At last I have recieved a response to my complaint about the BBC's reporting of the Anderegg paper. First impressions are this simply doesn't wash. The weasel words are 'based on an interview'. I can point to evidence in the public domain that Doctor Anderegg started work on this paper before the climategate or glaciergate events. Yet in the BBC's version the paper was motivated by events that occurred after work began on the paper. Of course that is impossible. Here is the response from the journalist who compiled the report, complete with spelling mistakes.
Dear Mr McStont
Many thanks for your email and your interest in the news report on the BBC website.
Paragraph 12 is based on an interview carried out with Mr Anderrgg.
We contacted Dr Boedmer-Christiansen and Professor Von Storch for comment in the interest of balance. The Anderegg paper was critical of those sceptical of climate change research and we felt they deserved a right of reply.
Best wishes and many thanks for your interest.
Pallab Ghosh
Does the BBC's discordant climate output mask a conspiracy of ignorance? asks Hengist McStone.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Email to Newswatch
Dear Sir or Madam,
I write about your December 4th 2009 broadcast . The rules on impartiality (which were referred to in the programme) say that skeptics should not get half the space, yet there were two skeptics in the studio and only one proponent. This programme was transmitted in the immediate aftermath of the release of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia. The skeptics only contemporaneous complaint is that there had not been enough conjecture on the BBC. They could not be complaining contemporaneously that the BBC was not reporting facts because very few facts were known at that time. Since then three public enquiries have exonerated the scientists, but you haven't reported that on Newswatch.
I have to put it to you that speculation against the victims of a crime is not a standard that I have ever seen elsewhere on the BBC's news coverage. Why was that standard adopted by yourselves in this case?
An email is shown on your programme saying '...the CRU at Anglia University admit "hiding the the decline" (in global temperatures)' . But that is not true. The CRU have never admitted any such thing and no hacked email says that either. The words in brackets were added by your correspondent clearly trying to make a partisan point. Are you going to make an effort to correct the record and apologise?
Salutations
Hengist McStone
I write about your December 4th 2009 broadcast . The rules on impartiality (which were referred to in the programme) say that skeptics should not get half the space, yet there were two skeptics in the studio and only one proponent. This programme was transmitted in the immediate aftermath of the release of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia. The skeptics only contemporaneous complaint is that there had not been enough conjecture on the BBC. They could not be complaining contemporaneously that the BBC was not reporting facts because very few facts were known at that time. Since then three public enquiries have exonerated the scientists, but you haven't reported that on Newswatch.
I have to put it to you that speculation against the victims of a crime is not a standard that I have ever seen elsewhere on the BBC's news coverage. Why was that standard adopted by yourselves in this case?
An email is shown on your programme saying '...the CRU at Anglia University admit "hiding the the decline" (in global temperatures)' . But that is not true. The CRU have never admitted any such thing and no hacked email says that either. The words in brackets were added by your correspondent clearly trying to make a partisan point. Are you going to make an effort to correct the record and apologise?
Salutations
Hengist McStone
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