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Why Should We Trust the BBC’s Trusted News Initiative?

by David Craig
13 January 2024 7:00 AM

Most Daily Sceptic readers will have heard of BBC Verify. This is a group of BBC journalists who check stories to ensure they are factually correct because, as we all know, the BBC is ‘impartial’. From its start, BBC Verify had a slight whiff of something unpleasant when it was reported that a key employee, Marianna Spring, had once lied on her CV to get a job. However, that minor indiscretion doesn’t seem to the BBC to disqualify her as a ‘fact-checker’. I wonder whether BBC Verify was involved when a BBC foreign affairs correspondent almost gleefully reported that the evil Israelis had bombed a hospital in Gaza killing around 500 innocents? Of course, the story turned out to be complete nonsense – propaganda pushed out by Hamas on the gullible, Israel-hating BBC. In fact, a Hamas rocket aimed at Israel had misfired and a piece had landed in a hospital car park, causing unverified injury and loss of life. But we’ll never know the truth – especially if the rather dubious BBC Verify is involved.

But readers may not be aware of our national broadcaster’s involvement in what is called the Trusted News Initiative. Here’s the Trusted News Initiative’s explanation of what it does:

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is a partnership, founded by the BBC, that includes organisations from around the globe including; AP, AFP, BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Financial Times, Information Futures Lab, Google/YouTube, the Hindu, The Nation Media Group, Meta, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, the Washington Post, Kompas – Indonesia, Dawn – Pakistan, Indian Express, NDTV – India, ABC – Australia, SBS – Australia, NHK – Japan.

TNI members work together to build audience trust and to find solutions to tackle challenges of disinformation. By including media organisations and social media platforms, it is the only forum in the world of its kind designed to take on disinformation in real time.

As you’ll see, the Trusted News Initiative includes much of the mainstream media around the world, the largest media agencies as well as the main tech megacorporations. Let’s imagine just some of the supposed ‘disinformation’ the Trusted News Initiative has bravely tackled to bring us the mainstream media’s and tech mega-giants’ supposedly unbiased reporting:

  • The origins of COVID-19 – From early on, numerous online voices have suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic which killed over seven million innocents originated from a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. They also argued that the Wuhan Institute of Virology, along with other labs around the world, was carrying out ‘gain of function’ research paid for by U.S. taxpayers as certain well-known figures in the U.S. healthcare establishment used foreign labs in order to circumvent a ban on ‘gain of function’ research in the U.S. This disinformation narrative was repeatedly attacked by members of the Trusted News Initiative who insisted that the COVID-19 virus evolved naturally and was mysteriously carried by a bat which travelled or was carried over 1,000 miles from its cave, without infecting anyone along the way, before it decided to land just around the corner from the Wuhan Institute of Virology which coincidentally was carrying out research, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, into bat viruses.
  • The safe and effective vaccines – Most of the members of the Trusted News Initiative have continually pushed the story that the inadequately-tested mRNA vaccines were ‘safe’ and ‘effective’ both in preventing COVID-19 infections and in preventing hospitalisation from serious adverse effects. We now know, in spite of the members of the Trusted News Initiative trying to pretend otherwise, that the safety data on the mRNA vaccines were highly contestable and that the vaccines were never even tested to see if they prevented asymptomatic COVID-19 infections. Moreover, increasing studies from around the world – Israel, Thailand, Germany – have suggested that for many age groups having the vaccines may have been more dangerous to people’s health than a COVID-19 infection as repeated mRNA vaccination may wreck the body’s natural immune system and the mRNA vaccines have been linked to a rise in heart problems – myocarditis and pericarditis – and possibly an acceleration in the growth of many life-threatening cancers.
  • Trashing Ivermectin – At the start of the pandemic many doctors were recommending an antiviral, ivermectin, produced by Merck. Ivermectin is out of patent and only costs around $1 to $2 for a course of treatment. However, Merck quickly developed an antiviral, Molnupiravir. Molnupiravir is supposedly a new drug and is therefore protected by patent and costs about $700 for a course of treatment. In June 2021 Merck signed a deal with the U.S. Government for $1.2bn for 1,700,000 courses of Molnupiravir. So Merck had quite a lot of cash riding on Molnupiravir’s success. Members of the Trusted News Initiative mostly ridiculed anyone proposing ivermectin by repeatedly referring to it as a ‘horse dewormer’. Yet prior to the pandemic over 3.7 billion doses of Ivermectin have been safely administered to humans over the last 40 or so years, something members of the Trusted News Initiative seem to have forgotten to mention while trying to discredit the cheap, out-of-patent ivermectin.

