Bishop Hill Renouf's impartial (ho, ho) approach
Jan 10, 2012 BBC Jonathan Renouf, best known as the man behind the Climate Wars programme, is being highlighted in a posting on Tom Nelson's blog. Renouf is telling Keith Briffa what he is required to do in an interview that is to be recorded.
Your essential job is to "prove" to Paul that what we're experiencing now is NOT just another of those natural fluctuations we've seen in the past. The hockey stick curve is a crucial piece of evidence because it shows how abnormal the present period is - the present warming is unprecedented in speed and amplitude, something like that. This is a very big moment in the film when Paul is finally convinced of the reality of man made global warming.
The failure of the BBC Trust to investigate the allegations arising out of Climategate is beginning to look indefensible. The problem is that the head of the Trust, Alison Hastings, has already been involved in an investigation into the BBC's climate change coverage. This cleared BBC management and Roger Harrabin of any wrongdoing over the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme, essentially on the word of, well, BBC management and Roger Harrabin. She is therefore completely compromised.
I predict that the Trust will try to ignore these new allegations.
(Postscript: anyone else notice the name of the person who was hattipped over at Tom Nelson's for highlighting the story?)
Reader Comments (25)
Written 2 years after McIntyre & McKitrick 2003. Good summary of why the debunking was important though.
If someone tried to tell me what to say during an interview, I'd be inclined to tell them to eff off. I'm not a meeja person, obviously.
Yes, I also wondered about that H/T.
But back to the main story - I don't think proves that Jonathan Renouf was biased (tho' I don't doubt that he is).
We all know that in recent years all BBC documentaries will be "story-boarded" prior to filming, and this email might simply be a step in that process, just to ensure that Briffa is up-to date on what stage of the final product they are at. After all, it's quite possible that the sections of the final program are not filmed in chronological order.
So in summary, it is still possible that the "narator", Paul, really has worked through the evidence and come to this conclusion via valid means - but when turning this into a documentary they rework the process.
I notice the h/t to Mike Hulme and assumed it was meant ironically. If the situation's better than that, please give details.
I thought for a second there it was Ron Paul who had been convinced: now that would be worrying!
this story got a mention in this Watts Up article, in a wider context..
ie Roger Harrabin on the Tyndall advisory board at Mike Hulmes invitation (invited on at same time as Greenpeace legend Bill Hare)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/
Storyboarding a doc is standard practice, I am not sure the BBC will do much on this. Even for independent minded interviewees they will plug away until they get the quote they want, or not and walk away without using anything.
Documentaries today are not true paths of discovery...
I recall Briffa didn't appear in the end. He was too uncertain to be relied on to be so positive.
The 'M.Hulme' has been repeatedly hat-tipped by Tom. Not sure what it means.
Yes, all those "I'm going on a journey", "voyage of discovery" docs are more like "I'm going to all the places and visiting all the people who have already been thoroughly recced by researchers and the way for all my "intrepid" exploits will have been thoroughly smoothed over by local fixers and health and safetied to death in order to come to a preordained conclusion."
A programme wouldn't even get commissioned these days without a fairly detailed synopsis and a treatment bearing a close similarity to a treatment for a drama. Sadly the days are long gone where a trusted producer could say "I think there might be something here" and be given the time and money to go out with a crew and find out, even if the programme might be scrapped or go off on a complete tangent if that was more interesting.
Which TV programme is being referred to here? It's not "Climate wars" (2008), as the email dates from 2005.
Paul Matthews -
This presumably is Meltdown: A Global Warming Journey.
...and I agree with artwest et al. above that the email is not any sort of "smoking gun". The documentary storyboard has been laid out, and Briffa's job is not to surprise them with some new evidence, it's just to discuss one particular topic (viz., the Hockey Stick). Renouf is trying to put Briffa's segment in context so that he'll stick to the subject and not go wandering off into e.g. climate models. They've allocated a certain amount of film time to this segment and have to get in all the talking points within that constraint.
Oh, how cynical we have become!
I made my living as a script writer for documentaries for over 40 years. Yes, every documentary has a bias, according to which interviewees are selected and film and video is edited. But never did I coach an interviewee on what to say, or how to say it, in order to support a viewpoint. Over the years I refused a number of assignments rather than use such tactics.
It's a sad comment on todays journalistic ethics that BBC's Jonathan Renouf feels free to coach Briffa in this way. And even sadder that some of the people in this forum find that perfectly acceptable.
"Briffa's job is not to surprise them with some new evidence"
Heaven forfend! I'm sure you're right, but you have to wonder, what is the point of wheeling on an expert if you're going to give him a script?
Yes Jack, it is not that storyboarding is a problem, it is what is being 'boarded' and the blatant dishonesty behind it that is.
It looks like Renouf (Paul) wants to say something and wants Briffa the scientist to be the one to say it.
This is how scientists are made into tools.
Documentary?
"...when Paul is finally convinced..."
Heading to a pre-determined conclusion rather gives the game away. This was propaganda.
When this first came out I thought it might be the straw that broke the camel's back. This is a precis for how the whole crowd was maddened.
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Steveta/artwest/HaroldW
I can see the point that setting up documentary interviews necessarily involves a degree of rehearsal - but surely there's a bigger issue here.
