Sunday
Dec232012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill ABC of bias
Dec 23, 2012 BBC A couple of interesting bits and piece from Oz.
Tony Thomas looks at the ABC's claim to be not nearly so biased as the BBC, covering the CMEP story and my Propaganda Bureau pamphlet in some detail.
"We may be biased but we're not as bad as the bad boys in the Beeb" is a pretty weak claim, but I'm not sure even this is going to hold up well in the light of Jo Nova's revelation of how the ABC edited the interview they did of Jo and her husband.
What a sorry state of affairs.
Reader Comments (25)
Here is a link to the story by Tony Thomas!
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2012/12/pharisees-and-pieties-at-the-abc
Every time I look at that list of attendees, I get the feeling that this was a full-court press. Almost every department of the BBC was represented (even comedy) to meet with a huge phalanx of heavy hitters from all areas of the Left/Green movement.
It was though the main agitators had decided that this would, for once and all, cement in the BBC as a full member of the alarmist camp and as its agit-prop herald to the captive millions of UK viewers.
If that's how they conceived it, then that's how they would expect it to be viewed by outsiders, and in that light, their desperate efforts to keep the guest list secret make a lot of sense.
I pointed out the "unlike the BBC..." quote here a week or so ago in a comment - glad to see it has been given more coverage. No doubt the Beeb won't be happy that even another alarmist organisation recognises it's bias.
So Joanne what viewing figures did this particular Show get.
Are the Austrian public as Apathetic toward Climate Change as much as the British public.
What were the Australian viewing figures for the Martin Durkin Global Warming Swindle documentary.
Jamspid
Quite. The calculus is simply that for sheer proselytizing power agencies like ABC/BBC have the attention of an overwhelming proportion of the audience and so the best efforts of Jo et-al would resemble little more than 'noise'.......not a loud one at that unfortunately.
The purpose of any debate is rarely to convert the person you are debating against but (in truth) to alter the mindset of your audience....
Given the streak of totalitarianism that exists in entrenched institutions of state with the point above my guess is that they won't give a damn.
They certainly won't publicise their own bias.
Not good copy after all......
@rickbradford
+1
Jamspid
too right, most Aussies couldn't give a rat's about climate change or even less about the ABC.
sort of goes against the countries psyche "Da ya want to be lectured by intellectual do-gooders mate?"
The only climate change that goes on here is when footy in winter is replaced by cricket in summer. Ah.. summer in OZ: cold beer, throbbing cicadas and gently burbling cricket commentary from the ABC.
About all they're good for mate!
ABC actions are hardly a surprise , their has much 'committed' to the cause has the BBC , and like most national broadcasters then spend a lot of time looking over their shoulders to see what those in power think and most of the rest of their time thinking what their fellow 'elites ' what to see.
Happy Christmas to Bishop Hill Blog, from FenBeagle
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/we-see-things/
Well - I watched the video up to 26 minutes when the audio stops (though presumably the audio exists because there is a transcript). Jo and David demolished the ABC people.
Weren't NBC were recently sued over their selective edits?
I think the ABC have it wrong...they make the BBC look like a bunch of amateurs compared the the catastrophiliasm that has swept through the ABC.
Mailman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20804192
This is another piece of crap. They ( the 'scientists') know that the BBC/ABC will publish whatever crap they write as long as it supports AGW.
OR
What a sorry affair of state.
Salutary. My admiration for Jo Nova and David Evans has just gone up another notch, while my contempt for the ABC has deepened by a commensurate amount. Is that corporation full of hardened warriors of the left, or are they soft-minded dupes of a prevalent mindset? I am inclined to the latter. If they had good brains and strong hearts, they would not have produced such a travesty as that programme and its failure to reflect at all fairly the views of Jo and David. If the ABC journos were hardened warriors of the left, they would not have bothered to get involved in the first place. So, even in Australia, land of strong characters and love of freedom and fair dinkum, we see atypical types prominent in their mass media. Atypical, unimpressive, sloppy deceivers. All for a good cause of course. Their intentions are no doubt admirable by their own lights.
So, even in Australia, land of strong characters and love of freedom and fair dinkum, we see atypical types prominent in their mass media.
Mate! The Aussie intelligentsia are probably some of the easiest to fool in the world. They like to think that they ride the crest of the Now, and so are very faddist. That means they are easy to sucker.
Eddie Burrup, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and, my favourite, Ern Malley.
Every country has fakers and suckers, but for a small(ish) country, Australia seems to outperform at the "intelligentsia" end of the market. There's some great Aussie thinkers, but many of them leave – which may well be because a genuinely great thinker doesn't do too well in a circuit devoted to fads.
Sadly, my country – NZ – hasn't a decent real hoax to its name. Assuming you don't count Peter Jackson's amusing "Forgotten Silver".
We know that BBC staff have been warned about editing Wiki,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8637867/Official-BBC-Twitter-rules-tell-staff-Dont-do-anything-stupid.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/08/wikipedia_edits.html
so why has the BBC seminar story still not yet made it into the climate change section of the BBC criticisms Wiki piece below?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC
This post is from Oz - born here a long time ago and have observed the ABC closely for over 50 years
Yes, they are biased towards anything that smears free market philosophy (since CAGW attacks cheap, reliable energy supplies, it is a very handy tool indeed) - but what really distinguishes them is the absolutely relentless malice with which this aim is pursued
And no ... they really don't give a rat's xxxx for the large majority of the populace. The staff-captured ABC cares only for the exercise of power through the oxygenated publicity of edited exposure. Truly despicable, and completely irreparable
MooLoo,
Ern Malley is not a good example. Most of Australia’s current crop of public intellectuals and commentators are a pathetic bunch compared to Max Harris. James McAuley’s ‘hoax’ rebounded upon himself, and arguably destroyed him, because he wanted to be a great poet, but is remembered not for such lines as
Take salt upon your tongue.
