Joe Smith: Dangerous News – Twenty-Eight-Gate begins

The BBC recently won its case against Tony Newbery, denying him his FOI request for a list of attendees at the infamous BBC Seminar. The list has now been found on the wayback machine by talkshop regular Maurizio ‘omnologos’ Morabito, who got Anthony to break the story over at WUWT. Maurizio says

This is for Tony, Andrew, Benny, Barry and for all of us Harmless Davids.  

Well done Maurizio!

Joe Smith of the Open University was one of the 28 ‘specialist’ attendees at the IBT ‘Seminar’ held by the BBC in 2006 where the BBC say it was decided that ‘balance’ in climate reporting was best served by excluding one half of the debate. Have a read of the paper he wrote in 2006. Joe’s Open University page says:

Dr Joe Smith
The Open University

My research and teaching interests centre on the politics of environmental change. This is explored through three discrete strands of work:

• the politics of consumption, pursued through a study of biographies of food in Poland and the Czech Republic
• media representations of environmental change, centred on a programme of action research in collaboration with the BBC
• experimental reframings of environmental change, pursued mainly through the Interdependence Day project

Through the course of my CRASSH fellowship I will be drawing on more than a decade of working with media and other organisations to offer an account of the cultural work demanded by our unfolding understanding of human-induced climate change. I will also take the opportunity to reflect on the distinctive roles and responsibilities of social science and humanities researchers in helping societies to make sense of and act on climate change.

From the paper:

News media professionals have often been
charged with suffering from a “myth of detachment.”
Specialist participants have challenged editors’ tendencies
toward simplistic deployments of terms such
as objectivity, neutrality, impartiality, and truth on several
occasions (Sustainability, 1998, 2002; Risk, 2003).
In these discussions the daily practice of news production
was often described as the pursuit of truths: “it’s
our job to find the facts and to present them to the
public” (working groups, Risk, 2003). The confident
assumption that there are facts to be found and
communicated leaves editors poorly equipped to understand
and negotiate the character of uncertainty
within climate change science and policy, let alone
facilitate exploration of the “postnormal” model of
science and public participation that is increasingly
emerging as an orthodoxy in science communication
and that is proposed in Lorenzoni and Pidgeon’s
(2004) review of the literature on climate change and
danger.
Disagreement about facts does not bar a story
from getting on air. Far from it: but it will have to
then conform to a rigid formula of presenting claim
and counterclaim that is unsuited to the slowly unfolding
exploration of narrowing bands of distribution of
opinion that the science and policy of climate change
implies (May, 2000, p. 18). This is in pursuit of another
professional obligation: a commitment to balance and
impartiality. As one experienced news decisionmaker
puts it:
the trick with the BBC. . . is that we can say “here are
the facts—unadulterated.” Where there is a political
argument then we’ll try to make clear what the political
arguments are. (working group, Risk, 2003)
The BBC is not unusual in insisting on its journalistic
impartiality, but Schlesinger’s (1987) study of the
organization showed how the claim is deeply founded
in its culture and history. Recent statements of purpose
by the corporation emphasize this impartiality

(BBC, undated, 2005). In the context of an issue with
any degree of uncertainty, there are particular rituals
of journalistic balance that are repeated again
and again. Boykoff and Boykoff (2004, pp. 125, 134)
showed how reporting practices result in “balance as
bias.” Their work concluded that “[t]he failed discursive
translation between the scientific community and
popular, mass-mediatized discourse is not random;
rather the mis-translation is systematic and occurs for
perfectly logical reasons rooted in journalistic norms,
and values.”

Yet Boykoff and Boykoff (2004) and others that
have pinpointed the origin of the disproportionate
representation of climate change skeptics/contrarians
need to go further than the rituals of balance to understand
editors’ reactions to climate change. When
challenged about the limited nature of their climate
change coverage editors are quick to see that the
kind of purposeful social action demanded by the
science and policy community carries them quickly
out of questions about “good science” and into messy
and editorially hazardous ethical-political terrain. In
this terrain “facts,” claims, public interests, and values
merge into one another. This was a persistent theme
in working groups during seminars that explored the
nature of the reporting challenge implied by the concept
of sustainable development (Sustainability, 1998,
1999, 2001; WSSD, 2002).
The symbiotic relationship between the career of
climate change and the concept of sustainable development
presents obstacles in the minds of editors.
Discussions have shown a fear of being captured by
the normative agenda implicit in sustainability discourses
via, e.g., ethical commitments to future and
distant generations, and the nonhuman natural world.
As one journalist put it, to nods of assent from media
colleagues: “you’ve got to understand this—we’re
not here to tell the public how to behave—we’re there
to tell them what’s happening” (MP, working group,
WSSD, 2002).
Following climate change and sustainable development
debates demands patience from observers
and commentators. These issues are run through with
uncertainties across time and space, and interconnections
between science, policy, and public and political
reactions. Many of these characteristics are at odds
with the daily practices of news journalism. This provokes
those editors who accept they need to cover
these issues more fully into a degree of frustrated resignation:

