As mentioned in the post about the BBC’s lie that the ‘best scientific experts’ made up the external attendees at its 2006 Climate Change seminar, the film maker John Bridcut was the author of a report for the BBC Trust about ‘safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century’ in which it was written:
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 [on anthropogenic climate change].
On his website Bridcut states that he wrote the ‘From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel‘ report with the help of ‘a steering group from inside and outside the BBC’. Having presented as fact something that has now been shown to be patently false, AM contacted Mr Bridcut to ask him if he wished to comment on the fresh information and if he would say who told him the seminar comprised a group of ‘best scientific experts’. The email trail is below:
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Dear Mr Bridcut
You will no doubt be familiar with the following words taken from the above named report:
“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 [on anthropogenic climate change].”
Information subsequently found in the public domain regarding the attendees at that seminar, and currently being discussed on social media and in the press, reveals your assertion to be inaccurate. There is a suspicion that your assertion stemmed from information you were provided with about the seminar when compiling your report. Would you care to comment on this, perhaps outlining where information colouring the assertion you made regarding the ‘best scientific experts’ originated? I feel it is only proper that you have the opportunity to clarify this matter and ensure the record is correct.
I look forward to your early reply.
Yours sincerely
Dear Mr Nightingale,
Thank you for your message. When you say that my assertion is revealed to be inaccurate, to which words are you specifically referring? For your ease of reference, I append the whole paragraph from the report, rather than the single sentence you have highlighted.
“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. But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC’s role to close down this debate. They cannot be simply dismissed as ‘flat-earthers’ or ‘deniers’, who ‘should not be given a platform’ by the BBC. Impartiality always requires a breadth of view: for as long as minority opinions are coherently and honestly expressed, the BBC must give them appropriate space. ‘Bias by elimination’ is even more offensive today than it was in 1926. The BBC has many public purposes of both ambition and merit – but joining campaigns to save the planet is not one of them. The BBC’s best contribution is to increase public awareness of the issues and possible solutions through impartial and accurate programming. Acceptance of a basic scientific consensus only sharpens the need for hawk-eyed scrutiny of the arguments surrounding both causation and solution. It remains important that programme-makers relish the full range of debate that such a central and absorbing subject offers, scientifically, politically and ethically, and avoid being misrepresented as standard-bearers. The wagon wheel remains a model shape. But the trundle of the bandwagon is not a model sound.”
Best wishes
John Bridcut
Dear Mr Bridcut
The words to which I specifically refer are:
“The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts…”
The reason for this is the attendee list of the seminar you refer to, which the BBC has fought an expensive legal action to withhold from the public, has been found in the public domain and is currently forming the basis of stories in various media. Of the 28 external attendees, i.e. non BBC staff, only three were scientists and none of those were specialists in climate change disciplines. The rest of the 28 attendees were environmental campaigners from pressure groups, charity representatives, a staffer from the US Embassy, students, someone from the Church of England, an insurance industry consultant, and even a representative from the CBI.
Perhaps you will agree this puts the seminar in a completely different light to that presented in your report. Many are arguing the assertion in your report misrepresents the facts. That is the reason for me contacting you and inviting you to comment and outline the origin of the information you asserted in your report.
Best wishes
Dear Mr Nightingale
Thank you for your further communication. I was not privy to any specific information about the guest-list at the seminar, but I am baffled by the attention you are devoting to that clause, since it seems to me it contains the least important words in the paragraph. The point, surely, is what the BBC’s conclusion was after the seminar, however constituted, and then my report’s words of admonition (from the second sentence through to the end of the paragraph) – words with which, from the tone of your message, I would have thought you found some agreement. To concentrate on the constitution of the seminar is to miss the point of this section of the report entirely.
Best wishes
John Bridcut
Dear Mr Bridcut
Thank you for your reply. I think you may be missing the significance that has been attributed by the BBC to the claim the seminar consisted of “some of the best scientific experts”, the point you make in your report.
