Is the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) impartial? Is it influenced by the BBC (British Broadcasting Commission)?
In regard to the critically important CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming or climate change) matter, the answers respectively are ‘No’ and ‘Yes’.
Consider these reviews by high profile analysts, and a look into recent ABC events.
Janet Albrechtsen wrote on December 12 ,2012 (Australian newspaper) that, “Nothing will change at the ABC unless and until those charged with complying with the ABC charter - the chairman, board members, the managing director and the staff - start doing so”.
But, articles in the Australian by former two-term ABC chairman Maurice Newman on March 11, 2010 and November 5, 2012 and December 18, 2012 and former ABC director Ron Brunton (“Yes Director”, Sydney Institute Quarterly August 2008) indicate the ABC Board has no authority through the managing director to the ABC staff.
Crikey’s Margaret Simons March 18, 2010 asked what ABC chairman Newman was doing in giving advice publicly on ‘objective reporting’ to ABC staff, following the non-publication of articles by Marc Hendrickx and Robert Carter, even when commissioned by the Drum (ABC), “presumably to balance a five-part series by Clive Hamilton on the rise of climate-change denialism”.
Answer - because of the Board’s impotence?
Recently the ABC gave unchallenged coverage to extremely negative predictions opined by those promoting CAGW, sea level rise, loss of biodiversity, warming East Coast waters and so on. Why - the IPCC was meeting secretly in Tasmania?
On November 3, 2012 the ABC AM radio presented Sandy superstorm “made worse by climate change”. Yet knowledgeable scientists had shown that it was due to the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadel Oscillation), a natural mode of variability, not CAGW.
In 2006 during the peak of the CAGW alarmist period, the BBC held a seminar of ‘the best scientific experts’ - 28 scientists, and 28 BBC employees. ‘The BBC Trust has confirmed that the evidence presented led to an editorial decision to no longer give equal air time to opponents of CAGW claims’.
The appalling truth is the seminar comprised just three scientists (known proponents of CAGW) only, many environmental activists and supporters from BBC staff.
The ABC’s Code of Practice 2013 reflects the BBC’s - Whither the drivers?