{"id":279180,"date":"2023-12-31T09:15:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T09:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=279180"},"modified":"2024-01-01T08:52:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T08:52:52","slug":"bbc-disinformation-reporter-plans-six-month-sabbatical-to-go-on-climate-course-funded-by-green-billionaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=279180","title":{"rendered":"BBC \u2018Disinformation\u2019 Reporter Plans Six-Month Sabbatical to go on Climate Course Funded by Green Billionaires"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Chris Morrison \u2013 The Daily Sceptic Dec 28, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Marco Silva is taking time out from his role as a senior reporter for BBC Verify specialising in \u2018climate disinformation\u2019 to enrol on a six-month course at the <a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/oxford-climate-journalism-network\">Oxford Climate Journalism Network<\/a> (OCJN), a green activist operation funded by billionaire foundations promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. Past direct funders of this course include the Laudes Foundation and the European Climate Fund, the latter heavily supported by Extinction Rebellion funder Sir Christopher Hohn. Also signed up for the course is Mora Morrison, a BBC World Service producer.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I guess the cat&#39;s out of the bag&#8230; <br \/>In January, I&#39;ll be joining the Oxford Climate Journalism Network\ud83c\udf0d Super excited about it! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yTLNmM00YE\">https:\/\/t.co\/yTLNmM00YE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Marco Silva \ud83c\udf0d (@BBCMarcoSilva) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCMarcoSilva\/status\/1732776351239684305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 7, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The OCJN runs what is described as an <a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/how-apply-oxford-climate-journalism-network\">intensive programme<\/a> for about 100 journalists\/activists around the world. Participants can expect to be immersed in the correct political narrative surrounding climate collapse, the so-called \u2018settled science\u2019 and the need for extreme Net Zero measures, whatever the economic and societal cost. A flavour of the echo-chamber discussions can be gleaned from past essays produced by \u2018alumni\u2019, which include titles such as \u2018Journalists should help audiences understand extreme weather \u2013 even when they lack climate data\u2019, \u2018To report fully on climate change, journalists need to integrate indigenous knowledge into their coverage\u2019, and \u2018Newsrooms should develop a mental health strategy to help climate journalists cope\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Marco Silva should enjoy his time confirming his climate science priors. He has a keen nose for what he calls \u2018disinformation\u2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/beyondfakenews\/trusted-news-initiative\/how-to-tackle-climate-disinformation\">basing his work<\/a> on what he deems to be the authority of 99.9% of scientists who say humans are primarily responsible for the current warming of the climate. This is provided as a reason for not hearing from the \u201cother side\u201d. The ongoing scientific process, alas, seems to play little part in the BBC\u2019s Net Zero agitprop. Alas, again, Silva seems unaware that the 99.9% consensus claim that he holds to be true is the creative work of cream pie thrower and green activist Mark Lynas. This work was demolished recently in a <a href=\"https:\/\/dailysceptic.org\/2023\/11\/09\/claimed-99-consensus-on-climate-change-demolished-by-new-report\/\">paper<\/a> led by the chemistry and physics professor Yonatan Dubi. He found that massive flaws and biases riddled Lynas\u2019s work, implying the conclusions of the study do not follow from the data. In fact, looking at the data presented by Lynas, Dubi concludes that the actual number of scientists agreeing with human-caused warming may be on the \u201clow side\u201d. A previous 97% consensus claim has also been widely debunked, with former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author Professor Richard Tol saying that the climate community still has a long way to go in weeding out bad research and behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>None of these issues need bother the hundreds of journalists now passing through the hands of the OCJN. Started last year, it is part of the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford. The Reuters Institute is <a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/our-funders\">backed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation <\/a>and numerous green billionaire funders including the Laudes Foundation, the European Climate Foundation (backed by Sir Christopher Hohn\u2019s Children\u2019s Investment Fund Foundation) and the Knight Foundation. During 2022-23, funding of \u201cover \u00a31 million\u201d was received from the Google News Initiative and Meta Journalism Project.<\/p>\n<p>At the OCJN, the <a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/ocjn-advisory-board\">Advisory Board<\/a> is dedicated to \u201cimproving the quality and impact of climate change journalism worldwide\u201d. Again, careful curation is evident in its goal to \u201cestablish connections between the Network and leading organisations and ideas in the world of climate journalism, climate science and climate policy\u201d. Members include OCJN co-founder Wolfgang Blau, who\u2019s also an adviser to the United Nations Climate Change Division and a trustee of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation; Dr Fatima Denton, a co-ordinating author for the IPCC\u2019s Sixth Assessment Report; Aldine Furio, the Strategic Communications Director, Europe, at the European Climate Foundation; Leo Hickman, the Editor of <em>Carbon Brief<\/em>, an activist blog funded by the European Climate Foundation; Dr Radhika Khosla, contributing author to the IPCC; and Catrin Thomas, who helps the Laudes Foundation to \u201ccatalyse broad impacts through the development of external relations\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Marco Silva claims that he is investigating and debunking bad information about global warming. \u201cNot everything is what it seems,\u201d he tells us. \u201cBad actors can be incredibly clever in the way they try to manipulate our knowledge and perception of climate change. Don\u2019t rush, take your time to dig deeper, and dare to ask: why is this narrative being shared? Where does it come from? Who stands to benefit from it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps he might care to put those last three questions to the well-funded organisers of his sabbatical over the next six months.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Chris Morrison is the <\/em>Daily Sceptic\u2019<em>s Environment Editor<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dailysceptic.org\/donate\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Donate<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dailysceptic.org\/2023\/12\/28\/bbc-disinformation-reporter-plans-six-month-sabbatical-to-go-on-climate-course-funded-by-green-billionaires\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is ironic that the BBC claims that investigating bad information about global warming makes Marco Silva a \u2018disinformation\u2019 reporter. When in reality he\u2019s actually promoting disinformation about climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":279181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,53,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-mind_control","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=279180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279182,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279180\/revisions\/279182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/279181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}