Many thanks to Katabasis for pointing out his analysis of churnalism and the Environment Agency. I urge you to read it all, but here are some highlights:
The BBC is by far and away the worst offender for simply repeating whatever the Environment Agency claimed in its press releases.Out of the 393 articles where “significant” churn had taken place, the BBC were responsible for 44%. Likewise for the 49 articles that had “major” churn (meaning in most cases they were almost complete cut and pastes of the press releases), the BBC was responsible for 30.6%.
“Glaciergate should not distract us from climate battle”
Here the chairman of the Environment Agency is asked to write a piece for the BBC. It repeats exactly the majority of a press release issued by the Environment Agency two months beforehand claiming to quote the chairman by declaring what he is going to say at a forthcoming event. Yes I had trouble getting my head around that too.
“Flood defence project gets small seal of approval”
An absolutely stunning 94% paste job by the BBC. Even the churnalism engine struggles to represent it visually – make sure you click through to the BBC article itself. You can see from eyeballing it and comparing it to the submitted press release that it is a straight cut and paste.
[UPDATE – the Churnalism.com website Katabasis uses for his analysis can get a bit precious if you open too many tabs/windows. I suggest following one link at a time, closing it, then going on to the next one to avoid crashes.]
‘Newsnight’ tonight:
“Plus our Science editor Susan Watts will bring us up to speed on the online release of a new batch of emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2011/11/tuesday_22_november_2011.html
Interesting…
Oh, hang on. I thought Dr Gregory might have been expressing an interest in this stuff about churnalism but, if the reponse from his friend at Radio Shropshire Jim Hawkins is anything to go by, it’s just some BBC in-joke. Ha ha – churnalism, it’s what we do LOL!
Just confirms that Gregory like all his BBC chums feel safe in their jobs (for now) – I wonder how long Gregory would last if he had to get a proper job?
The guy is shown evidence that some BBC is 94% cut and paste and he thinks it’s funny? Is he brain-dead or just a dick?
Roger Black was very quick to churn the Uni of East Anglia’s statement into his report on ClimateGate 2. And he obviously printed the defensive statement “Big Oil” by Michael Mann.
But oddly he has not found time in the many hours since the story broke to include any of the quotations from the many disgraceful emails. I wonder why ?
I have just posted the following at HotAir – it never does any harm to remind our friends in the US to beware BBC bias :
”
The BBC story is by Richard Black – he is so far up the Hockey Team’s backside that he even looks like Michael Mann.
Please note that Black’s story prints the defence by the Uni of East Anglia in full – but fails to include a single quote from the new batch of emails.
So – there is more actual “news” here in the HotAir posting and among the comments than we in the UK get from the compulsory tax we pay to the BBC.
Incidentally – it has just been revealed that another of the BBC’s “environment” hacks – none of them has any scientific qualification – received £15,000 in fees from the ClimateGate crowd at the Uni. of East Anglia.
You think your US mainstream media are biased ? The BBC is as extreme left as MSNBC and really dominates the UK news scene.”
Thanks for the post DB!
The fix is in. There was no mention (that I heard) on Today this morning nor in the 8:00 News about the new release of UEA emails. Also Louise Gray (Queen of the Press Release), fresh from her trip on the maiden voyage of the new Greenpeace luxury yacht http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/8896024/Greenpeaces-warrior-spirit-cannot-be-crushed.html , dismissed the emails as “stolen” and churned a raft of quotes from warmist spokesmen http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8907756/Climategate-2-More-UEA-hacked-emails.html . I suspect her anathema was written/issued before she had time to read any of the emails.
I think we can take it that the party line from the BBC and the other enablers of corrupt science is that the new info should be ignored (the optimum policy), downplayed or demonised as “stolen” (rather than “leaked”) and thus damned accordingly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15839903
Co-op shale gas report questions carbon footprint cost
Today’s date 23.11.11.
Compare with:
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/uk-shale-gas-report-lacks-scientific-evidence/1006922.article
Date: 25 January 2011
The report COMMISSIONED by the Cooperative and CONDUCTED by the Tyndall Centre critical of shale gas is not news. It is old hat.
“Manchester, UK – Researchers at the Tyndall Centre at the University of Manchester claim to have demonstrated how the extraction of shale gas risks seriously contaminating ground and surface waters – without providing any scientific evidence to back their claim.” says the Engineer.
Environmentalist churnalism! (and partial)
And apart from the Tyndall Centre (and no link to the Coop report which it headlines) and the BGS, the BBC links to this outfit.
http://frack-off.org.uk/
Hopelessly lost in political pressure group greenery.
Apparently this latest report “updates” their January work.
Your wish is my command. I’ve just given ‘Frack Off’ the “spider-churn” treatment:
http://i-squared.blogspot.com/2011/11/churnalism-churning-frack-off.html
The BBC mods are in a funk over this.
Their last bastion of watertight oversight, ‘off topic’, has been snookered by post authors actaully raising it.
Yet still they are trying to obliterate fair comment, even citing BBC URLs, with referalls doubtless imposed until things have blown over.
RGH
I look forward to David Gregory’s response to this instance of obvious bias both in the choice of item to publicise and the spin on the Cooperative propagannda. This is as good an example of churnalism as any that Katabasis dug up. Oh yes, look also at the “related stories” on the quoted BBC page – all “panic panic” propaganda concerning fracking. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was an agenda here 🙂 .
I bet David Gregory will back away from making any substantive comments on the strong criticisms of Richard Black’s “churnalism” made here over the past day. Mr Gregory will not comment on why Black deliberately avoided reporting ANY of the specific emails that have been released. He accepts that the new batch of emails is genuine – but refuses to print any of them.
I regard that as defensive propaganda by Black – not as proper journalism. Black set out to muddy the water – not to report all the salient facts. But as I say – I do not expect Mr Gregory to make any substantive comment – either on Richard Black’s failure to report properly, or on the content of the emails.
But if Mr Gregory as a scientist will not comment on this matter, which directly affects the integrity of science – why does he bother to comment on other issues at this blogsite ?
re: Katabasis’ post – Ah… The Environment Agency loosing a press release? ‘gor blimey. They loose all sorts of paperwork at rather convenient times when it suits them and re-write them and try to pass them off as the original article….
The chaps over at Avoncliff Mill caught them tinkering with dishonest notices on the EA web site(s) about their statutory duties earlier this year.
The water permitting team there have been up to no good – to put it very mildly…
That the EA’s press releases are uncritically churned like this is really adding insult to injury. Dissembling truth manglers and churnalists dominate the public debate? Something’s got to give