The BBC Seminar That Banned Discussion Of Climate Change
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ralfellis
Hardly a week goes by without yet another glaring example of BBC bias, misinformation or just outright lies on climate issues.
Arguably the roots of this lay in a notorious seminar organised by the BBC in 2006. Some of us may remember this, others may not have been aware of it. Either way, it’s worth re-telling the story.
The high level seminar was held on 26th January 2006 for the purpose of deciding how the BBC should cover reporting and discussion of climate change in the future. According to a BBC Trust report (P40) on impartiality the following year:
“The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus”
Ever since this policy has continued to be followed, with the virtual exclusion of anybody not signed up the BBC’s idea of a consensus, no matter how highly qualified they might be.
However, some began to be a little bit suspicious about who these “best scientific experts were”. After all, science should never be about consensus, and proper scientists should always welcome debate.
It was a blogger named Tony Newberry who decided to file a FOI asking for the list of names of those who attended. Little did he know that he would end up in court in 2012, still trying to force the BBC to release the information. With the help of a team of lawyers, the BBC won the case.
But it was a hollow victory, because just days later another blogger, Mauricio Morabito, used his initiative and found the list of attendees anyway with the help of the Wayback Machine.
This is the list he published at the time:
January 26th 2006,
BBC Television Centre, London
Specialists:
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia
BBC attendees:
Jana Bennett, Director of Television
Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science
Helen Boaden, Director of News
Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering
George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs
Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV
John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering
Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs
Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures catriona@tightropepictures.com
Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live
Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit
Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive
Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News
Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend
Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations
Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News
Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes
Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events
,
The army of BBC bosses who attended tells us just how significant the seminar was to them. It clearly was not just a talking shop, but a major milestone in their editorial policy.
But more important was the list of “best scientific experts”.
It included two Greenpeace campaigners, several other environmentalist activists, representatives of business, charities, the Church of England, BP and Npower Renewables, economists, media people and politicians.
As for climate scientists they were very thin on the ground.
There clearly could have been very little, if any, debate on the actual science.
The very real suspicion is that the event was deliberately designed from the very outset to come up with the result that it did– ie that “the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus”
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I note ‘no longer justifies equal space’ . That appears to have been carried forward as ‘no longer justifies any space’. A stitch up by other means.
Meanwhile Sky News and the BBC are trying to knock lumps out of a thriving competitor in GB News forgetting what they admit they all knew about J.Savill and the boy children teasing of Manuel of Faulty Towers.
I wasn’t aware of this, but it explains a lot and flies direct in the face of the BBC Charter.
The Biased Brainwashing Cult, totally ditched even the idea that it should pretend to be impartial, decades ago.
What I find incredible, is that anyone still watches …
Fewer and fewer are watching as the years roll by.
The late Christopher Booker referred to this meeting on several occasions. He had a fine intellect and a nose for finding fraud in the climate debate.. I use the word debate and that hasn’t been accurate but I sense a slow change in the country so maybe it will be accurate some day.
Booker produced a report for the GWPF on the appalling behaviour of the BBC at the time; has anything substantive changed? Here is a link to Booker’s report:-
Click to access booker-bbc.pdf
The three betrayals are described from page 65, but in summary they are:-
1. “The first was the BBC’s betrayal of its statutory obligation to report on the world with ‘impartially’.”
2. “… the second ‘betrayal’ in the BBC’s coverage of the story, the way it betrayed the principles of professional journalism.”
3. “… the third of the three ‘betrayals’ to which I referred at the start, the consistency with which the BBC’s coverage of this story has shown
so little understanding of the basic principles of science.”
Regards,
John.
Booker and Richard North (who was a listed attendee) worked closely together on a number of projects – not least getting at the truth behind Grenfell Tower. I recall having asked North for his recollections at his EUReferendum blog (Brexit was another major Booker/North co-investigation) to find that he was slightly evasive on the topic. He may well pop up and comment – he has made the occasional comment here in recent times.
You are not correct that Richard North was an attendee. He wouldn’t have been allowed within a mile of the meeting. Read the attendee list again
Dr RAE North of the blog EU Referendum and now Turbulent Times is NOT the Richard North from the IEA that attended.
I did wonder!