As Andrew Orlowski points out, the outputs of the seminar resulted in the BBC abandoning balance and impartiality in its coverage on a topic for the first time since World War II. Even in its reporting of the conflict between this country, the Empire and allies with Nazi Germany, the BBC remained impartial. However on the subject of AGW the BBC has cited as the justification for its editorial position the advice received from “scientific experts” at this seminar, a group it now transpires was actually made up of NGOs, activists and campaigners with not a single climate specialist in the room.
I argue that although it is a clear misrepresentation it is something you have retailed as fact in your report. I would suggest in the light of this your assertion being factually incorrect, irrespective of the comments you follow it with, has implications for your credibility possibly through no fault of your own. That is why I am attempting to identify the source of the information you used that lead you to make an assertion that had no basis in fact.
I hope this clarifies the rationale for the strict focus within your text.
Best wishes
Dear Mr Nightingale
I am afraid I cannot now recall the origin of that phrase, and you are the first person to have raised it with me. But if you wish to take issue with the report, I suggest you take up the matter with the BBC Trust.
Best wishes
John Bridcut
It seems incuriosity is something that permeates the BBC and those it commissions to do its bidding, and when pressed people seem to develop short memories about significant details they use to bolster their work but which are later found to be without foundation. Sadly Bridcut doesn’t seem bothered he was given false information and seems happy for it to stand in the public record. This is very telling in itself. It’s clearly OK to witter on about impartiality, but truth and accuracy are dispensible perspectives.
Autonomous Mind 
There is a reason they chose him to write the report, evidently.
Did Bridcut authorise the publishing of his emails on this site? (asking)
Maurizio I think you are being a bit unfair to Bridcut, as a result of his defensive stance here. It was a pretty good report; the problem is that the BBC has done pretty much the opposite of what they told him, bith before and since. Perhaps a more sympathetic approach might have got a more helpful response.
There is another issue, there were at least some 30 invited guests and 28 BBC employees present at that seminar. All will have read Bridcut’s report, all will have followed the 5 year FOI debacle, many will have followed the proceedings of the Tribunal.
All knew the BBC’s public unique-in-peace-time abandonment of impartiality was NOT based on “a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts”, none have had the integrity to correct this disinformation.
Why would anyone trust any of them on anything ever again?
And are you taking it up with the Trust?
Sadly Bridcut doesn’t seem bothered he was given false information and seems happy for it to stand in the public record.
Facts and substantiation seem a rare feature of our new ‘views as news’ professional, objective national treasure. Self evidently in editorial but also via oversight systems.
I have lost count of default Directorial rejections from BBC complaints having raised concerns on accuracy of reports on a ‘it is because we say it is’, if more colourfully phrased as ‘I have had a cursory look and after a quick self-analysis am comfortable in my belief that yet again the BBC has again got it about right, and you our customer are wrong… and probably need banning’.
This is perhaps an attitude that has stood, and been allowed to stand too long?
In the interests of balance I will share a rare instance when the system can kick in, but only when persistence in the face of bovine, delusional obstinancy (as with Tony N and Maurizio O) eventually could be resisted or covered up no longer:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/trust-upholds-complaint-against-bbc-news-over-inaccurate-tweet
It took months and months of rejection and dismissal for the BBC to eventually grudgingly accept what was as clear as day in the public record was in any way different from another that linked to it.
And the only evident censure after all this is, apparently… ‘The committee ordered the corporation to remove the headline from its archive, website and other platforms.’
One can see how Mr. Bridcut appears to not be bothered still by much.
I wonder if he was the first respondent to the Press Gazette piece? The calibre seems on par with most defences of BBC complicity and humility.
David – I have not approached Bridcrut and have no interest in doing so. He has spent his time writing a report that’s been treated as nothingness by the BBC for years. He is even “baffled” by all the interest in a paragraph of his that has caused Boaden to be trotted out to court in the middle of the McAlpine debacle.
Bridcrut is telling us his work is of no importance and with words that he doesn’t care of true or untrue. I’m fine with that. It was all just another waste of public money, and we all know that’s commonplace for today’s BBC.
