courtesy of Youtube, here are excerpts from last night’s BBC Ten O’Clock News and Sky News at Ten programmes, their respective headlines and their coverage of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Al Gore and the UN climate change panel:

Unfortunately I don’t have time just now to transcribe both sets of headlines and reports and write up a comparison – leaving an opportunity for a spot of DIY, and perhaps collaborative, comparing and contrasting in the comments. Have fun.

(see quote in our sidebar), is interviewed by Vincent Graff, ‘You want me to slag Murdoch off’, in the MediaGuardian:

Now, a couple of years after leaving the BBC newsroom for a return to newspapers – although he still presents the 5 Live show – does Randall think much has changed? It will not surprise many of his former colleagues that he views the corporation with much the same contempt as when he joined it.

“I think there’s a streak of hypocrisy at the BBC. I said it when I was there: its definition of impartiality or the middle ground is not how many of us see it. That’s why I’m contemptuous.

“There is a liberal consensus. The BBC denies this but Andy Marr – who most people think is part of that liberal consensus – came out and said it. So it’s not just right-of centre people. When you’re there, you can feel it, you can smell it, you can almost touch it.”

So what does the BBC, which recently scrapped a planned climate change special and claims to have no political opinions, believe in? Randall offers up three examples: that increased state spending is generally good; that there is little or no difference between being anti-immigration and being a racist; and that the death penalty is “appalling”.

He goes over to his files to find a print-out of an email he received from a “very senior BBC person” while he was an employee there. Carefully obscuring the name of the sender, he shows it to me: “The BBC internally is not neutral about multiculturalism. It believes in it and promotes diversity, let’s face up to that.”

Randall says: “I’m amazed he put that down. What happened next was the BBC ran into a horrible brick wall when Trevor Phillips, the Chief Rabbi and then George Alagiah, its own British-Asian reporter, came out and said actually this headlong dash for multiculturalism is creating a divided society.

“But there are a lot of people out there who are not mad, who are not bad – decent people who think that the death penalty should be brought back, are deeply worried about immigration and think that the money that’s been poured into health and education over the last 10 years has largely been wasted. They are all reasonable positions but inside the BBC they would all be seen as way out there.”

The rest is well worth reading too.

Thank you to reader The Admiral for the link.

, following his recent outspokenness against the BBC’s work on a planned day of Planet Relief propagandagrammes (see below), writes on the BBC Editors Blog that the BBC has No line on climate change:

BBC News certainly does not have a line on climate change, however the weight of our coverage reflects the fact that there is an increasingly strong (although not overwhelming) weight of scientific opinion in favour of the proposition that climate change is happening and is being largely caused by man.

Well Peter, that’s a big ‘and’ that you’ve slipped in at the end there, and is, I’d venture, one of the central points of contention in the climate change debate – i.e. the extent to which climate change is caused by man vs. other influences on the earth’s atmosphere – an area that, so far, the BBC doesn’t seem terribly keen to explore thoroughly.

Further to this, supposing that we accept that climate change is largely caused by human activity, the other significant area of debate that the BBC as a whole doesn’t explore adequately is the question of what to do about it.

The BBC ‘line’, if you’ll indulge me with such a notion, seems to be all about reducing carbon output (unilaterally) in the UK and the developed world, primarily through curtailing flying and private car use, whilst ignoring what’s happening elsewhere on the planet (for example, the 500 new fossil fuel power stations planned and under construction in China).

Moreover, the BBC ‘line’ seems, at best, to ignore reliable carbon-free nuclear power generation (though expensive, unsightly, unreliable windmills and suchlike get a big BBC thumbs up) and other technological solutions, such as hydrogen powered vehicles and carbon-sequestration techniques.

BBC news programmes and our website of course reflect alternative views but we do not balance these views mathematically as that is not our judgement about where the argument has now reached.

It is highly debatable just how well BBC news programmes and BBC Views Online do reflect alternative views. Alternative views, to use your term, get the occasional passing reference on minority interest programmes such as Newsnight or a brief mention on News 24 from occasional guests such as Nigel Calder, but in the main, these views might as well not exist at the BBC for the minimal airtime they receive.

BBC Views Online in particular rushes to report man-made climate change news prominently, whilst slowly, ever so minimally, if at all, reporting news to the contrary, hence we have people such as Dr. David Whitehouse, a former BBC science correspondent (and believer in man-made climate change), warning: “look on the BBC and Al Gore with scepticism. A scientist’s first allegiance should not be to computer models or political spin but to the data: that shows the science is not settled”.

