BBC propaganda
An alarming insight into how the BBC operates?
Who's Churning the BBC Machine?
• 'How the BBC became a propaganda machine for climate change zealots - as recounted by its former news frontman, Peter Sissons
Based on the Daily Wail story which in turn drew on Peter Sissons's memoirs, with additional comments by Pi editors.
Sissons diagnoses it as 'political correctness'. Worrying about manmade climate change was an incontrovertible duty - a view also taken, for example, at the Guardian and the Times newspapers. But Sisson's writes:
'From the beginning I was unhappy at how one-sided the BBC's coverage of the issue was, and how much more complicated the climate system was than the over-simplified two-minute reports that were the stock-in-trade of the BBC's environment correspondents.
These, without exception, accepted the UN's assurance that 'the science is settled' and that human emissions of carbon dioxide threatened the world with catastrophic climate change. Environmental pressure groups could be guaranteed that their press releases, usually beginning with the words 'scientists say..'. would get on air unchallenged.
On one occasion, an MP used BBC airtime to link climate change doubters with perverts and holocaust deniers, and his famous interviewer didn't bat an eyelid.
On another occasion, after the inauguration of Barack Obama as president in 2009, the science correspondent of Newsnight actually informed viewers: 'scientists calculate that he has just four years to save the world'. What she didn't tell viewers was that only one alarmist scientist, NASA's James Hansen, had said that.
My interest in climate change grew out of my concern for the failings of BBC journalism in reporting it. In my early and formative days at ITN, I learned that we have an obligation to report both sides of a story. It is not journalism if you don't. It is close to propaganda.