Perhaps the worst and most destructive misinformation spewed out at us by members of the Trusted News Initiative is its members relentless propagandising anthropogenic global warming (or climate change or global boiling or climate crisis or whatever it’s called this month) nonsense. There are several reliable individuals who have repeatedly exposed the utter tripe fuelling the global boiling cult. These include Tony Heller’s RealClimateScience, Paul Homewood’s Not a Lot of People Know That, Anthony Watts’s Watts Up With That?, the Daily Sceptic‘s Chris Morrison and my own modest contribution – the book There is No Climate Crisis.

So instead of me repeating here all the reasons why global boiling is Brobdingnagian-sized baloney, I’ll quote the Trusted News Initiative’s warning on why people like Tony Heller, Paul Homewood, Anthony Watts, Chris Morrison and myself are a danger to the future of the human race:

Whether it’s politicians, companies, or states, many actors have an interest in hindering the fight against climate change. And their power cannot be underestimated: some are going to great lengths to muddy the waters of public debate.

Maybe it’s a fossil fuel company pretending to be much greener than it actually is. Or perhaps it’s a petrostate, whose state media promote climate scepticism to their viewers.

Climate mis- and dis-information can take many shapes and forms – but what brings them all together is a fundamental distortion of facts.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those of us who cover climate change for the BBC often find ourselves being accused of failing to abide by the very same principles our employer stands for: impartiality, neutrality, objectivity.

Why not hear from the other side, they ask, from those who don’t believe in climate change?

The answer is simple. Because the overwhelming majority of scientists (99.9% of them, according to this paper) are in agreement about the key facts of climate change: that it is real, that it is already happening, and that it is being driven by mankind.

What the world does to tackle climate change is a political choice, a debate for our audiences to engage in. Our role is to provide them with the facts they need to have informed conversations about the biggest challenge of our time.

This can involve reporting on or debunking falsehoods that emerge on any given day, but also producing content that audiences may find useful at any given time – like practical guides to convince climate deniers, or fact-checks of common climate myths.

So do you trust the Trusted News Initiative?

David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.

Tags: BBCCensorshipClimate changeCovid originsCOVID-19Fact checkTrusted News InitiativeVaccine

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34 Comments
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

Anything the BBC is involved in cannot be trusted. The world’s best funded socialist fascist political party.

232
0
FerdIII
FerdIII
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Who is the ugly, stupid Mariana ‘Spring’? Owned and operated by whom? Why do I need to listen to a 20 or 30 something fugly who tells me what is real or not? Ridiculous. Defund the BBC and turn off the lights.

82
-6
Smudger
Smudger
1 year ago
Reply to  FerdIII

No establishment government will defund the BBC – but we can all play our part by not paying the TV licence propaganda tax and perhaps donating some of the money saved to the DS.

Last edited 1 year ago by Smudger
23
0
Gordon's Alive
Gordon's Alive
1 year ago

Do I trust the Trusted News Initiative? Most certainly not. Any organisation involved with TNI cannot be trusted.

179
0
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
1 year ago

I detect the Hand of Blair.
Might be dis/mis information though.

95
0
Nigel J Sherratt
Nigel J Sherratt
1 year ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

or malinformation (true but inconvenient to the narrative)

41
0
JohnK
JohnK
1 year ago
Reply to  Nigel J Sherratt

Or “selective with the truth” (so as to influence the other sides interpretation).

28
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Sforzesca

😀😀😀👍

9
0
Grim Ace
Grim Ace
1 year ago

The domination of our society by women had led to this derangement. I am with Nick Dixon, NO votes for women and none for men until the age of 30 and yoy would have to have had a job for 10 years. And no votes for public sector workers except the armed forces. Thos who are paid by the system and who have influence over it, should not be able to vote for their preferred policies.

Last edited 1 year ago by Grim Ace
65
-42
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  Grim Ace

I would like you to elaborate on your point about women, before I proceed. Because nothing screams, ”I’m a misogynist with unresolved psychological issues and an inferiority complex”, like, not just laying the blame for all of society’s ills at the door of the opposite sex, but also asserting that women should not have the basic, fundamental right in a civilized society to vote, thereby not being seen or treat as equal to men in that regard.
But I think the women and men who do not identify as inadequate ‘women-haters’ on here would be interested to see what you have to say for yourself, so it’s over to you.