And do not feed the heart
With sorrow, darkness or lies:
These are the death of art.
Living is thirst for joy;
That is what art rehearses.
Let sober drunkenness give
Its splendour to your verses.
Move like the sable swan
On the luminous expanse:
In sight but out of range
Of barking ignorance.
(To Any Poet, James McAuley, Collected Poems 1936–1970 )
but instead for
I had often, cowled in the slumberous heavy air,
Closed my inanimate lids to find it real,
As I knew it would be, the colourful spires
And painted roofs, the high snows glimpsed at the back,
All reversed in the quiet reflecting waters —
Not knowing then that Dürer perceived it too.
Now I find that once more I have shrunk
To an interloper, robber of dead men’s dream,
I had read in books that art is not easy
But no one warned that the mind repeats
In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still
the black swan of trespass on alien waters.
(Durer: Innsbruck, 1495, Ern Malley, The Darkening Ecliptic)
How Max Harris (then in his early 20s) was supposed to realise that Durer: Innsbruck was a manifest nonsense has baffled many a critic. McAuley’s problem was that he wrote much better when he wasn’t trying:
“Swamps, marshes, borrow-pits and other
Areas of stagnant water serve
As breeding-grounds ...” Now
Have I found you, my Anopheles!
(There is a meaning for the circumspect)
Come, we will dance sedate quadrilles,
A pallid polka or a yelping shimmy
Over these sunken sodden breeding-grounds!
We will be wraiths and wreaths of tissue-paper
To clog the Town Council in their plans.
Culture forsooth! Albert, get my gun.
(first verse, Culture as Exhibit, Ern Malley, The Darkening Ecliptic)
“While the hoax did cause significant embarrassment to Harris—and has been seen by some as inhibiting the development of literary modernism in Australia—the poems of ‘Ern Malley’ have remained in print and continue to be a subject of significant critical debate: a consequence Stewart and McAuley surely did not intend.”
“While unquestionably seen as a major Australian poet in his own time, it is a lasting irony that critical interest in McAuley’s work since his death has been largely eclipsed by the interest in his short-lived creation ‘Ern Malley.’”
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/mcauley-james
The Ern Malley affair is fascinating on many levels. A good general reference is
http://www.ernmalley.com/index.html
As an interesting aside, McAuley was among the founding editors of Quadrant, whose Doomed Planet articles are frequently cited by CAGW sceptics.
Jo Nova is a treasure. It was a treat to see her in action in the videos.
We all owe her a debt of gratitude. She's a fighter for the only thing that matters in this controversy: the truth.
@theduke
Of course I appreciate Jo Nova's efforts, but I have been of the view for some considerable time now that she is fighting the last war all over
By that I mean that the AGW propaganda war has been long won; considerable majorities of Western populations implicitly believe that homo sapiens is deleteriously changing the climate with atmospheric CO2 emissions and "something must be done". The basic reason for this inculcated belief is that most of the populace is scientifically illiterate and mathematically innumerate. They cannot follow the details of the arguments and have absolutely no wish to ... hence they follow the manufactured "scientific consensus". No amount of reasoned argument or data will alter this now
But the question: "What to do about it ?" is the AGW Achilles Heel. All answers to date have entailed reductions in the standards of living, which enrages this same populace. This aspect of AGW must be pushed and pushed by sceptics (including myself), and especially pushed onto the publicity stage of organisations like the ABC (who are resisting any hard analyses of this situation as hard as they can)
How many GWh do we currently use as base load ?
How many windmills will reliably replace this base load ? At what cost ?
How can solar power the high-rises in Shangai ? What is their base load requirements ?
How can we move goods and people long distances from production centres to suburban dwellings without petrol ?
etc
These questions scare the bejesus out of the "meejas", especially those who infest organisations like the ABC - because they too are scientifically illiterate, mathematically innumerate and as dumb as a box of rocks on questions of large-scale, reliable, effcicient engineering. So we push, push, push them here
DaleC (3:01 AM)
Nice little essay, Dale!
Thank you from a fellow colonial (and sometime sword-crosser with Max, who published me in Australian Letters).
ianl8888 (7:54 AM): "Of course I appreciate Jo Nova's efforts, but I have been of the view for some considerable time now that she is fighting the last war all over"
I share that sentiment, Ian... and endorse the rest of your comment.
Ianl8888: You are correct, I believe.
I think you have to focus on the effects of warming and how dangerous / beneficial they are. People just seem to accept that AGW means the end of the world and are blissfully ignorant of any of the benefits.
When was the last time you heard the MSM report that higher atmospheric CO2 means higher crop yields?
I would love the warmists to sit down watch and LISTEN to the video on this link...http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree.html
No, Joanne is not fighting the last war all over. She is working away at the pillars on which the global warming edifice was constructed. Here in Australia, we have had episode after episode where official pronouncements have been plain wrong. Some of these affect the temperature record, which is generally untrustworthy and available in several parallel, official versions that differ substantially. You can choose the version that suits your project. That way, you can do proxy reconstructions several times on different calibrations, then publish the one that best promotes your cause.
When the citizen majority solidly concludes that global warming was overcooked, the confirmation will be there for all to see in the faulty construction of the pillars. It's so easy to cement the realisation once some of the bloopers are shown to have been on record for many a year, with no satisfactory explanation.
Good science requires an explanation for all relevant questions - or at least an attempt to answer.