The BBC's 'dirty little secret' appears to be a hot potato

Apologies for the mixed metaphors, but what can one do when global warming is the subject? Anyway, The Telegraph is gloating, but this time deservedly. As one who sits on the fence* on the issue of global warming**, I think I can allow myself a bit of amazement about the way chosen by the august body to cover the subject. It is with great difficulty that I narrowed my search for usable quotes to two passages:

The BBC’s decision to defy its charter obligation to report on this subject impartially followed from a secret day-long seminar held at Television Centre on January 26, 2006. It was attended by all the BBC’s top brass, including George Entwistle, the short-lived director-general, then head of TV current affairs, and several executives who have had to “step aside” because of the Savile affair, such as Helen Boaden, then director of news, and Steve Mitchell, then head of radio news.

Scrumptious. And now this:

Only three of the “28 specialists” invited to advise the BBC were active scientists, none of them climate experts and all committed global-warming alarmists. Virtually all the rest were professional climate-change lobbyists, ranging from emissaries of Greenpeace and the Stop Climate Chaos campaign to the “CO2 project manager” for BP, one of the world’s largest oil companies.

It looks like BBC could use a page or two from the book about impartiality that is being written practically non-stop here. Alas, impartiality seems to become a dirty word in the confines of that information behemoth. Reading the whole article, you will learn more on the ways BBC uses to hide the information, instead of doing what they are supposed to do, e.g. disseminate it. And much more.

And a word to the wise: read it all before the legion of trained BBC's legal beagles descend on the issue, to make any further discussion a punishable offense. Oh boy, I pity the public that continues to pay the (doubtlessly humongous) legal fees...


(*) Although my perch makes some parts of me quite cold lately, I have to confess.

(**) Which couldn't prevent me from a bit of gloating of my own, for instance about a picture like this:

Or about a remark like that:

Now, with such a fantastic failure in full world view, questions are going to start being asked. For example, with advanced tools at their disposal (that Mawson never had) such as near real-time satellite imaging of Antarctic sea ice, GPS navigation, on-board Internet, radar, and satellite communications, one wonders how these folks managed to get themselves stuck at all. Was it simple incompetence of ignoring the signs and data at their disposal combined with “full steam ahead” fever? Even the captain of the Aurora Australis had the good sense to turn back knowing he’d reached the limits of the ship on his rescue attempt. Or, was it some sort of publicity stunt to draw attention? If it was the latter, it has backfired mightily.

But enough is enough. Back to my fence now...

Although: not before mentioning that one:

A Chinese icebreaker that helped rescue 52 passengers from a Russian ship stranded in Antarctic ice found itself stuck in heavy ice on Friday, further complicating the 9-day "roller-coaster" rescue operation.

The folks over there certainly could do with some warming.