Paul, your reminder of this historic disgrace by the BBC is very timely and much appreciated. Another important addition to your collection of BBC mistakes and distortions. Talk about come one, come all and bring your own strange preconceptions especially Head of Comedy.
Was there not a further BBC “internal meeting”, circa 2009, with one T.Davie attending, at which it was dcided that the science of climate change was settles antherefore they did not have to provide “balance” with ….or am I dreaming?
I am unaware of any further meeting but there probably would have to have been one to give the excuse to the BBC for not pursuing any sort of balance because the science was settled. All this is reminiscent of Dr Geobbles and Bera with others in the USSR. Amazing who in the establishment is anxious to qualify freedom of speech.
” .. especially Head of Comedy. ”
That does stand out in the list !
I worked as a contractor at the BBC over 20 years ago, Broadcasting House was a bizarre place to work.
I remember it well including Tony Newberry’s part in the saga and Mauricio Morabito’s use of the Wayback Machine to get at the list.
I remember laughing heartily when Mauricio published the list after they had spent years fighting a FOI request. Then I sobered up when I realised that the licence fee-payer had paid the large legal bill. I believe the court ruled that the BBC wasn’t government therefore they couldn’t be forced to reveal the list. Am I remembering that correctly?
It was the end of any respect that I had for the beeb.
Latest advice for our security services. Does it make you feel safer?
“Navy staff are urged to “avoid micro-aggressions like backhanded compliments and unhelpful tips” and to “keep constantly educating and researching about trans matters”.”
Mystical bigots in the UK, US, are the main drivers strengthening communism. Party membership increased 700% after Herbert Hoover prohibitionism wrecked the U.S. and German economies in 1929 and 1931.
I distinctly remember a Radio4 program which featured a guest scientist to talk about BBC impartiality over reporting on climate change.
In his opinion air time should not be given to ‘climate sceptics’ at all. When the host asked him if the sceptical views should not be broadcast, he said, quote “but they’re not scientists”
I would think that Professors Lindzen, Happer, Plimer, Spencer, Soon, Michaels, Stott, Singer, Lewis, Hayden and many others, would be quite surprised to learn that they weren’t scientists!
Who was the BBC’s guest scientist? Professor Steve Jones – snail geneticist.
I wonder what the Culture Media & Sports committee will do with that information !
This information has been freely available on the web for 17 years, and nothing has been done.
So in answer to your question – NOTHING.
R
.
The thing I hate most about all this, is that the investigative reporting into the BBC had to be masterminded and relentlessly pursued through the courts by Tony Newbury of the Harmless Sky website. Not by the Times, Mail, or Telegraph, but by a concerned pensioner on a limited budget.
The same happened with the many lies and distortions within Al Gore’s the ‘Inconvenient Truth’. It was not the Times, Mail, or Telegraph who prevented this Green propaganda being shown in British schools, it was a truck driver from Kent – Stewart Dimmock.
If you are not familiar with this 2007 court case, Inconvenient Truth was found to contain nine downright distortions of the truth. So it could only be shown in British schools (as the education department wanted), if a leaflet and lesson was given alongside the film, explaining all its many errors. It was a significant blockade, against Green propaganda in our schools.
So let us broadcast the names of these quiet heroes to the world…
.. Tony Newbury
.. Stewart Dimmock
And let us shame our petrified and incompetent media reporters, for not doing their job. They are supposed to hold up truth to power, yet they cower under their desks like trembling kittens, if someone asks them what a woman is. The legacy media is no longer fit for purpose, which is why I no longer support them.
BTW: you don’t need to pay the BBC tax, if you do not watch live TV. Just fill in the on-line form, and never pay them again. I have not had a TV licence for 10 years.
Ralph
Ralfellis – imagine the BBC having a seminar about the definition of a woman: they would form a committee made up of 97% LGBTQI. And call it balanced.
Ralf, I live in Kent midway between Canterbury and Dover. You will struggle to believe the grief Stewart Dimmock was subjected to at the time. Even the scum
at the Guardian tried to put the boot in.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/14/schools.film
One of the many reasons I hate the Graun.
So the Grauniad is complaining about the ‘mining lobby’ helping Dimmock.
