NO NUKES IS NO POWER

Did you see that BBC climate change activist Richard Black has concluded that there is little demand for  nuclear energy?

“There is little public appetite across the world for building new nuclear reactors, a poll for the BBC indicates. In countries with nuclear programmes, people are significantly more opposed than they were in 2005, with only the UK and US bucking the trend. Most believe that boosting efficiency and renewables can meet their needs. Just 22% agreed that “nuclear power is relatively safe and an important source of electricity, and we should build more nuclear power plants”.”

It’s interesting to see the BBC take such an active interest in this and I am sure the fact that the poll results facilitate the eco-wacko agenda is purely coincidental.

SHAPPS WITH ICE

Anyone listen to this encounter between John “I like to interrupt” Humphyrs and Conservative Minister Grant Shapps? The hostility shown towards Shapps is really visceral but I was glad that he did not take it all lying down and fought back against the smearing that Today excels at doing. The “social housing” riff is simply a narrative that allows Today to attack the Coalition and employ the talking points Labour provides them.

CHURN FRENZY

Katabasis has been doing some excellent genuine research about BBC journalism. Using the churnalism search engine – which correlates journalistic content on the MSM to press releases – he has found that, despite the £1bn a year it costs to keep BBC news in business, the boys and girls at the corporation are a tad lazy when it comes to originaility. Put bluntly, they are dab hands at cut and paste jobbies. Not only that, they do it twice as much as any other media outlet. And surprise, surprise, they just love using material from prime eco fascist sources. Katabasis notes:

– 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%.

Put another way, the BBC is the world leader in recycling press releases from the most climate alarmist arm of government, because that’s what the EA is. Of course, it’s run by that Blairite, nice Baron Smith of Finsbury, so in the BBC mindset, what’s on offer must be true. The good baron’s framework of eco fascism, which the BBC so slavishly follows, is here.

The latest Climategate emails map out the inecestuous relationships that BBC correspondents have with the climate change “academics” who laid the foundations of and are perpetuating the climate change frenzy. The research by Katabasis shows brilliantly that, without doubt, BBC journalists are straining their sinews to peddle indiscriminately their wares. They don’t give a stuff about its veracity: all that matters is the alarmism.

BBC ATTACK DOGS


This former BBC man, Alex Kirby – whom I have fingered before as being linked indirectly also to the UN and Television Trust for the Environment propaganda machines – is emerging as one of the shadowy stars of the Climategate 2 emails. Mr Kirby, who, as can be seen for example here, is a long-standing strident alarmist, has for 20 years been one of the corporation’s main disseminators of climate change propaganda. This is what he told the PANOS institute:

I have a very short memory span, and every time I have to write something about climate change I have to look up the latest statements from the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) or the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) or whoever it is.

So that’s it, then, objective climate reporting, BBC style.

So what’s new? It emerges loud and clear from the Climategate 2 emails that Mr Kirby was close, very close (as was Roger Harrabin, of course) with Phil Jones and his henchmen at the University of East Anglia. So nice and cosy was the relationship that in 2004, Mr Kirby wrote to Phil Jones (email 4894) in the build up to COP-10:

Yes, glad you stopped this — I was sent it too, and decided to spike it without more ado as pure stream-of-consciousness rubbish. I can well understand your unhappiness at our running the other piece. But we are constantly being savaged by the loonies for not giving them any coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them say something. I hope though that the weight of our coverage makes it clear that we think they are talking through their hats.

So to the BBC, sceptics were loonies way back then. In 4655, Mr Kirby is again discussed, this time in an email to UEA climate fanatic Mike Hulme. He is recommended as the chairman of a forthcoming conference to warn of the perils of climate change. The same email also notes a discussion with Roger Harrabin about “strategy”, so Mr Kirby and Harrabin were clearly both regarded as safe and trusted pairs of hands involved in peddling the right messages.

Then in 0794, Mr Kirby is in the frame again, this time in an exchange between Mr Jones and Michael “hockey stick” Mann. It’s clear here that Phil Jones regards him so highly that he should be the first point of contact about complaints that the BBC output has not been strident enough about climate change.

This adds up to unambiguous further evidence (if any were needed) that the BBC was firmly in bed with climate hype from the very beginning. Phil Jones & Co clearly regarded Harrabin, Kirby and Black as the attack dogs of propaganda who would easily and unwaveringly do their bidding.

(Note: I haven’t linked directly to the latest Climategate emails, they can be viewed via this link)

Twitter Me This

Ranting about biased Beeboid tweets has become something of a favorite past time around here recently, and deservedly so.  DB’s trap shooting in particular has provided some real gems, and several other people have brought biased tweets to our attention. The problem, though, is that, with one exception, ultimately the BBC employees revealing their bias remain unaccountable, unaffected by any controversy, and the biased behavior continues unabated.  They have no problem openly laughing at us.