“…and you are the first person to have raised it with me”
the first in a long line I suppose
The problem with Bridcut’s text is that none if it any of the BBC’s business. The corporation is there simply to pass on news of what is going on in the outside world without placing its own value judgements on the material it comes across – its brief being that any event with the potential to become an obstacle to its pay-master’s way of life counts as ‘news’.
Bridcut’s use of one of the BBC’s favourite words – ‘issue’ – is where the corporation itself becomes that obstacle. “The BBC’s best contribution is to increase public awareness of the issues and possible solutions through impartial and accurate programming”. In this debate, the ‘issue’ the BBC’s pay masters are well aware of is not ‘global warming’… and its “possible solutions” – but the value in the claim of global warming. The obvious solution to finding this value (or the lack of it) is for the BBC to deliver ALL informed views of this claim and its contents. As stated, if the BBC attempt to avoid doing this, then BBC makes itself society’s serious problem.
Has anyone asked the BBc for the minutes of these seminars?
The BBC may claim that the meeting at which ‘top scientists’ advised the BBC to alter their balance on Global Warming didn’t actually contain any ‘top scientists’, and therefore, by implication, there was never a need to have any specific direction or external advice to justify the loss of balance. They just decided that they were quite at liberty to decide that there was no need to present both sides of the argument.
I suggest that this raises the whole question of BBC impartiality again. It was raised initially when the BBC started supporting the green activists, and this rejection of impartiality was justified by reference to this meeting, which was painted as some kind of special independent due-diligence check which the BBC performed before taking the unusual step of ignoring their Charter duties in this area. Now that this ‘check’ has been exposed as a straightforward lie, the original request for justification of the BBC’s actions must surely be re-submitted to the Trust?
I agree with David S (7.43 am). It is not a bad report in itself. What is inexcusable is the use the BBC has put it to, ignoring everything to do with balance etc that it expounds.
I’ve had this paragraph fired at me a number of times in progressing long running complaints of general bias in climate science reporting. When I have pointed to these “sensible bits” and pointed out that my complaint didn’t relate to “the consensus”, they just ignored everything and came back quoting the consensus bit as their excuse.
They never define the consensus clearly either that I have seen.
All this doesn’t excuse Bridcut avoiding the question.
“They never define the consensus clearly either that I have seen.”
– That’s an interesting point for me. Whenever an alarmist invokes “the consensus” I always ask them to specifically state what it is they think “the consensus” believes. I usually get tumbleweed. I’ve yet to meet an alarmist in person who can actually clearly state the official CAGW position.
warmwilliam
Isn’t it time that the BBC [and its Trust] was put out to grass? The activists are too well ensconced, so perhaps the licence fee should be cancelled and the BBC made to find its own advertising sponsors
All of the above comments and facts reinforce the fact that AGW has never been about science and always about politics.
The BBC has never debated any of the science except the temperature record. With this they played on the fact that during the late nineties and early naughties we had some warm dry summers, and mild winters. This subjective impression was enough for most people to ignore facts, ignore global temperatures, and accept that there are morons on this planet that think they can work out an average temperature on the earth. There was no pressure from the public and no finacial imperitives at play.
This for the BBC was the consensus. Never did they delve into questions such as “is the green house effect real” for which we still have no data and no real proof, or where does all the CO2 come from and go to. As a nation most people are extremely ignorant of all the climate facts that no one, not even the warmists dispute. If the public had been informed at even a light-weight level about the science, AGW would never have gained traction as the facts don’t fit and have never fitted.
For me it has been this misguidance thats at the crux of why I think the BBC needs to be broken up and sold off.
I think the BBC is an excellent organisation that makes some fantastic programmes. It may have problems, but I’d much rather have a modestly reformed BBC than my TV viewing determined by Rupert Murdoch and others like him. It costs me much less than I would be paying if I chose to have Sky.
