position of having read an article questioning their beliefs, the usual practice by BBC journalists involves a decision to ignore it or misrepresent it (generally using the “straw man” technique) or bring on an opponent to rubbish it (generally with a mighty dollop of ad hominem abuse).
Anyway, clear though BBC bias is, IMHO RH should keep his powder dry for more worthy battles than this one.
Can’t see that the order of the questions suggests much.
But that it is asking for them to be ordered at all, it least as listed above, does. Heaps.
Who the heck cares what ‘order’ in which they conduct these tasks (though some are idiotic, and hence probably standard operating procedure in the BBC news editorial creche… ‘Whaaaaat? You didn’t get IPCC oversight clearance first???!!!! But, how was the trip to Abu Dhabi? Nice? Hope you offset… just joshin’)?
What matters is doing all that is necessary to get to the most accurate and informative and objective report. Though prioritising what is ‘out there’ before tackling folk in person might be a plan. If still tricky for a media studies grad dialling an (A)GW expert with a grant to protect, who has eaten qualified sceptics for breakfast.
Noting the excellent subsequent point on the contextual ‘set up’ ( “by a highly regarded journalist in a leading science magazine…” Sez who?), I could care less if they first have 5 minutes personal time in the ladies first, so long as they do all that is necessary within timeframe to gain all the facts and challenge all opinions equally.
But if the first act of any BBC background research is to hop a plane to another part of the world for no real reason other than a body you are best buds with hangs out there, much is explained.
I bet many currently educating and informing the public right now would have stuck that as No. 1.
GW, have to strongly disagree. In my view the question in itself is a very good one. The priority given to these tasks is very important in putting together a good brief. Here are my choices and the reason below:-
1) Read article
2) Google
3) Contact the BBC Producer
4) Contact dissenting scientists
5) Contact general scientists
6) Contact the two research scientists
7) Contact the author
8) Make coffee
9) Wangle an IPCC freebie
If you’re going to produce a programme that puts forward the pros and cons this, in my view is the best way of doing it if you’re going to know the best questions to put for this.
I would however have every expectation that this would rule me out of getting a place at the BBC.
Hippiepooter, with the greatest respect, I think I may have to agree to disagree with you. But as we are on the topic of rankings, on a scale of strength, only mildly with a chance lack of frivolity on occasion, if that makes a difference. Maybe a form could be produced?
The question itself is well and truly skewed, and the various options are silly by existing at all, at least in this form. In my view, granted.
However, in the spirit of concession, I may have gone too far in total dismissal initially.
Of course ordering one’s research structure in a sensible way builds up bases of what is known, or not known, in order to lead on to further questions.
But that someone even needs to be asked if they would read the article in question first before anything else seems… quaint… given we are talking folk who have been through the educational system to be seeking research as a career at this point.
Googling is good, but it raises the question of calibre and qualification already. Not much point googling having read an article if you know zippy until now about the subject. Though it does explain the quality of much BBC ‘reporting’. No one in the process, from minion to meddling producer with agenda to teleprompter-reading ‘authoritative’ presenter has any idea. Hence reliance on hive-familiar, career-secure comfort zones. Such as not asking just how respected this bozo might actually be, or is he just invited onscreen a lot already thanks to a grant from Gaddafi.
Maybe first up should have been ‘Reject offer on grounds that, as a media studies grad who thinks an isothermal comes from Damart, what I put on the table will be worse than useless’.
Because without a fair amount of grounding, even with Google, I’d love to know how one decides which scientists are dissenting, general or otherwise. And if you have contacted the producer first, I’m pretty sure you will have been given the approved list with a serious look as to the wisdom of straying from that. Basically, get Bob Ward into the studio live, and if a sceptic has to be involved, an extreme shouty one on the line in advance to edit before airing.