Jeeez – renewable energy will need ten times more mining than the oil industry ever did. Where do they think all that copper, lithium, cobalt, and other rare-earths are going to come from…?!
R
The Graun kept afloat by the ‘tax efficient’ (via Caymans) sale of Auto Trader?
Ray – your link brought me right back to that case, and when I read it I see I was mentioned and quoted. It was an amazing result. Dimmock’s team had the late great Prof. Bob Carter flown over from Australia to testify on the science. Lord Christopher Monckton was the man who provided the crucial assistance to put everything together. You can read the whole judgment here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html
Agree on TV licence, none here since 2006. Still find other ways of wasting my time of course …
The AAAS and the Editors of SCIENCE have banned manuscripts of skeptics
The Royal Society banned my paper on Ice Ages too. I had to go to Beijing University instead.
See ‘Modulation of Ice Ages by Dust and Albedo’.
.
The R.S. review was ridiculous.
One reviewer read ‘insolation’ for ‘insulation’ throughout the paper, so could not understand it. The other said that CO2 has the same percentage at altitude as at the surface, so high altitude plants will not suffer from reduced CO2.
One is not supposed to engage with reviewers, but I did write back asking why, in that case, do jet airliners contain emergency oxygen generators…
R
I might add that both Researchgate and Physorg canceled my membership and completely destroyed all of the comments I had made. Nobody can go back and read any of them. Talk about censorship on the topic of “global warming”…now known as “climate change”.
Mauricio Morabito Tweets as @omnologos
Worryingly his posts have disappeared on the internet
You can only get them on Wayback
Try Valerius Ander
https://www.instagram.com/omnologos/?hl=en
There is no way anyone would be able to silence the likes of Maurizio.
The name is unfamiliar to me, but the ex-tweets look as if they might be the right person: https://twitter.com/mmorabito67
The question to me is Why ? What was the basis of the intent to supress contrary views ? Was it fear ? Financial reward ? The decision to behave this way is hollow unless there is gain somewhere.
Wasn’t Richard Black a prime mover in arranging this seminar? A long standing Climate catastrophist and friend of Bob Ward, the Goldsmiths et al.
There’s still a list of his contributions available on the BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/richard_black
” The question to me is Why ? ”
Probably several reasons, one of which is that there are people employed by the BBC who want to generate the news, rather than just report the news.
Precisely! As I , too, keep saying – WHY, and as I thought to myself many years ago – creating stories to create “news” eg on RADIO Scotland ( remind us what Sean Connery said about the fledgling independent scotland) yesterday: “Should there be separate QTBLG homes for the elderly … eh ?
and can you imagine waking up in a Ward , being overlooked by persons with metal inserts / attachments and tattoos & weird haircuts, CRIKEY it would be a NIGHTMARE – enough to give you another Heart attack.
Not so long ago the BBC was loyal and Lord Haw Haw hanged for treason. Petition Project signatures testify that actual scientists know Warmunist Sharknados are frauds designed to weaken democracies and rearm totalitarianism. Lord Haw Haw 2.0 has evidently replaced the BBC.
The biggest lie is that the BBC were even handed prior to 2006. They emphatically were not and hadn’t beem for at least ten years.
and may I add: most folk equate the bbc to Television, but it is also RADIO. Drip drip drip for at least the past 40 years ago. Consumer affaires ? THe whole truth and nothing but the t ruth? Nawww – I don’t think so.
‘Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation’ — this Andrew Simms…
The final countdown
Fri 1 Aug 2008
Time is fast running out to stop irreversible climate change, a group of global warming experts warns today. We have only 100 months to avoid disaster. Andrew Simms explains why we must act now – and where to begin
. . .
So, how exactly do we arrive at the ticking clock of 100 months? It’s possible to estimate the length of time it will take to reach a tipping point. [bold added – note the year]
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/01/climatechange.carbonemissions
– – –
‘a group of global warming experts’ — of course, what was the *disaster* again? 🥱
I could ask ‘how well did the 100 months prediction turn out?’ but then I think we all know that correct predictions for global warming activists is a big round ZERO.
Huh, who can’t count! 100 months = around 9 years – to be charitable…. so time would / should have run out quite some time ago – but we’re still here and doing fine, still an abundance of food and people breeding.