We know that the official BBC guidelines abjure openly biased utterances on social media.  The catch phrase is “Don’t do anything stupid”.  They make a distinction between “official” Twitter accounts and personal ones.  Only the “official” ones (NB: pdf file), which require the approval of management and are allegedly monitored by a senior editor, are required to follow BBC guidelines of impartiality.  If we take a broad constructionist interpretation, this means that anything which is not strictly prohibited in the text would be permitted.  Thus, all those personal accounts can use the “opinions my own” disclaimer as a get-out-of-bias-free card, even though they openly state their positions at the BBC.  It’s pretty obvious that there’s a massive grey area here, and I seriously doubt that BBC management has spent much time trying to draw a line between them.

I have my doubts because we know from Mark Mardell’s appearance at the BBC College of Journalism that they accept that their use of Twitter “doesn’t follow BBC guidelines” (@36:45).   I don’t know how much more proof we need.

The reason I bring this up is because there’s been a highly relevant incident recently at the Washington Post.

Jennifer Rubin, the lone non-Left voice at the paper (she’s a blogger and not even a reporter or editor), recently retweeted a blog post by “Bad Rachel” about the release of Gilad Shalit, which was full of rather unfortunate anti-Palestinian vitriol.  There was naturally a backlash, and Patrick Pexton, the WaPo ombudsman, chose to publicly chastise Rubin for it.  He admits that he always gets a load of complaints that the paper even allows a conservative voice in its pages, which is pretty funny.  But what he said was instructive. Remember, this is about a mere retweet, and not somebody telling George Osborne to f@#$ off or calling for support for Occupy Wall Street:

But how responsible is Rubin for it? She didn’t write it. It did not appear anywhere in The Washington Post — online or in print. It appeared on Abrams’s independent “Bad Rachel” blog, and then Abrams broadcast it on Twitter.


Some readers suggested that because an employee retweeted this link, The Post somehow condones genocide against Palestinians. That’s nonsense. The Post’s journalism and its editorials show a deep commitment to human rights around the globe, from Russia to China, to North Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and beyond.


It’s also worth noting that the rules of objectivity that apply to editors, reporters and bloggers in The Post newsroom do not apply to Post opinion bloggers and columnists. Post opinion writers are given greater leeway to say what they want. That’s how it should be. If the opinion section were too politically correct, it’d be dull.

So we see here a distinction between columnists and opinion bloggers.  But is the BBC’s distinction between “official” Twitter accounts and the rest of them equally valid?  I would say not, as people like Matt Danzico and Mark Sandell and Jane Bradley are not opinion bloggers or op-ed writers for the BBC.  Yet they reveal their bias and, in the case of Bradley, seem to be proud of it.

The Washington Post ombudsman then lays out the official guidelines:

Social-media accounts maintained by Washington Post journalists — whether on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or elsewhere — reflect upon the reputation and credibility of The Washington Post’s newsroom. Even as we express ourselves in more personal and informal ways to forge better connections with our readers, we must be ever mindful of preserving the reputation of The Washington Post for journalistic excellence, fairness and independence.

He again points out that writers hired specifically for their personal opinions are not included in the “journalistic excellence and fairness” bit, but that their public behavior reflects on the credibility of the WaPo nevertheless.

With this example in mind, one has to ask if the BBC should similarly be concerned about how the constant stream of biased tweets from Beeboids from a number of different departments and job levels reflects on their credibility.  Does the “opinions my own” disclaimer really excuse all of it?  Does the Washington Post – a paper so biased that the previous ombudsman apologized for their pro-Obamessiah bias during the 2008 election, and the publisher had to apologize for trying to organize dinner parties at her own home to provide personal access to Administration officials – have more integrity than the BBC?  Unless they rein in this partisan behavior, I would have to say yes.

If nothing else, the sheer volume of biased utterances from the Left and the fact that there has yet to be a single example of a Beeboid tweet from the Right shows that the BBC is full of Leftoids, and the groupthink is endemic. Intellectual diversity at the BBC seems to be practically non-existent, and their public behavior with social media proves it.

Question Time LiveBlog 24th November 2011


Question Time tonight comes from Bath in Somerset.

David Dimbleby is joined by the splendid Daniel Hannan MEP, Chris Huhne (who may or may not be driving there; the CPS can’t decide), a person called Liz Kendall who is apparently Shadow Minister for Old People, the Sainsbury’s CEO Justin King and notorious self-publicist and Wikipedia front-man Jimmy Wales.

It’s a 10:30pm kick off. You know where to be. And how much alcohol to bring.

