The real Faux News: The BBC

[Cleisthenes]

Here is an email exchange in which an environmental activist manages to have a BBC article quietly revised so that it is more palatable to the politically correct viewpoint, despite the article using the UN's own original language. I've got to snicker at those people who mock Fox News as "Faux News" and then pretend the BBC is somehow above it all. It's just an agenda-driven mouth-piece.

No change in timestamp when the "corrections" were made, no small blurb at the bottom indicating the changes and explaining why they were made. (And I can imagine why not.) The article was written one way, and then it just... vanishes... to become something else more acceptable to leftist interest groups.

Here's a quote from the funniest part. It's so bizarre and somewhat obliquely menacing that I imagine her delivering her lines in a crisp halting English with a Russian accent, a steely-eyed political commissar keeping the troops in line.

It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is
heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing
the emergence of the truth.

I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently
educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically
manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution,
unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your
comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to
happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be
said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:28 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier

We have changed headline and more

Dayum, she knows how to keep those unarmed Russian peasants from running away from the German machine gun nests, eh, comrade?

[Ahlerich]

so you are saying bbc is biased?
or are you even saying bbc is as biases as fox news?

[removeduser_487563287433]

Yeah, right, if it's true.

I am sure Cleisethenes would like to disregard stories like this so he can continue his bollocks about the BBC being in environmentalist's pockets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007...tvfestival2007

[Cleisthenes]

Yeah, right, if it's true.

I am sure Cleisethenes would like to disregard stories like this so he can continue his bollocks about the BBC being in environmentalist's pockets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007...tvfestival2007

From which:

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.

So... what is the linking of this article meant to imply? Was it meant to imply that the BBC is impartial? It states openly that the Beeb already had a pro-green program 18 months into development until a few conscientious uninvolved executives got wind of its slant and complained. The report does not mention that it was cancelled, only that it may be revised to air some opposing views of an unspecified vigour and length.

[Cleisthenes]

Yeah, right, if it's true.

It's true. She's a lead activist for a very real enviro group, whose website bragged of it on the front page.

http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/2089

It's still there, exactly as written above.

so you are saying bbc is biased?
or are you even saying bbc is as biases as fox news?

You tell me. Go find a glaring piece of evidence that Fox secretly changes articles to conform to a right-wing group-think concensus. Until then, whatever else may be said, it seems the Beeb goes one farther than Fox News in blatant bias: it actually changes its articles after publication without updating its timestamps and correction blurbs.

[removeduser_487563287433]

It's true. She's a lead activist for a very real enviro group, whose website bragged of it on the front page.

http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/2089

It's still there, exactly as written above.

If it's true.

[ZaPPPa]

You tell me. Go find a glaring piece of evidence that Fox secretly changes articles to conform to a right-wing group-think concensus.

Fox News doesn't need to change to conform to a right-wing group. It is already as far right as one can go. That's the difference.

[finneys13]

Everything is biased, just depends on the degree.

BBC generally seem to do a good job.

[Cleisthenes]

The changes were noticed quite soon after they were made in the news article, since the choice parts of the article had already been diffused through the blogosphere. The Beeb reporter may or may not choose to comment on his changes--I probably wouldn't, if I were him--but I'm going with Occam's Razor on this one. The leftist activist posted to her small coterie of fellow activists an email exchange that should have had every expectation of going unobserved by the outside world and that doesn't seem forged, since the reporter responds with initial refusal, then a bit of "hey, we're on the same side" innuendo, then finally buckles.

I mean, sure, you could possibly devise some clever conspiracy theories involving the Jews and the Trilateral Commission planting this email exchange as part of the "Deniers of the Emerging Truth" movement to destroy the earth with a global warming crisis, complete with black helicopters and Knights Templar and paintings by Da Vinci, but... erm... Nah.

[bigfootedfred]

but I'm going with Occam's Razor on this one..

yeah that bloke does have a nice razor...

prefer mine though still

[removeduser_487563287433]

I don't assume that anything that originates from "the blogosphere" is true. Very dangerous thing to do.

[Cleisthenes]

I don't assume that anything that originates from "the blogosphere" is true. Very dangerous thing to do.