Yippee! We must have done it. OK, Life should be going back to normal So why isn’t it ? In a word ….. C O N T R O L ….. Have YOU the hunger for COMPLIANCE ?
Hello Paul and thanks for the mention – I am Maurizio Morabito – my blog host has shut down and I haven’t brought the posts up anywhere else yet. That’s why they only appear in the Wayback Machine
Greetings Omnologos.
I used to read your posts, back in the day.
Thanks for all your efforts.
R
I for one am grateful for your tenacity Paul and indeed for the great group of people who make up the comments here.
I am running out of energy in trying to get the facts out there. Most people I come across are at best ambivilant to it all, at worst go along with it without any thought as to what will happen once our modern civilisation has been bought to its knees for no good reason other than ideology.
Don’t forget, Ofcom is largely made up of retired BBC executives …
That’s why they’re desperate to shut down GB News, just about the only channel, along with Talk TV, where people are questioning the so-called ‘consensus’.
I tend to write on a regular basis to the BBC, either the disgraceful Today programme on Radio 4, or this time Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday morning when she interviewed the Prime Minister. Kuenssberg asked who had voted for Rishi Sunak’s reduction in Net Zero targets. My message to the BBC:
“One point raised by Laura Kuenssberg in relation to the “new approach” regarding Net Zero, was “Who voted for this change?”
That is the most extraordinary question, bearing in mind that nobody voted for Net Zero, including MP’s, because the most life changing legislation ever forced on the British Public was passed through Parliament “On the Nod” without a vote in 2019.
The failure to cost the consequences of Net Zero at the time, was corrected four years later this year by the OBR, at an estimated initial costing of £1.4 Trillion. That equates to approximately £51,000 additional cost for every one of the 27 million households in the UK.
The Electorate have not only never been asked for their consent, they have not even had explained what the benefits of Net Zero actually are, if any.
How about asking what the commitment of £20 Billion for Carbon Capture and Storage by Grant Shapps earlier this year, could possibly achieve.
The actual capture process, packaging, transporting and burying of this tiny trace element in our atmosphere which makes up only 0.04% of the total, could emit more Co2 than it will capture and store.
£20 Billion would build forty £500 Million super Hospitals.
The Energy Bill passed last week, now in the Lords, is hoping to make criminals of Law abiding people just because they might not be able to pay for conforming to Net Zero.
Please ask the questions that desperately concern the population, and avoid just scoring political points.”
In response to Thomas Carr’s first comment in this section, I am writing an official complaint to the BBC and possibly to Ofcom, as the two “journalists” on Today on Friday on Radio 4, Nick Robinson and Amal Rajan, joined together to have a joint 15 minute rant at the CEO of GB News. “GB News just creates Tension not Accuracy”, “they are Conspiracy theorists polluting Public debate, unlike the BBC which has to be impartial”. The vast majority of the conversation coming from them with constant interruptions of the guest, and commenting that they were pleased that Ofcom were investigating, intimating that they deserved to be shut down. This was not Journalism, it was a determined attempt to discredit a competitor and bring pressure from the Regulator to force them out. I wonder what part of the BBC Charter requires this to happen.
.
I think £1.4 billion is on the low side. Especially as everyone tends to forget about stored backup energy. My calculations are as follows.
Wind turbine energy:
Power required for 1,500 twh 170 gw (to give 1,500 twh annually)
Installed wind capacity required 425 gw (installed wind power capacity)
Actual output 170 gw (at a 40% load factor)
Number of turbines 28,300 (using 15 mw turbines)
Number to be installed each week 22 (over 25 years, to 2050)
Turbines cost £1,130 billion (based upon £8 bn Hornsea-3)
Turbines replacement £1,130 billion (after 25 years, ie: 50 year plan)
Power lines £ 350 billion (HVDC lines)
Operation costs £ 950 billion (over 50 years)
Total £3,560 billion
Hydrogen Storage:
1,390 storage caverns £ 70 billion (established technology)
150 gw electolyser £ 390 billion (still experimental at scale)
Demineralised water £ 90 billion (not mentioned by R.S. – over 50 yrs)
Power lines £ 350 billion (HVDC lines – see the Suedlink cable)
80 new power stations £ 130 billion (CCGT plants using hydrogen)
Subtotal £1,030 billion
11,000 extra wind turbines £ 440 billion (for hydrogen battery inefficiencies)
replacement of wind turbines £ 440 billion (after 25 years, ie: 50 year plan)
Total £1,910 billion
Grand total £5,470 billion
This is a much more realistic costing – one that will bankrupt the nation.