As far as the BBC’s response to your query is concerned, it seemed well balanced and informed. There were clearly a large number of scientific experts involved and the weight of evidence (whatever you and others might like to think) favours anthropomorphic climate change. The implications of this could be devastating, if we don’t do something about this soon. If – by some chance – we are wrong, the worst that can happen is that we develop technologies before they’re actually needed. The worst that can happen if we do nothing is the inability of the human race, and possibly all life, to continue surviving on this planet.
I hope that those who have opposed action against climate change have the courage to apologise when people start dying because of our inaction.
Commenter Ttloc has just and inadvertently accused the BBC of criminal behaviour. How else to describe an organisation that spends time and money on lawyers to protect a list of names instead of concentrating on the huge risks of climate change
How many programmes could have they done with the money spent on those lawyers?
And so on and so forth.
I suggest not to go down that avenue. It might hurt a few people.
Pardon. Accused the BBC of criminal behaviour? That truly is twisting what I was saying. Whatever the BBC may or may not have done, the money they spent on lawyers (rightly or wrongly) was never going to have been spent “concentrating on the huge risks of climate change”. Maybe you’re trying to be ironic and clever. If so, you’re failing dismally.
To the left of centre
Where abouts on any the sceptical sites, and by sceptic I mean sceptical about the extent of the anthropomorphic nature of climate change, does one find people who deny climate change per se. The sentance highlighted says it all. These people were not the ‘best scientific experts’ en mass. In fact there was whole number of well qualified scientists in this country who could have been invited but instead we have only representatives from the shrill tendency. And that is the basic problem that we are arguing about.
First they choose the opinions that count; this they determine to be representative of the majority
Second they choose a host of people who have no in depth acedemic knowledge of climate change, but are in the wagon of its all bad.
So Mr Left what happens if the result of inactivity on AGW:
We end up with increased growing seasons, with greater area under cultivation.
That less people die during the very cold winters – 600,000 without electricity in Germany now because fuel will be affordable and not taxed to provide subsidies for those that are already rich. (Say Mr left how do you like contributing £300k per year to Camerons father in law.)
We rid ourselves of the totally useless windmills and solar panels and invest heavily in shale gas, nuclear research and methyl . Plus remove the threat on our coal fired power stations that generate 35 – 40% of our electricity.
We do not leave future generations with huge debts generated from the taxation run around.
You get the idea Mr left – why is always bad in the future because from my history book it was pretty dire in the past. Mean to say – their water was pure, the air was clean and their food organic. Trouble is they only made 40 years of age.
Or would like to leave you children a shorter life than your own.
BrianJay, I think you’re looking at climate change through rose-tinted glasses. I guess one cannot discount the possibilty – however unlikely – that the Earth warms a little and everyone is better off. The consensus amongst serious scientists, however, is that a few degrees warming can increase sea-levels, and could increase temperatures making some parts of the world uninhabitable. The true fear, though, is that we cross a tipping point where is doesn’t stop until the Earth reaches an equilibrium temperature that makes it uninhabitable.
Here’s what confuses people like me. The risks of climate change are potentially huge. The Earth becomes uninhabitable. The risks of addressing climate change – if done properly – are minimal. We develop new ways of providing energy and transport. We stop cutting down as many trees (reduce deforestation). Our economies shouldn’t suffer. They simply change. People who work in power stations, will still work in power stations – they’ll just be different. People who make cars could still be making cars – they’ll just be different. They issue I have is if you’re wrong but we still do nothing, we could all die. If I’m wrong, but we do something anyway, we will just live in a world that is different (but not necessarily worse than) the world we currently live in.
If I believed we were running an enormous risk I would not waste time fighting FOI requests or defending copyright. Would you? Do you?
The BBC can reach millions. They could have done at least one TV programme, and many radio programmes with that kind of money.
to the left of centre
Not rose tinted glasses at all – just many years of experiance of acedemic and industrial reasearch plus a couple of degrees and a few to many years experience of revolutionary politics. It has left me with an indelible impression that:
Catastrophic futures are usually religious or creed based. You have to believe in something – only read the right books, only look one way with data, only follow the correct people. Post normal science is a perfect example of this philosophy. The scientist who dreamed this up was the late Stephen Schneider who stated “So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.” To quote someone else “if that’s science then I’m a banana.”