There also seems to be no allowance to go back and forth. Surely such a process is not linear? What if one person says something contradicted subsequently by another (given the vastest of the topic issued, a dead cert, even if one is able to pursue a sensible thread out of the hundreds possible*)? Don’t you retrace to hone the knowledge base? And if there are clear gaps or disagreement highlight these. Given corporate policy I’d love to find out what ‘the producer’ then does with it. And this person is who becomes the final arbiter who hands stuff to the ‘analyst’ who has been, in theory, sifting all the information out there from Kyoto to Copenhagen over the years and should, possibly, have the best grasp of all issues. Unless they only ‘mix’ with one bunch of folk that is. Or have an Oxbridge English degree behind them.
Don’t know about a coffee, but if that’s the dog’s dinner of a procedure in place I think I’d be up for a stiff brandy before quitting to retain integrity and sanity.
*’a brief on the subject of climate change and energy usage based on a recent article he has read’
Er… ‘a brief’ on the vast, complex and ever-changing subject of climate change, involving decades and 10’s of thousands of theories and papers, based on ‘a’ recent article by some bloke the producer has happened ‘to read’?
Maybe my first action, prior to collecting my P45, would be to ask if the producer would also like a brief on the Second World War because they have just seen an episode of The Pacific. By next week.
The vagueness of the question results in so many variables the only rational action is to question the question. And discuss first in the round. The rest is moot at this juncture. But not an option it seems.
Which, as we live in a boxtickocracy, is why I would never be hired either, assuming I got as far as being handed a multiple choice form for multiple choice-content mindsets to attempt, assess and accord value to.
The tragedy is, that’s exactly what my kids are being handed and expected to deliver ‘accepted’ answers to in neat little black or white squares, with no tolerance of ‘out of box’ thinking or acceptance of shades of grey or nuances.
Yes, we’ll have to broadly agree to disagree.
🙂
Pleasure doing ‘business’ with you 😉
I watched the Big Bang Thoery special on recreating Decembers weather, and they actually managed to do a programme on climate and weather without mentioning Global Warming/Climate Change. They even referred to sunspot activity.
I’m sure whoever slipped up at missing that propaganda opportunity will be taken out and shot.
Note to BBC, it actually made the programme more interesting in that it wasn’t trying to spin us a line.
‘It’s to weed out anyone who disagrees with their worldview at the very first hurdle.’
Multiple choices can be telling in many ways, not only for the options provided, but what are not. Meanwhile the prior presumptions and preselections suggested in ‘assessing’ ‘correct’ replies can be chilling.
I still maintain an interest in the following thread, which also has highlighted a climate-related path (at least in the minds of social engineers), only pertaining to the education of children.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=340
It would be interesting to find what the complementing enquiring minds there might make of it all.
I seem to recall a quote once from some charmer of history on ‘getting ’em early’.
Maybe our kids are being prepared to fill out such forms for successful employment at the BBC? Though as it is in the sciences that might not be such an issue for reporting via an English/PPE career path.
The bias is in the opening brief, not the range of answers. The clue for candidates is at the end of the first paragraph: …”by a highly regarded journalist in a leading science magazine…”
So Miss or Mr Candidate, are you a “boat rocker” or a “safe pair of hands”? Do you recognise the authority of the establishment and consensus? Can you be trusted to recognise this carefully coded question and sidestep the “wrong” answers? Do you really want this job?
Dick Black the Eco Twat and Harriban the Horrible from the clan McMoonbat together with person who wrote the climate change scenario should all be sacked, and a scientist should be employed to replace them all, rather than the propagandists with english degrees
Good find, Robin. Clearly an ideological litmus test above a simple journalism quiz.
One would normally expect that the correct response would be to read the original article first before doing anyting else. But since the BBC isn’t worthy of respect or trust on this issue, one has to actually wonder what their real opinion is. It’s sad, but that’s how much damage they’ve done to their own reputation.
Where it says “Please select your 1st task”, and then the list of options, is the applicant supposed to number them there, or is this list given several more times with the instructions to check off the 2nd task, 3rd, and so on? The way this extrat reads begs the question of how many “tasks” the applicant is supposed to put in order of priority.