This email, together with others covered in Barry Woods' recent WUWT piece, shows that the BBC has decided to abandon its legal charter obligation to impartiality and campaign for one side of a political argument - because it thinks it "knows what's good for us".
The BBC has to be held to different standards to any other media outlet. Its massive, legally enforced, revenue has given it a dominance in the UK which is unequaled by any other single media operator in the world. It's reach and power far exceed the influence of any of the "big four" US broadcasters because it dominates national and local radio and TV in a way which would be impossible there.
I believe that the way BBC shapes political and intellectual debate here has led to a real weakness in the way our democracy works. Basically if the BBC thinks something "is good for us" we'll get it - and if it doesn't, we won't. It faithfully follows the editorial line of an activist newspaper with 200k circulation (the Guardian) and openly despises the opinions of the three or four million who read papers like the Mail & Telegraph.
If this happened in the US there would be a number of activist conservative groups who wouldn't hesitate to fund a Judicial Review into whether the BBC has infringed its charter obligation on climate issues.
Since it's the UK, a few of us will gnash our teeth & wail and the establishment will simply ignore the problem until history buries it.
Still trying to catch up. The thread title is a reference to email 4894 from the BBC's Alex Kirby to Jones:
It might be helpful if somebody could summarise exactly what the BBC-related "allegations arising out of Climategate" are - or does Barry's post at WUWT cover all the key points?
I see that according to the Mail story, Graham Stringer is writing to Mark Thompson to demand an investigation.
Paul
Read the ebook over on the right.
Foxgoose... In case everyone missed it..
This is more dynamite for BBC Trust's reputation. A BBC's insiders view of the BBC (and the Guardian)
Michael Buerk (BBC) Moral Maze, Flagship 9 & 10 O'clock newsreader, and THOSE Ethiopian famine reports from 25 years ago.....
podcasting candidly.. (NOT at the BBC, a new blog)
his comments about Africa (dirt poor and Droughts reducing, greening of the Sahel) leapt out at me...
comments and full transcript below.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/03/thought-provoking-words-for-the-bbc-and-the-guardian-from-a-podcast-by-the-bbcs-michael-buerk/
extracts from Michael Buerk:
And actually there has been no significant rise in global temperatures for more than a decade now.” – Michael Buerk, 16 December 2011
“What gets up my nose is being infantilized by governments, by the BBC, by the Guardian that there is no argument, that all scientists who aren’t cranks and charlatans are agreed on all this, that the consequences are uniformly negative, the issues beyond doubt and the steps to be taken beyond dispute.” – Michael Buerk, 16 December 2011
“I resent the implication that the exercise of my reason is “inappropriate”, an act of generational selfishness, a heresy." - Michael Buerk, December 16
I want a genuine debate about the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts.” - Michael Buerk, 16th December 2011
I don’t want the media to make up my mind up for me.
I don’t need to be told things by officialdom in all its forms, that are not true, or not the whole truth, for my own good.
I resent the implication that the exercise of my reason is “inappropriate”, an act of generational selfishness, a heresy.
I want a genuine debate about the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts.
As recently as 2005, for instance, the UN said there would be 50 million climate refugees by 2010.
That was last year.
OK – so where are they?
I would like to hear a clash of informed opinion about what would actually be better if it got warmer as well as worse.
Where do you see reported the extraordinary greening of the Sahel, and shrinking of the Sahara that’s been going on for 30 years now – the regeneration of vegetation across a huge, formerly arid swathe of dirt poor Africa. More warming means more rainfall. More CO2 means plants grow bigger, stronger, faster.
I would like a real argument over climate change policy, if only to rid myself of the nagging feeling that sometimes it’s a really good excuse for banging up taxes and public-sector job creation.
It’s not happening. It’s a secular issue but skepticism is heresy.
They talk the language of science, but it is really a post-God religion that rejects relativist materialism.
Its imperative is moral. - Michael Buerk..
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Now if I were to say that...... How can the BBC trust ignore that from such a respected and senior journalist like Michael Buerk (BBC), and say there is not a problem, with the BBC's reporting of manmade climate change...
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My other WUWT impartiality post, still tip of iceberg for the emails.
Andrew's report very good, much more history, on the right..
I was shocked to find Roger Harrabin, on the board of Tyndall, when Mike Huhne was sponsoring Roger's CMEP, to influence the media including the BBC his way... and trying to use Roger to keep the likes of Professor Stott off the airwaves, bcos he made Houghton look foolish (Houghton did that by himself, actually)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-impartiality-at-the-bbc/
QUOTE
Renouf is telling Keith Briffa what he is required to do in an interview that is to be recorded.
UNQUOTE
If I was a professioal scientist, partipating in a TV interview or documantary ....... THEN
I would expect to be asked for my professional opinion on the subject of the program.
I would NOT expect to be told what to say.
Despite not being able to type a big word like "professional" without mistakes .... AND
Regardless of my professional status.
I am dammed if I would take instructions like that.
I'd give my true opinions or refuse to participate.
this and other practices such as BBC holding there own polls etc (stop x people on street & not give stats properly) make me distrust EVERYTHING they report, has done for years now.
theaten to stop paying for these goons ASAP & see if they change i say (ho, ho fat chance) but you never know, times might be a'changing.