Ralph
No! He said 1.4 Trillion!
Sorry, the format of those costings was not very readable, so here is a jpg.
R
If despite knowing how appalling the Biased Brainwashing Cult behave, you still listen or watch, then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
If I did not listen I would not be in a position to have the information available to complain, in this case, in addition to the BBC, also to Ofcom.
FB you are imho entirely correct. The BBC are the enemy – I wonder how SS determines exactly how and why that is so, given he doesn’t listen/watch is difficult to compute. I don’t watch, I do not listed but I read; I have found a way to fight back against their UFLW globalist propaganda and flat out lies as well as their not very well hidden political/AWGCC/SARSCOV2CV agenda – and I will continue to do so. You cannot fight an enemy if you do not know what they “do”.
And that’s the awful thing, you sometimes have to listen to their tripe to know what tripe it is and so make the complaint.
Well, but is not THAT part of ALL such problems : if you don’t monitor, how do you know what is going on. ( Spelling it out : The MSM sems to be besotted with PORN … that they keep feeding us all that kinda stuff at ALL HOURS, what people do / get up to, from the Courts and other places, etc etc, ) Y’know how our Blonde Scot correspond is always reporting from the Courts about these cases …is she not disgusted & Fed up doing it? How do the police monitor things ?
Summed up in Andrew Montford’s The Propaganda Bureau. Lead figure was the appalling Harrabin
Based on events since 2006 (like government reaction to Covid), I have no doubt GOVERNMENT was behind BBC’s 2006 action.
Secondly, they introduce the bizarre concept of speech having to be true* to be protected. What people agree with needs no protection.
*Truth being evaluated by same BBC. Simple. Don’t publish anything that THEY determine isn’t “true.” They have determined that anything not in line with government stance on ‘climate change’ is not true, hence, needn’t be reported. Exactly as happened 15 years later with Covid.
A current example:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/09/29/maher-the-censorship-revealed-in-missouri-v-biden-is-dangerous/
‘On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that the Missouri v. Biden case revealed that “Big Tech was basically colluding with the government” to suppress speech on the coronavirus and “that’s what’s dangerous, I think, from the Democrats, is that a lot of them believe that social media’s job” is to suppress speech they don’t agree with.’
BBC, Guardian are your Big Tech.
Lest we forget, or were too busy to recall : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_in_the_United_Kingdom
LABOUR Gov’t was in power then.. .LABOUR L A B O U R – for the working. Would this (current) lot have been any better?
Tried to write using Android tablet but we seem to have been cut off by gales in S Island New Zealand.
We get our climate opinions fromnews feeds from the BBC et al
It would seem that the BBC has been equaled by GB News in Climate and other news eg E Europe. I am putting this down to the take over of the site by an Australian Greek manager who puts over the same Australian views on climate
and on certain occurences on the Black Sea coasts. ( These are some Greek sect Church opinions I gather in Australia and the U S.. Yes they don’t mind getting involved in Politics. Greek churches always were. )
This gentleman was with Sky New Australia before ..
Don’t understand your comment. Can you enlarge with context?
I don’t mind if the BBC exclude any contrary opinions on AGW greenhouse gas forcings models.
But this exclusion has been extended to cover coastal erosion, agricultural policy, energy infrastructure , nature, etc etc.
So on lots of things that are nothing to do with climate change only one opinion is heard.
I remember it well. The BBC seminar was arranged by Roger Harrabin, who was the BBC climate change enforcer.
Yes, Harrabin doesn’t get nearly enough billing as an organizing activist (and leading proponent of resisting disclosure?)
Paul,
The list that Mauricio found was probably a list of invitees, not attendees. It was posted on the website of the International Broadcasting Trust, an environmental pressure group which, astonishingly, played a major role in organising the seminar for the BBC. The attendees list was somewhat different.