SOME BROWNS MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS?

When the BBC areputting excess pay under the microscope will they consider all such examples ofexcess….or just politically convenient one? Only joking…

Via Guido Fawkes:

Some easy money for Gordon Brown….an hours speech and its champagne on thefirst class flight home…..
 •£48,166.00 for a speech to Visa International.
•£36,639.66 for a speech to Credit Suisse in Miami, Florida.
•£36,018.18 for a speech to Comtec Med in Geneva, Switzerland.
•£35,873.94 for a speech to World 50, Inc in New York.
•£36,174.63 for a speech to PIMCO in Newport Beach, California.
•£36,174.63 for a speech to Economic Club of Michigan.
•£36,146.29 for a speech to Skybridge Capital in Las Vegas.
•£36,292.84 for a speech to Citi Latin America in New York.
•£36,224.88 for a speech to Pershing LLC in Miami.

Compare these other ‘Brown’s’ in parliament and their financial interests andbenefits:

BROWN, Rt Hon Nicholas (Newcastle Upon Tyne East)
Nil.
 BROWN, Lyn (West Ham)
8. Land and Property
One quarter share in a holiday cottage in Ambleside, Cumbria.

with that of:
 BROWN, Rt. Hon. Gordon (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/111031/brown_rt-hon-gordon.htm

Gordon Brown has made over one million pounds this year in declared earningsand benefits…..to his company….
‘Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown Ltd; company set up to provide administrativesupport for Mr and Mrs Brown in their ongoing activities.’

He states ‘I am not receiving any money from this engagement personally. It isbeing held by the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown for the employment of staffto support my ongoing involvement in public life.’
 Does his ‘staff’ include himself and his wife? Just what company director’s paydo they take out of the company? A question you may or may not hear on the Toady programme soon….meant the’Today’ programme but seems a suitable moniker.

Interesting that the Director of Public Prosecutions says he is investigatingwhether to prosecute bankers….why not politicians who deliberately abusetheir position for personal or party advantage.

BECAUSE HE’S WORTH IT?


Biased BBC reader Alan picks up on this post by Steve Barclay as to whether a BBC manager could be paid £1 million pounds! Recession? What recession?

John Smith, Chief Executive of BBC Worldwide.

Mr Thompson was explicit in saying that no BBC manager is paid over a million pounds in total remuneration. He denied explicitly that Mr Smith was paid anywhere near the million pounds figure, saying “no that is not correct”.

Below are enclosed pages from the BBC Annual Review 2010/11 for BBC Worldwide which suggest that total remuneration may well be around the one million pounds mark

The BBC Worldwide 2010/11 Annual Review states that Mr Smith was paid a base salary of £440,000, together with £276,000 under the annual bonus scheme (he took half i.e. £138,000 this year and deferred the other half until 2014, with the potential if he meets performance targets of receiving an extra 25% on top of the deferred £138,000 taking it up to £173,000). He also collected £134,000 this year from a deferred bonus from earlier years.

In addition to his base salary and annual bonus, Mr Smith received £172,000 this year from a profit sharing plan. He also had £14,000 in taxable benefits, possibly the company car and private medical insurance for which he is entitled under his contract. This suggests a total income this year paid to him by the BBC of £898,000. Indeed that is the figure the BBC themselves put in their 2010/11 Annual Review.

Mr Smith is also allowed, during office hours it appears, to act as a non executive director of Burberry plc for which he earns a further £65,000. I do not know if he donates this to charity, but the enclosed annual review says executives are entitled to keep the income from one non executive director so this may further top up his earnings.

On top of this income, Mr Smith also receives payments into his BBC pension. The fund is currently valued at £3.3 million (Mr Smith is 52 years old and has worked for the BBC for over 20 years). It is unclear how much has been paid into the pension this year by the BBC, but the pension fund value has increased by £69,000. The BBC could have paid more or less than this into his pension, as this figure will be shaped by the the underlying performance of the pension fund impacting overall value.

So taking his total take home pay this year of £898,000, the difference between the annual bonus he drew this year and the amount deferred to 2014 (£39,000) albeit subject to future performance, his earnings from Burberry of £65,000 which he may keep, and the pension contribution roughly estimated at £69,000, Mr Smith as a BBC lifelong employee might well be earning over or close to one million pounds whilst holding a £3.3 million pension pot. Whatever the total amount, it is vastly different to the amount paid to BBC local radio staff.

CLIMATEGATE 2

Understandably there’s a great deal of discussion about Climategate 2 in the comments. I’m sure Robin will be along to give us his take but in the meantime here’s a thread dedicated to the subject. There’s a searchable database here (those with time might like to start sifting through the results for “BBC“).