For many years the BBC has treated EU-sceptics (euro-sceptics as you term them) as if they were deranged flat-earthers braying at the moon (rather than a large portion of the UK population). Those with alternative views on the twin issues of 1) the causes of climate change; and 2) what to do about climate change, seem to be even less well regarded at the BBC.

That is definitely not the same as us propagating a view ourselves about climate change.

Uh-huh. I think we could argue about that too.

It’s not our job to do that.

Indeed. And that’s why this site is here, free-of-charge, unlike the BBC.

In the Edinburgh session the possibility of the BBC doing a “consciousness-raising” event about the subject, possibly called Planet Relief, was raised.

There has been no decision yet about whether there might be such an event, nor what its editorial purpose might be. However it is clear that all BBC programming about climate change – whether about the science itself or the potential policy response by governments – needs to meet the BBC’s standards of impartiality.

Sounds like a spot of back-pedalling Peter. According to The Grauniad there’s been eighteen months worth of development work already. Have they got you on the rack now that they’ve you back from the freedom of Edinburgh?

I was pleased that you and Peter Barron both spoke out against this latest nonsense that the BBC has been quietly planning to inflict on our unwitting nation, but I cannot help but feel that your concern has more to do with protecting the BBC from itself than from genuinely seeking to return the BBC to a state of impartiality on the causes of climate change and the steps we should take in response.

In closing, let’s have the last word on the BBC ‘line’ on man-made climate change straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak:

“People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago”,

Jeremy Paxman, Media Guardian, Jan 31st, 2007.

Update, 6pm: Come on Peter, I submitted my own very reasonable comment on your BBC blog post around 12.15pm (you know, the one with the Paxman quote and a link back to the discussion here), and yet it seems to have been skipped over for some reason in favour of apparently later comments. What gives? Have I caused offense? Please feel free to comment here on my blog post if you prefer. Thank you.

Update, midnight: I’ve just checked again and, as if by magic, my comment has appeared in the right place, bumping the previous no. 57 up to no. 58. Thank you Peter. Much obliged.

on a day long series of programmes under the working title of Planet Relief, a ghastly sounding load of right-on eco-fascist claptrap propaganda, presented by well known and respected scientific investigators Ricky Gervais and Jonathan ‘a bargain at £18 million’ Woss (“is ‘e ‘avin a laff?”, as Gervais might ask). The Guardian’s piece sums it up best:

Two of the BBC’s most senior news and current affairs executives attacked the corporation’s plans yesterday for a Comic Relief-style day of programming on environmental issues, saying it was not the broadcaster’s job to preach to viewers.

The event, understood to have been 18 months in development, would see stars such as Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross take part in a “consciousness raising” event, provisionally titled Planet Relief, early next year.

But, speaking at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival yesterday, Newsnight’s editor, Peter Barron, and the BBC’s head of television news, Peter Horrocks, attacked the plan, which also seems to contradict the corporation’s guidelines. Asked whether the BBC should campaign on issues such as climate change, Mr Horrocks said: “I absolutely don’t think we should do that because it’s not impartial. It’s not our job to lead people and proselytise about it.” Mr Barron said: “It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet. I think there are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped.”

The rest of the Guardian’s piece is worth reading too. The interesting things about this from a Biased BBC point of view are:

a) that they have been working (and presumably spending tellytax cash) on this for 18 months – even though it sounds like such a partial mad-cap non-starter (or are they really so arrogant as to think they could get away with it?);

b) that the likes of Peter Horrocks and Peter Barron feel the need to speak out in public about it to, presumably, stop the BBC from inflicting yet another huge own goal in terms of their claims to be impartial and unbiased.

P.S. Apologies for my lack of posts since Saturday. I’ve been laid low by a nasty little viral infection, but am beginning to feel a bit better.

has written an article, How the BBC disgraced my mother, published in the Daily Mail, beginning:

When it comes to separating fact from fiction, the dear old Beeb seems to have been making a bit of a hash of things recently.

There have been a whole string of exposures about faked competition winners, dubious reporting and manipulatively edited documentaries.

Before moving on to her main point:

So serious is the issue that BBC bosses are now sending their staff on training courses to teach them how to be more honest. That’s a sorry sign of the times. I hope members of the BBC drama department and some of its large army of commissioning editors will also be receiving this kind of instruction.

For here, too, the Corporation has been twisting the truth to suit an agenda. A new film about my mother’s early life has just been commissioned by the BBC. Produced by a company called Great Meadow, this drama – entitled The Long Walk To Finchley – has one crucial passage.

Set in the early 1950s, when she was looking for a Conservative seat in Parliament, my mother is shown in a foul-mouthed tirade against the party’s top brass.

“F**king Establishment!” she rails, after being turned down as a candidate in one constituency.

