BBC Reporting Irresponsibly Negligent
Whilst in Dublin at the Feasta Conference I was able to keep up with news over the Internet. The BBC News front page had a three interesting stories on Friday 24th June 2005.
Firstly Oil price hits $60 for second day which reported on the second consecutive day of >$60 oil. The reasons were given as: demand not slackening off despite an almost 40% increase in the price of crude oil since the start of 2005, OPEC already saying it’s doing all it can to meet demand and cool price growth, China importing 8.2% more oil than last year, threats of disruption in Nigeria, and the spectre of a looming strike by oil workers in Norway. Whilst all these points are probably true and the article probably had a world limit, the lack of asking why supply was having difficulty meeting demand or mentioning the rapid decline in some provinces is disappointing.
The second front page story of the day was BA ups fuel surcharge on tickets reporting that from 27 June, BA will increase the fuel surcharge on each long-haul return ticket to £48 ($87) from £32. The short haul surcharge will go up to £16 from £10. The increase was explained by continuing rise in global oil prices… but no mention or questioning as to why global oil prices were rising.
The third story and the one that made me write this article was titled British Gas mulls 15% price rise it is the news that British Gas are warning of a 15% increase in gas prices this year (on top of the 5.9% in January and 12.4% in September rises last year). I’m sure you’ll agree these are significant rises so one would expect a crack team of BBC investigative journalists would find out what’s behind these incredible rises. It turns out that our gas bills are rising since “wholesale gas prices were now expected to be 51% higher than a year ago.” That’s it. Case closed. I say the BBC are being negligent in not finding out and reporting why wholesale prices are rising 51%. I think it has something to do with UK North Sea gas extraction rates falling 13.5% in a year but what do I know?
One other point I’d like to make is that the BBC carried Adam Porter’s excellent report ‘Peak oil’ enters mainstream debate a couple of weeks ago. None of the three BBC articles on Friday even had a sidebar link to the report, they all deserved one.
I believe the BBC are making positive editorial decisions not to mention peak oil in regular news stories. Why, I do not know. Until we have a media that is at least willing to ask why what we are seeing is actually happening we can not hope for any proactive action to be taken.
This post was written by Chris Vernon
This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2005 at 11:23 pm and is filed under Hydrocarbon Depletion, Electricity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 28th, 2005 at 11:48 am
I think there is more political influence from our government on the BBC than there was this time last year. It is not a co-incidence that Gordon Brown rallies to help world aid debt, and then soon after the BBC launch their big series of programmes dedicated to this subject. One of them, which I watched was called ‘The girl from the cafe’ or something, and it was covering the G8 conference. Yet all the scenes from the conference were talking about Africa’s debt, even though there were all the other issues like the economy and oil. The irony being that one of the characters in the programme mentioned that in one of the scenes, yet it was still not talked about, peak oil did’nt even get a mention. I think the same causes are leading to your discoveries about the BBC’s reporting on peak oil. Although I am not a complete cynic, I think one of the BBC’s programmes on African debt is about why aid does’nt work and the corrupt governments of Africa, so there is still some good programmes, although I havent watched it yet.
June 28th, 2005 at 11:56 am
i think a lot of people just don’t want to hear the truth. You tell them there is a problem and they just give you a million and one reasons why there is no problem.. there can’t be.
June 28th, 2005 at 10:04 pm
The trouble with all the news media is that they sound as though they are doing a good job untill they report on something that you actually know about yourself - then you realize the shortcomings.
June 30th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
Interestingly - they seem to be having a special focus on ‘peak oil’ at present.
Tucked away in the ‘Science & Nature’ section.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3623549.stm
I mean, its not like its a big NEWS story!
July 22nd, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Has anyone considered the possibility that the Beeb wants to AVOID causing a scare, since it is not in the business of sensationalism? There is no crisis yet, and no firm reason to assume that a crisis will not be averted. If the Beeb were to start drawing undue attention to peak oil THEORIES (and we have not reached ‘peak oil’ yet, so they ARE theories), surely they would be straying into tabloid terrirory.
Similarly, as the precise reasons for oil price rises have not necessarily been established, reporting on the reasons WHY would amount to speculation. One of the things I love most about the Beeb is their tendency to stick to the facts. (Bearing in mind that no news organisation is perfect, and mistakes will be made - though the Beeb probably makes less than most!)
July 23rd, 2005 at 9:15 am
Hi beev,
My biggest problem with these three articles is the gas one. Wholesale gas prices reported as rising 50% but no investigation as to why. The reason is clearly depletion. The UK gets almost all its gas from the North Sea where reserves are around 600bcm (billion cubic meters). The UK consumes 100bcm per year. It’s clear that our indigenous supply of cheap readily available gas is almost depleted, the DTI suggests we will be 50% dependent on imports by 2010 and 20% dependent by 2020. It is this switch to imported gas that is responsible for the wholesale price rise. Why can’t the BBC explain that?
Regarding peak oil being a theory I don’t agree. Peak oil is a clearly demonstrated fact in many provinces around the world now (America, Norway, Venezuela, UK, Indonesia…) the fact that a global peak in production will inevitably follow a series of regional peaks is a fact not a theory. The only debate is regarding timing. See my piece on peak oil timing here:
http://www.vitaltrivia.co.uk/2005/06/21
August 7th, 2005 at 2:36 am
You’re right that the peak oil concept itself is not a theory. What I mean is that the looming crisis is entirely theoretical. Whatever happens, you can be sure the Beeb will report it as accurately and impartially as they can.
August 25th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Hello Chris…congratulations on a very good website. I’ve been thinking lately that a complaint should be made to Ofcom about the BBC because it is a publicly funded body that has decided to keep its public ignorant. Now that we have the bar chart from OPEC showing a decline in light crude we have more ammunition. They don’t have to put this on the news but they HAVE to make a documentary about Peak Oil soon. If Michael Meacher, David Chaytor, Jeremy Leggett etc. are worried then this should be reported or analysed. The BBC is happy to report on bird flu (potential scare), tundra melt (potential scare), global warming (check) etc. etc. but not Peak Oil. Would you be interested in going down this route?
Philip Martin (member of Depletion Scotland)
August 25th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Hi Philip,
Thanks for your encouraging comments. I agree something should be done to bring the BBC to task regarding their lack of apparent interest in Peak Oil. Ideally I’d like to see Horizon (looking at the technical, scientific side) or Panorama (looking at the industry data and economic consequences) however I’m not surprised they haven’t done anything to date. Maybe something’s in the pipeline?
Credit can go to the BBC for articles like these:
Has oil production peaked?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4178282.stm
‘Peak oil’ enters mainstream debate
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4077802.stm
Is the world’s oil running out fast?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3777413.stm
Maybe the credit should go to Adam Porter!
The first link of the three is particularly encouraging. Do you have any ideas how to engage the BBC on this issue? Maybe when petrol passes £1 per litre?
Regards,
Chris
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:48 pm
Hey, many thanks for the kind words…much appreciated and so on.
all the best
adam