Journalists have demanded
to know what facts there are—or to demand
“when are we going to get to the truth on climate
change” (working group, Risk, 2003), and do not carry
with them a sense that science is primarily a process of
contestation. The journalists acknowledged that the
dramatic device of presenting two contrasting opinions
within a piece where disagreement exists as to
facts is followed less consistently in the scientific realm
(working groups, Risk, 2003).
Nevertheless, the balanced presentation of “pro”
and skeptical climate change scientists was a persistent
feature of climate change coverage into the late
1990s in Britain, and is still intermittently applied in
the casting of broadcast news. Boykoff and Boykoff’s
(2004, p. 125) research shows it to persist in the U.S.
prestige press, arguing that “[t]he continuous juggling
act journalists engage in often militates against meaningful,
accurate, and urgent coverage of the issue of
global warming.” This has been explained in workshop
discussions by the fact that journalistic decisionmakers
can look at the spread of seats for different
political parties, or the size of a business sector or
union membership to gauge whether their coverage
is “balanced” and “appropriate,” but rarely have the
levels of scientific literacy required similar judgments
about stories founded in scientific discourses. Specialist
journalists from both broadcast and print media
who may have the relevant experience and contacts
to make fuller judgments complain of how implicit
newsroom priorities are reflected in investments
of time and human resources (Brown & McDonald,
2000, pp. 67–73; Harrabin, 2000, pp. 59–61). This
problem is mirrored in the related field of health

coverage, explored in Harrabin et al. (2003) and Seale
(2002).
Hence the machinery that supports strong coverage
of mainstream politics and economics can work
to squeeze out science, environment, and developing
world coverage in the earliest hours of a news production
cycle at the planning meetings. Even when such
stories get through to get a slot on a program, they
are some of the most exposed items when breaking
news emerges demanding space. Editors have consistently
defended themselves within the workshops
and plenary discussions by suggesting that they have
a responsibility in their decisions to represent public
expectations and priorities about the most relevant
news of the day: “an issue may be important as you
say. . . but that doesn’t make it news” (MP, working
group, Risk, 2003).
The resulting treatments of climate change have
made the climate science community, which might
act as a critical resource of depth and understanding
for news producers, less rather than more likely
to work with the media in their interpretation and
representation of climate change dangers across time
and space. They acknowledge that this reluctance to
act as sources carried costs. One NGO media specialist
noted that, on account of the weak understanding
of science, there are now instances of coverage
that exaggerate the risk of climate change,
for example, associating specific flood incidents with
climate change in circumstances where no such association
is justified (interview, NGO press officer,
Oct. 2004). The respondent’s point supports a line
of argument put by one specialist environment journalist
that such editorial inflections, based on misunderstanding
and overstatement of climate change
dangers, could prove as costly in terms of public engagement
with these issues as the previous insistence
upon giving balanced coverage to skeptics and climate
change scientists (personal communication J2,
Feb. 2005).

____________________________________________

Clearly, Joe is an academic with honestly held beliefs of his own. We will see how he fits into the decision making picture as matters develop over the next few days. Looking at the rest of the attendee list, the BBC has some ‘splainin to do. On it we find an interesting mix of NGO reps, advocates, academics, campaigners and even a couple of Arctic experts.

Oh, and some financial interest – Follow the money:

The UK’s policy lines on World Bank and IMF issues are formally decided by the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Treasury, respectively. Within DFID, the International Financial Institutions department (IFID) leads in devising the organisation’s position on these institutions (see below). In the Treasury, the International Finance department is responsible for preparing advice on the policy issues and specific country programmes brought before the Board of Directors in Washington.

The top UK representatives at the IMF and World Bank are the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon George Osbourne MP, and Secretary of State for international development, Rt Hon Justine Greening MP. They are known as UK governors to the Fund and Bank, sitting on the ministerial committees which meet in Washington twice a year to decide on overall strategic direction for the institutions. The UK is the fourth-largest shareholder in both the World Bank and the IMF, holding 4.3 percent and 4.8 percent of votes, respectively. For comparison the US is by far the largest shareholder with 16.4 percent and 16.85 percent vote shares, respectively.

Climate Frameworks and Carbon Markets

Jos Wheatley: Team Leader dfid.gov.uk

January 26th 2006,
BBC Television Centre, London
Specialists:
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia
BBC attendees:
Jana Bennett, Director of Television
Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science
Helen Boaden, Director of News
Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering
George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs
Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV
John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering
Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs
Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures [email protected]
Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live
Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit
Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive
Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News
Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend
Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations
Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News
Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes
Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events

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