They promote their prejudice at every opportunity – you only have to see the standard of the interviewees when invited on programmes in which AGW topics are discussed. They make damned sure that nobody is going to spring awkward questions (or answers to questions) of the resident (or invited) warmist-monger or cast any doubt on the AGW “fact of life” meme. So I suppose it stands to reason that they’re unlikely to accept AGW agnostic/atheist applicants into the camp without seriously vetting their prejudices first. You only have to look at the influx of lefties into positions of management or “leadership” to see which side the BBC bread is buttered. They’re going for broke…
Robin, based on BBC output i’ve no doubt this question has the purpose you say, but there’s nothing wrong in the question itself.
We might not be seeing the whole thing. It’s hard to tell from the extract. It says “select your 1st task” from the list, but then what? Is the applicant supposed to put numbers next to the choices or tick one box out of the whole list for 1st, then the same list is presented again for the 2nd choice, box to be ticked, and so on? It makes a difference in how we judge this, I think.
Aside from that, this same test of journalistic priorities could very easily have been done with any number of issues, without the obvious suggestive language.
Shukman was on the BBC news trying to work the Japan Tsunami into a man-made global warming story. He claimed Islands like Tuvalu were ‘more in danger than ever due to rising sea levels’.
According to google:
“The satellite record shows sea level has actually fallen four inches around Tuvalu since 1993. Modern instruments recording tide gauge data since 1978 shows ups and downs of many inches over periods of years. For example, the strong El Nino of 1997-98 caused the sea level surrounding Tuvalu to drop one foot. The El Nino Southern Oscillation is a natural cycle causing significant sea level rises and falls every few years in step with the co-oscillations of the ocean and atmosphere. The overall trend from the tide gauge data, according to Wolfgang Scherer, Director of Australia’s National Tidal Facility, remains flat. Finally, there is the new estimate by scientists at the Centre Nationale d¹Etudes Spatiales who also find that between 1955 and 1996 the sea level surrounding Tuvalu dropped four inches.”
It says: “Read the original article.”
It says nothing about understanding it!
( )Contact the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to secure an invite to their next session in Abu Dhabi
That’s the question that *really* indicates whether the candidate is ‘one of us’ or not. Tick it and you’re in; and on the plane to Abu Dhabi. Racked with guilt (of course) but on the plane nevertheless.
Vile people. Vile organisation.
No, I think its a trick question. Instinctively one assumes that making coffee for the presenters should be the last priority, but I think the IPCC boondongle is actually what they’d like to be the last option.
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623
Guessing some may struggle to get past security let alone saver a cup of Joe, whilst chipping in.
A truly awesome piece by David Bellamy. One would imagine not the type of article the BBC had in mind when composing this question.
Perhaps another criteria to have put in the question was; () Delete David Bellamy’s voicemail message on the topic.
Pretty high up there, I’d have thought.
If you don’t make it to the graduate producer scheme, the Beeb have a journalist trainee scheme
One of the requirements is that you are:
to be able to report the news fairly, accurately and without bias
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/about-us/journalism-trainees/journalism-trainees-requirements.shtml
Duh! Who’d a thunk it! It must be those impartial genes kicking in.
What happens thereafter is another matter, of course, once you are “one of us”.
‘…be able to report the news fairly, accurately and without bias ‘
As opposed to.. ‘unfairly, inaccurately and with as much bias as can be crammed in’?
Interesting that it is felt that saying stuff means it can’t, or won’t happen.
Guys i imagine the same thing happens with the issue of evolution, ie u won’t get anywhere on the BBC unless u subscribe to this unproven and unscientific theory
Clueless.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/12/nuclear-energy-insid.html
‘As I write this, it’s still not clear how bad, or how big, the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant will be. I don’t know enough to speculate on that. I’m not sure anyone does.’
Appreciating the tastelessness of making a point based on a tragedy, I can only hope that actually graduated researchers might manage better briefs than reports I am seeing issued are suggesting thus far.
One has to wonder what the pool of resources is to ‘come to a view’ in certian quarters.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/03/climate-change-earthquakes-tsunamis-alarmism.php