During the Information Tribunal proceedings that Paul mentions, the BBC listed other significant documents relating to the tribunal that they had failed to mention when I made my original FOIA request. This enabled me to make another, more extensive, request immediately the tribunal’s decision on the first one was handed down.
I eventually obtained the attendees list, together with a lot of other information about the seminar, when the BBC disclosed it in the run-up to another Tribunal hearing, evidently in order to avoid a humiliating and very damaging public defeat.
The appalling role the BBC has played in promoting climate hysteria for nearly two decades can certainly be traced to that seminar in 2006: the reasons for holding it, how it was organised, and who organised and financed it.
A book that I wrote about the whole affair, which was fully referenced and scrupulous cautious about the risk of defamation proceedings, was eagerly accepted for publication by two publishers in quick succession. Both subsequently withdrew, apparently after considering the BBC’s likely reaction.
We live in the age of SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation) and the book remains unpublished, the full story untold.
Tony Newbery
(Apologies for originally posting this comment to the wrong thread)
As I understand it – there’s been several books about the BBC that the BBC has paid the authors considerably over the odds for to swerve embarrassing disclosure.
Have you offered the manuscript to Broadcasting House?
But have you read Andrew Montford’s The Propaganda Bureau which describes the whole conspiracy nicknamed’Twentyeightgate’ by reason of the number of participants. Were you involved in that? BBC refused to yield to FOI and spent thousands of your pounds and mine on lawyers. The attendance was eventually exposed from another source (tho’ it’s on my Kindle can’t be bothered to look it up). And was a disgrace. Harrabin retired moaning thst he had been unable to save the planet . Significant because saving the b,,, dy planet is not his job.
liardetg
oh, yes… I recall spending some hours rooting around archive.org.
Submitting Tony’s manuscript to BBC Books might generate some amusing correspondence?
Journalism died in 2006.
The underlying principal of the BBC’s decision is completely fake.
“The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus”
The implication being that untrue statements need not be published. Which, in fact, is just an excuse not to print counter orthodoxy.
It has come roaring back now. The absurd ban on Covid disinformation and misinformation. Currently, we have the press reporting that every time something bad is said about a tranny, one is murdered (symetrical with Mother telling me that every time I said something bad, an angel would cry).
BBC is corrupt, and the government’s fingerprints are all over it.
Cirrusly, a Green Peace agent told them climate change was real, so everybody else STFU?
I remember this well. What I hoped then was that we would find out the person responsible for the idea and for selection of the attendees.
Looking for responsibility among BBC apparatchiks would be like searching for turkeys voting for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Worth noting there was another FOI request by Mike Post which went to the information commissioner and the BBC gave a final word on it in a letter dayed 10 December 2009
What happened to ‘the ticking clock of 100 months’ – did it blow up? 😎
‘A time of unprecedented danger:
It is 90 seconds to midnight’
2023 Doomsday Clock Statement
In a hundred months, they’ll be down to fractional seconds.
Worth noting there was I think an earlier FOI request by Mike Post which went to the information commissioner and the BBC gave a final word on it in a letter dated 10 December 2009. Mike Post was asking for the attendees to the seminar on which the BBC posted the following on its website at the time:
“The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus.”
In it the FOI reply the BBC say:
“The attendees at the seminar were made up of 30 key BBC staff and 30 invited guests who are specialists in the area of climate change. It was hosted by Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision (then Television) and Helen Boaden, Director BBC News. It was chaired by Fergal Keane, Special Correspondent with BBC News. The key speaker at the seminar was Robert McCredie, Lord May of Oxford”
Note that “best scientific experts” turned into “specialists in the area of climate change”.
Following Mauritzio’s discovery and some reporting by Booker I took a complaint all the way to the BBC trust in 2012. The initial BBC response to my query of 2010 denied that the seminar even took place!
I have the documents and the BBC final reply should anyone be interested.
I did give them a bit of a barb at the time. Four of the attendees were George Entwistle, Helen Boaden, Steve Mitchell and Peter Rippon all of whom at the time were in the spotlight for (a) the cover up over Jimmy Saville and (b) the subsequent false allegations against Lord McAlpine.