In other words this is subjectivism and next on the road is the precautionary principle.
Alec Douglas Hume was often derided as a politician because he once replied to the question “what are you doing?” with “as little as possible old boy.” Nowadays the polity is dominated by people who want to do something whether it is for the good or the bad never matters. Rent seekers have cottoned on to this by demanding more and more research.
The risks you say of climate change are potentially huge. I suppose looking at superstorm sany would lead one to believe that. But history teaches us that the incidence of these storms and their impact are reducing over the past century. And because of our technology, developed as it was from abundant energy, the loss of life has greatly reduced. (see R.Pilke jnr)
Lastly you talk of incremental reductions in resource based energy. I would refer you to Bjorn Lomborg and to the simple fact that the third world is not going to make any simple reductions. They are going to power their economies ahead on base of fossil fuel.
omnologos. I don’t know why they fought the FOI request. Doesn’t really make sense to me but doesn’t seem – in my view at least – to make the BBC a fundamentally bad organisation that needs radical overhaul or disbanding. I think you’re also overestimating how much they probably spent fighting the FOI.
BrianJay. I agree – it’s well worth being sceptical. Science isn’t always right and sometimes it is indeed influenced by vested interests. It is hard, however, for scientists to continue believing something when models and theory suggest otherwise. I think you will find it hard to find an example of a scientific idea that had wide-ranging consensus that turned out to be completely wrong. I think, also, that you’ll find it difficult to find a credible and serious scientist who is doing genuine research and finding that climate change/global warming is not due to man’s influence. I also agree that a lot of the world will not immediately make changes to how they provide energy. That suggests you think AGW may have some merit but it just isn’t worth doing something since many won’t bother. I think this is wrong for many reasons. Someone has to start and the first to start will be ahead of the game when the rest decide it’s time to do something themselves. Economically, it may give us a fantastic advantage when others want to start using renewable energy sources.
Freud Psychology is one of the many scientific theories that used to have consensus but is wrong. So are alchemy, and Marxism.
The problem is of course, these theories that does not work will not be labeled as “science” by the future historian. So “science” will appears to have a clean record. One can say scientific method itself don’t have great flaws, the problem is really people who are doing “science” tend to not following the scientific method.
In fact people who treat global warming as a scientific theory itself falls into this trap, the theory global warming itself is neither falsifiable (aka if it is hot cold not hot not cold it is still global warming, so this theories gives no predictability), or when it is actually falsified (such as the temperature is not increasing as much as predicted) scientist simply ignores it. Hence one can say Global warming is not a scientific theory. Is there any case where a theory that have mass true agreement and wrong? yes, such as Creationism (the anti evoloution version).
Shouldn’t be hard to understand. The BBC has all the rights in the world to fight FOI requests if it wants to.
The BBC fielding six lawyers against a lawyer-less pensioner, not so much. It brings a whole different dimension to the question. It becomes a matter of the bully squashing the little guy, just like those powerless children were left in the hands of sexually predatory BBC celebrities.
I would like to know who has the heart to support the BBC when it behaves like this. Really.
As much as I am willing to accept that the BBC fighting an FOI doesn’t really make sense to me, they weren’t actually using 6 lawyers to fight against a lawyer-less pensioner, they were using 6 lawyers (I’m assuming here that your information is correct) to fight a request from a lawyer-less pensioner. Apart from not having the request granted, the individual is not materially worse off.
My view is that the issues that exist within the BBC are not because it is essentially a publicly funded body. We’ve just had a major BBC scandal, but we’ve also just had a major News International Scandal. I would much rather see a reformed BBC than a disbanded BBC and have all my television viewing controlled by those who have much stronger vested interests than I suspect exist within the BBC. Much of what the BBC does is excellent and (as far as I’m concerned) doesn’t cost me very much. That doesn’t mean that I think it excuses any bad behaviour within the BBC. It just means I don’t want what I regard as a largely excellent organisation to be destroyed because of mistakes made by a small fraction of those involved.