This fictionalised incident would be laughable were it not so offensive. I have never been against satire directed at my mother. I enjoyed, for instance, the musical Billy Elliot, which contained a diatribe against her.

But this BBC screenplay shows a warped view of history. Neither the writer nor the production company seems to have the slightest understanding of my mother’s character and of the moral climate of the early Fifties.

Carol concludes with this, which applies in so many ways to so many of the attitudes and priorities on display in the BBC’s news and current affairs output:

This world has always dripped with unthinking snobbery and scorn towards her because she dared to challenge their knee-jerk ideology and their addiction to taxpayers’ subsidies. Their endless mocking was their attempt at revenge. And this snide film is just the latest example.

Do read the rest.

Update: According to Andrew Pierce in the Telegraph: BBC orders F-word cut from Thatcher drama. Jane Tranter, the controller of fiction at the BBC, told The Daily Telegraph:

The film is a positive portrait, not negative. It makes clear right from the start that Margaret Thatcher, a trained barrister, chemist and mother of twins, is a phenomenon.

Believe it when you see it!

Thank you to Biased BBC reader Sara for the Daily Mail link.

(now being rebranded as ‘climate change’ it seems), Gmail’s keyword advertising suggested this website, The Great Global Warming Swindle, promoting a DVD of:

…an expanded and improved version of the film [of the same name] broadcast in the UK on Channel 4. More interview material has been added, covering a broader range of subjects than was possible in the broadcast film.

The producers note:

It would be nice to claim that the explosion of interest was due to the film itself, but the fuss started even before the film was broadcast. The reason, we suspect, is that the coverage of ‘global warming’, on TV, radio and in the press, has been so one-sided and uncritical. In Britain, hours and hours of programmes have been broadcast by the BBC on the subject, much of it scientifically absurd. The very fact that a science documentary dared to challenge the orthodoxy was itself news.

Why? Why have journalists been so craven or biased? How has a theory which demonstrably lacks really solid supporting evidence become an indisputable fact? What of the impressive, much talked about scientific ‘consensus’ which is used to forestall any awkward questions about the evidence?

The film made a humble stab at suggesting some possible answers, but there was limited space for these bigger questions. The whole global warming alarm, we believe, raises serious issues about the way science functions in the real world, about the political bias of scientists, about censorship within the scientific community itself, about the routine practice of scientists drawing false or inflated conclusions from ambiguous or uncertain data, about the manifest failure of the peer review process, about the extraordinary unwillingness of scientists who have invested time and reputation in a particular theory to consider evidence which directly contradicts it, about the elevation of speculation (models) to the level of solid data, and much else besides.

(emphasis added).

The site is fairly minimalist just now, but contains some interesting material. The site, and the expanded version of the film, will be worth keeping an eye on – especially for all you Beeboids out there needing a demonstration of how to produce inquiring and challenging documentaries, rather than your current one-sided propaganda, described by Jeremy Paxman as having “abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago” (see side bar).

Rod Liddle’s column in The Sunday Times leads on the BBC:

Cue meltdown at the corporation. A frightened looking man in a suit, Peter Fincham, was wheeled out to apologise for having inadvertently misled the press and was gleefully attacked live on air by his underlings on Newsnight and breakfast news and repeatedly told to resign. And Jana Bennett, the BBC’s director of vision – whatever the hell that means – let the genie out of the bottle by calling for producers to inform her of any other programmes that may somehow have misled the public. Oh dear…

Ten years ago it looked as if the royal family was on its way out; an unloved anachronism. Today which publicly funded institution looks more confident and secure: the monarchy or the BBC?

Read the whole thing, including Liddle’s delicious boot in the nuts delivered in passing to that twit Keith Best, who would do well to slink off and get a real job out of the public eye.

Meanwhile, apropos of the fisking we did waaay back on Wednesday of Beeboid Richard Black’s pathetic article, ‘No sun link’ to climate change, toeing the BBC line on climate change, the Sunday Telegraph has former BBC science correspondent, Dr. David Whitehouse, responding with The truth is, we can’t ignore the sun, where he lays into the same sloppy BBC article, their one-sided approach to reporting climate science and the Royal Society paper on which the BBC article was based. He concludes:

My own view on the theory that greenhouse gases are driving climate change is that it is a good working hypothesis – but, because I have studied the sun, I am not completely convinced.

The sun is by far the single most powerful driving force on our climate, and the fact is we do not understand how it affects us as much as some think we do.

So look on the BBC and Al Gore with scepticism. A scientist’s first allegiance should not be to computer models or political spin but to the data: that shows the science is not settled.

