It is not news that the British Broadcasting Corporation is under the thumb of special interests. What is news is how cravenly the BBC will re-write its own news to serve those special interests.
We have reported extensively on global warming. Criticism of the rhetoric about man-made disaster grows by the day. As a simple matter of fact, various reports of declining temperatures have appeared, including again very recently from the World Meteorological Organization of the United Nations. Such reports have appeared in media across the globe. Attempts to rationalize these figures are common in politically correct press but of course what is happening is what rational analysts have always expected. Global temperature has always fluctuated and we are not facing any crisis of "anthropogenic global warming."
Roger Harrabin, an environmental analyst for BBC News, wrote a piece on April 4 that startled BBC critics with the even-handed treatment of a global warming story. From the headline, "Global temperatures will drop slightly this year", to a key sentence stating that the mean global temperatures haven’t risen since 1998, the story had plenty to offend the global warming acolytes. The author, however, did not deviate from climate change orthodoxy. He merely reported accurately the data that the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization had collected and distributed. By the end of the day the headline and the thrust of the story had been radically altered by the BBC at, it appears, the behest of climate change alarmists.
Generally the behind-the-scenes activities of a news organization are obscure but in this case, at least at the reporter level, we are given a view into how agenda advocates deal with the press. Email exchanges between the reporter, Roger Harrabin, and the activist, Jo Abbess, provide a glimpse into the pressure exerted on the news media to toe the line. What’s startling is how up-front the activist is in advising the reporter to diminish any hint that there are any doubts as to whether the planet is warming.
Examine this string of email and see if it rings any bells. First the activist demands (her word) that substantial changes be made to the story. The reporter replies that no correction is necessary because, "If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will decrease, that’s what we will report." He concludes his brief message by mentioning that there are scientists who question whether warming will continue.
Telling a zealot that there are those who doubt the pet belief is like waving a red cape in front of an angry bull. The activist shifts gears and implies the reporter is irresponsible for "playing into the hands" of the global warming skeptics. He responds by noting that it is better to let the skeptics have their say otherwise people will believe that the global warming debate is being censored. The activist vehemently disagrees and declares that anthropogenic climate change is not subject to a debate. Threaded through her messages are threats to post the reporter’s comments on internet forums where "You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics." Sound familiar?
According to anti-tobacco activists there is no debate on the hazards of tobacco, whether secondhand smoke or the effects of primary smoking. There are no skeptics of tobacco control orthodoxy, only a handful of stooges in the pay of the tobacco industry. Information is to be dispensed only through newspaper headlines and 15 second on-air news reports written by tobacco control operatives. No other point of view is necessary. No hint of criticism is tolerable. The results of the global warming intimidation campaign is the same as that for the anti-smoking campaign.
The BBC reporter ultimately acquiesces, makes substantive changes, and asks the fanatic to take a look. To be fair to him, we do not know whether it was sheer personal cowardice or pressure from above that caused him to cave to the demands of one global warming activist, but cave he did. Fortunately this sad saga of special interest pressure subverting science is available to all. The two articles to which we link provide chilling documentation of the corruption of our "free press." It did not hold against intense pressure. Commonly today the press prefers getting along to telling the truth.
BBC Caught Editing Story To Appease Global Warming Lobbyist – (stored article)
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