Once again…if you show up with six lawyers in a case like this you are not defending yourself, you’re making a point about squashing anybody’s FOI request if you so please.
But I agree the BBC should not be disbanded. I don’t even mind paying the 145 pounds. What we need is a News department that is as independent from the Corportation as the Corporation is independent from the State.
All recent BBC scandals have involved News. You cannot serve impartial news and the Corporation at the same time.
Well we seem to have converged, to a certain extent at least.
In my view, however, the BBC is the most impartial news organisation we have. The main issue presented here (on this blog and on those linked) appears to be (although I may have misinterpreted it) the decision to give more airtime to those who believe climate change is anthropomorphic than to those who are sceptical. This is – in my view at least – an entirely reasonable decision. Whatever anyone may want to believe, the current scientific consensus is that AGW is real. Just because there is more than one opinion doesn’t mean that all opinions get treated equally. The BBC’s decision to give more credence to AGW than to non-AGW was a great example of impartiality. Not doing this would have suggested undue influence from those who have strong opinions about something that doesn’t have (at the moment at least) the backing of the scientific community.
I don’t mind them or anybody else taking any decision. But for the BBC that decision should be then expressed in a clear, frank, open, transparent, reasoned and reasonable way. If it is not, there is no trust. If there is no trust, there is no Trust.
Well, I must admit that I am quite surprised that we appear to have converged to at least a reasonable agreement. I would tend to agree that openness, transparency and honesty are a requirement of a news organisation that is aiming to be trusted and impartial.
Thank you too. I wish more people would be able to extricate themselves out of the head-against-head stance.
ttloc says
‘The BBC’s decision to give more credence to AGW than to non-AGW was a great example of impartiality.’
No it wasn’t. It was a great example of blatant bias. They know the science isnt settled. Their opinion – opinion being the operative word- is that it is.
‘Not doing this would have suggested undue influence from those who have strong opinions from something that doesn’t have (for the moment at least) the backing of the scientific community.’ Neither side has total backing from the scientific community. Unless by scientific community the implication was referring to the sort of ‘experts’ who attended this seminar.
LOC the BBC isn’t impartial in any way. Think about the small matter of the hundreds of thousands on the streets of Europe, the 30 second slot on the news started with, there are tens of thousands on the streets protesting, down playing the numbers which were apparently closer to a couple of million.Fast forward to the following morning when there was no mention at all of the demonstrations. Care to explain why our Auntie chooses not to inform the population about these mass demonstrations in nearby countries, how are they representing our interests by hiding the fact that it is the EU that is to blame. Just who decides that this story isn’t for our eyes, is it not our BBC. Time people like you went elsewhere to push your left wing agendas before people like us decide that the time for words is ending
Paula Simpson, I agree the science isn’t absolutely settled but the evidence for AGW is much stronger than the evidence that global warming isn’t man made. The impartial view is to give more credence to AGW than to non-AGW. Just because something isn’t proven beyond all reasonable doubt does not mean that alternatives should be given equal weight. It’s almost certainly true that neither side has total backing, but that’s virtually impossible to achieve and doesn’t mean that one side doesn’t have significantly more backing than the other.
Richy, I was reading your comment with interest until I got to the “people like you went elsewhere to push you left wing agendas”. Given that is how you think we should engage with each other, I’m more than happy to do so. Thought it would be an interesting experiment to see what would happen if I commented on this post. You’ve at least given some credence to my initial prejudice. To be fair, others have done the reverse.
Richy, I actually didn’t read your comment to the very end. The end of your final sentence is rather disturbing. Is that really how you think we should do things? I probably shouldn’t ask a question as that implies that I am interested in your response. Happy for you to assume that it’s rhetorical.