It originates from the website of the activist group itself, and is corroborated by the observations of many bloggers at the time that passages had been changed without comment. Not the same thing as unfounded internet gossip.

Dangerous? Perhaps. Although, I'd take the more judicious route and say the same thing about all news, even the old networks. I don't think you'd agree, what with your stubborn defense of the old Beeb. Boy, do you twist and squirm.

That the BBC isn't in fact in the hands of environmental activists. For you information - the proposed Climate Change Day never happened.

Yet was developed for 18 months with an emphasis on awareness, a word that does not permit of much uncertainty.

[removeduser_487563287433]

That the BBC isn't in fact in the hands of environmental activists. For you information - the proposed Climate Change Day never happened.

[Pontifex Maximus]

That the BBC isn't in fact in the hands of environmental activists. For you information - the proposed Climate Change Day never happened.

Oh the irony.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shyam Popat
Unless the Earth has drastically changed its course in Biblical proportions, I can't see the effects of 10,000 years happening in a mere 100.

"Actually, that earlier warm period came between ice ages, and we have also been in a warm period between ice ages for the past 10,000 years. So we are comparing apples to apples here, warm periods to warm periods. We haven't accelerated the change of ten-thousand years into a hundred years by any means--far from it:



A rise of .74 degrees is a blip compared to a drop of 8 degrees, or a rise of 4 degrees, and is fairly small and in line with variations seen in the data of earlier ages, which often show volatile fluctuations of a a few degrees within a small time frame and larger fluctuations of upto 12 degrees heralding ice and warming ages."

pwned. But it seems we have talked about this before? A discussion comes to mind in which you preferred to ignore these facts about the earth's random climate.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Oh the irony.




pwned. But it seems we have talked about this before? A discussion comes to mind in which you preferred to ignore these facts about the earth's random climate.

That's not even relevent to my statement.

[bushbush]

pwned. But it seems we have talked about this before? A discussion comes to mind in which you preferred to ignore these facts about the earth's random climate.

are you trying to get owned again?

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=156564

let's not forget about this thread where you are literally intellectually massacred.



if you wanna get "murdered" again on this topic, let's go at it. I don't mind humiliating you again.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Until I see some genuine evidence it occured I am not going to assume it is true. Especially since the source is the activist herself and since she seems particular eager to trumpet her own success I am even less inclined to believe her, or her interpretation of events if they did indeed happen.

Awareness implies, for me at least, simply educational. That would include xxx disagrees.

I think, Cleisthenes, that your problem does not seem to be that you think the bbc is biased, it's that you think the bbc is biased the wrong way.

[Cleisthenes]

I think, Cleisthenes, that your problem does not seem to be that you think the bbc is biased, it's that you think the bbc is biased the wrong way.

So... attacking my motives for posting, rather than the substance? That's sloppy ad hominem, but I'd expect precisely that from someone who still wets his bed!

No one wants the global warming issue to be silenced--it is far from being so--but rather that an equal weight be given to both sides, not one side being erased in the dark of night without a trace after the slightest push-back from the other.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Well that's not actually ad hominem, nor have I ever been particularly worried about avoiding ad hominem in the first place.

The idea that equal weight should be given to both sides is retarded and no unbiased news organisation would do so. When teaching about World War II do we give equal weight to history and to holocaust deniers? In science classes do we give equal weight to evolution and creationism? Of course not. Being unbiased in no way equates to giving both sides of a debate equal weight - in fact often that would very much be incredibly biased.

[Cleisthenes]

The idea that equal weight should be given to both sides is retarded and no unbiased news organisation would do so. When teaching about World War II do we give equal weight to history and to holocaust deniers? In science classes do we give equal weight to evolution and creationism? Of course not. Being unbiased in no way equates to giving both sides of a debate equal weight - in fact often that would very much be incredibly biased.

I think you already know the difference between the Holocaust and an overhyped trend that has simply stopped in its tracks for the past ten years.

I also think you know the difference between creationism and an observable ten-year anomaly in temperature data. It's very deceptive to take scientific data and equate it to superstitions.

But this could be argued elsewhere. The nutshell of this thread is that I offered evidence of a bias in the BBC and Ferrets has graciously offered his belief that it was somehow false.

Belief over evidence, eh? You should look into this thing called Creationism. It's pretty swell.