If only the BBC still had reporters like David Whitehouse, inquiring and inquisitive, free from toeing the BBC’s long accepted line on the subject.

in the world at the moment is ‘No sun link’ to climate change – a journalistic cut and paste job by a Richard Black of a new study by Mike Lockwood and Claus Froehlich published in the Royal Society’s journal ‘Proceedings A’.

Black’s article is even more partial and one-sided than is admitted in the Jeremy Paxman quote here in our sidebar. He writes, for instance:

“This should settle the debate,” said Mike Lockwood from the UK’s Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, who carried out the new analysis together with Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland.

It would have been more honest to put Lockwood’s quote after the bit about who he is – given that he’s one of the authors of the new study he’s really rather likely to feel that “this should settle the debate” isn’t he!

Black continues with:

Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain’s Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis.

Ah yes, another one of those Channel 4 documentaries that it is beyond the capability of the tellytax-funded BBC to produce.

“All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that,” he told the BBC News website.

“You can’t just ignore bits of data that you don’t like,” he said.

Followed some way down with:

Mike Lockwood’s analysis appears to have put a large, probably fatal nail in this intriguing and elegant hypothesis.

– which looks to me like it’s Black’s own opinion on this debate. I wonder what his qualifications are.

Having let Lockwood make his accusations about the scientists behind the cosmic ray hypothesis, you might expect Black to let them respond to this slur on their work before rushing to publish his article, but wait, what do we find tucked away at the bottom:

Drs Svensmark and Friis-Christensen could not be reached for comment.

And how hard did you try Mr. Black? Couldn’t you have waited a little longer until one or other of them were available? If they are unavailable for a longer period, why don’t you tell us that? If Svensmark and Friis-Christensen do review Lockwood’s study and come up with counter arguments in response, will you write them up so eagerly and have them published so prominently on BBC Views Online? Call me cynical, but I doubt it.

P.S. It was refreshing to see Nigel Calder (former editor of New Scientist and father of travel writer Simon Calder), co-author of a book with Henrik Svensmark, The Chilling Stars, on BBC News 24 at the weekend, expressing scepticism, albeit briefly, about the Live Earth concerts that were otherwise filling the BBC News schedules. More please.

Thanks to commenter Will for the link.

We all know the BBC’s corporate view of the Great Satan America, but I think this is going beyond rhetoric.

“Politicians reacted in disbelief to the revelation that for over two hours yesterday, the BBC News website carried a request for people in Iraq to report on troop movements. The request was removed from the website after it sparked furious protests that the corporation was endangering the lives of British servicemen and women.

But according to accounts last night, a story on a major operation by US and Iraqi troops against al-Qa’eda somewhere north of Baghdad contained an extraordinary request for information about the movement of troops. Last night the BBC confirmed the wording of the request was: “Are you in Iraq? Have you seen any troop movements? If you have any information you would like to share with the BBC, you can do so using the form below.”

The BBC confirmed last night that this form of words had appeared on the website from “late morning” until early afternoon.”

The request was more likely to endanger the lives of US and Iraqi forces, being appended to this piece on the Diyala province offensive north of Baghdad.

Thanks to the glories of Revisionista, we can see that the request for troop information was there from revision 3 at 09.30 GMT up to revision 10 at 13.40 GMT – more than four hours.

The squaddies at ARRSE aren’t best pleased.

“Did you realise the BBC are now helping insurgents in northern Iraq with their intel ??”

I do hope if the BBC are going to request this sort of info that all their staff are security cleared. One wouldn’t like to think of such information falling into the wrong hands. Alternatively, could they try a radical new departure and request information on the movements of “militants” and “insurgents” ? And what would they say if Al-Jazeera asked their viewers to report on the movements of BBC staff in Gaza, Iraq or Afghanistan ?

Hat-tips to Max, Heron and David in the comments (via Tim Blair).

UPDATE – I think this is what’s called disingenuous.

“However, yesterday we used the phrase “have you seen any troop movements” in this request for information. The Telegraph and some others wrongly interpreted this as an attempt on our part to seek out military detail.”

What on earth could give that impression ? How could anyone think that asking about troop movements is an attempt to seek out military detail ?

“We phrased it badly, and as soon as we realised what we had done – a couple of hours – we removed the form.”

Four hours and 10 minutes according to Revisionista. Is Vicky Taylor not even capable of putting the corporate hand up honestly over the timing, is Revisionista wrong, or has she been inaccurately briefed ? Alas, I can’t ask her, because I’m banned from commenting – at least that’s how I translate “you are not allowed to comment”.

And off topic, but kudos to Nick Reynolds for his continuing ‘mission to explain’ and David Gregory for his contributions to an interesting discussion on the reporting of climate change in the comments to this post.