I always found it strange that from the BBC staff attending the meeting were:
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
but especially the importance of the following attendee:
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
The decision had been made BEFORE the ‘seminar.’ The purpose of the seminar was to distribute the new policy to all divisions. Even comedy.
Your BBC refusal letter quote is actually identical to the refusal letter I received in July 2007.
The quote about the ‘best scientific experts’ originated in John Bridcut’s excellent report on impartiality commissioned by the (then) BBC Governors and published in July 2007 by the BBC Trust. It triggered my FOIA request for the names of the experts. Most of the BBC’s present problems over impartiality can be traced to their failure to act on Bridcut’s well-based and timely warnings.
I don’t recognise the name Mike Post, but someone else did make a scatter-gun request for information about the seminar via the WhatDoTheyKnow website after I posted on my blog about my own request in July 2007. It was only very much later that I found that he had obtained a very lengthy internal report about my request and the problems that the ligation was causing. Unfortunately the first thirty-something pages had been redacted and the rest didn’t add much to what was already known. By not disclosing that they held that document at the time of my second FOIA request, the BBC almost certainly committed an offence under Section 70 of the Act, which is concerned concealing information. Had they said they held that report, I could have challenged the redaction with some (slight) hope of success.
I would certainly be very interested to hear more about your complaint in 2010.
Hi Tony, it was your work that was instrumental in motivating me to also submit a complaint. You are correct, Mike Post is the name associated with the WhatDoTheyKnow website and I have a copy of the final response to Mike Post. Checking my computer files, I also have all the 2007 seesaw to wagonwheel stuf in there too.
I can share my complaint letter and the final response fro mBBC. Email me at ThinkingScientist at gmail and I can get in touch. Its not a lot but its useful to share for the day when the BBC finally gets taken to task over the last 20 years of mis-reporting and bias in this area.
Can we call a spade a spade please? Not “misrepresentation and bias”, but “outight lying”?
I had a FoI request to the Environment Agency where they feigned (repeatedly) loss of documents pivotal to a Judicial Review. We went up the path of complaining to the Information Commissioner at the time. The IC “censured” the EA but did not prosecute – having deliberately hidden information successfully past JR quash (should’ve been a mandating order) the feeling here was that a severe lashing with a dead lettuce wasn’t what we expected – EA malfeasance job done, carry on.
The official foot dragging is still going on now….
These quango regulators seem to be very difficult to persuade that the actions of those they are deemed to regulate breach their codes of conduct/legal obligations. From what I have read over the last 15 years +, and from my own personal experience the IC/various OF.’s/and so called professional bodies are unaccountable – who oversees the “overseerS”?
It seems to me that “ideologically” driven breaches are increasingly tolerated. My case is OT but I proved (evidentially beyond any doubt) that two GMC registered medics lied for commercial pecuniary gain. GMC did SFA and they clearly considered such an attitude did not constitute an ethical “fitness to practice” breach….certain folks here could tell a tale or two….I have long thought the UK is as corrupt as any failed State – its just “better hidden”.
That long grass is over head height
http://avoncliffmills.blogspot.com/2023/09/people-complain-about-royal-mail.html
Refusing to deal with NDPB (quango) Environment Agency giving “the finger” to the UK PHSO / Ombudsman over paying 7 digit damages for multiple maladministrations found by PHSO – and tinkering with “on the record” correspondence between the EA and Parliament.
I did indeed submit an FOI request (RFI20091627) on 26 November 2009 asking the BBC to provide me with a list of the best scientific experts who attended the high level seminar and to provide me with the minutes of the seminar.
The BBC refused both requests. This was when I realised that there was something seriously wrong at the BBC. I was under the impression that approximately 200 other members of the public had submitted similar requests but perhaps that was wrong.
I was delighted when the names of the 30 (not 28) faux experts were found to have been already published on the internet.
It is my opinion that when the history of the delusion is finally written, because of its global reach and previous reputation for trustworthy reporting, the BBC will be held liable. It is truly sad when a previously trusted and respected institution throws away its reputation as the BBC has done.
The BBC ARE already liable – they are part of the so called “trusted News Initiative”…guilty as charged, vicariously with all the other bent propaganda machine parts.