42
-22
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

I don’t necessarily think that anyone expressing the views that “Grim Ace” does is a “woman-hater” (though some might be), though I understand why you’d take issue with those views. I think the proposals are impractical, unhelpful and morally wrong (except for the one about raising the voting age to 30, which one could argue for), but it seems to be the case that women and men vote differently – at least this has been true in recent UK and US elections, and may well be true in other countries. Men in those elections have been much more likely to vote for candidates on the political right and women for the left. But I don’t think arbitrarily dividing the electorate by sex is helpful. I suppose one could argue that there’s an overlap between “feminine” ideas and “left wing” ideas – but again the distinction is somewhat arbitrary. Ultimately I think it’s up to us to win the battle of ideas with both men and women – and there are many dozy examples of both sexes as we know.

20
-5
ELH
ELH
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Charles De Gaulle gave French women the vote in 1944 (I believe) because he knew they would be conservative and vote for him..and they did.. All depends on the circumstances.

11
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  ELH

Interesting
I didn’t know that
Recent results may be skewed by the main right wing candidate being female
Anyway I think it’s the ideas that are important not the sex

8
0
robnicholson
robnicholson
1 year ago
Reply to  Grim Ace

I somehow think you’ll be down voted on this…

14
-1
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago
Reply to  Grim Ace

Alexander Fraser Tytler 
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

8
0
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

Plus Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”, on the implicit perils of the welfare state.

6
0
GMO
GMO
1 year ago
Reply to  Grim Ace

People should not be able to vote for taxes that do not affect themselves.
It’s too easy to vote for higher taxes for other people but not for themselves.

5
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
1 year ago

The 99.9% study shows that those scientists believe that man may have an effect on climate.
Note that no true scientist would be so bold as to say that there is no detectible effect of man’s presence on Earth on the climate. The real questions to ask are are those effects all negative (NO of course not, just look at constantly increasing food production) or likely to be catastrophic (there is no proof beyond climate modelling which has not shown to have any predictive powers to date).
One further point to add to the 99.9% study is that nearly every scientist feels pressured to add the obligatory nonsense about climate to the end of their papers to ensure future funding.

Last edited 1 year ago by For a fist full of roubles
71
0
Nigel J Sherratt
Nigel J Sherratt
1 year ago
Reply to  For a fist full of roubles

Like the 100 Nazi scientists’ pamphlet against the Jewish Science of Relativity it’s not science if it’s by consensus (apart from the fact that the study and ones like it are complete BS).

Last edited 1 year ago by Nigel J Sherratt
41
0
FerdIII
FerdIII
1 year ago
Reply to  Nigel J Sherratt

Lots of issues with STR. It is now almost or mostly destroyed by evidence. The point is that real science is not a vote. It is evidence based.

17
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  For a fist full of roubles

If I light a fire at the bottom of my garden I have an effect on climate. ——It is all a question of degree. The only question is this. —–Are emissions of CO2 causing or going to cause dangerous changes to the climate? Because if they are not then getting rid of fossil fuels that provide 80% of the world’s energy would be total folly and serve no purpose other than to impoverish billions of people.

8
0
DHJ
DHJ
1 year ago

UK Column has been reporting on the BBC-TNI link for some time.

Part of the trust issue is this sort of comment:

“In fact, a Hamas rocket aimed at Israel had misfired and a piece had landed in a hospital car park, causing unverified injury and loss of life. But we’ll never know the truth”

It goes from “In fact” to “we’ll never know the truth”. Weren’t we just told what the facts were?

Last edited 1 year ago by DHJ
58
0
Jabba the Hut
Jabba the Hut
1 year ago

Global boiling? Blood boiling!

39
0
Jabba the Hut
Jabba the Hut
1 year ago

Marianna Spring has as much air between her ears as her twin brother Buzz Lightyear and are both miss guided by their own self importance.

Last edited 1 year ago by Jabba the Hut
59
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago
Reply to  Jabba the Hut

Just look at her picture! She’s got the perfect smug face that you’d just love to give hard wet slap!

55
-3
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

Agree, Dings. She’s an insufferable biatch, that much is true. And a hypocrite, to boot.

45
-2
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

The BBC and other bought and paid for media speak of climate change as if it were something like a Pillar Box, that we all know exists because we have seen them and most of us have put letters into them. So there is no debate to be had about the existence of pillar boxes and no debate about climate change. They both exist and that is the end of it. How many people though have seen “climate change”? Then if they did actually see it how would they know what they had seen? To the Mainstream media where BBC are the main cheerleaders, everything that happens is being caused by climate change. Even the war in Syria. If there was a spoof paper on pigs farting a semi tone higher because of climate change you can be sure it will be headline news on BBC

Last edited 1 year ago by varmint
36
0
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago

We already had censorship laws that were in place to protect children and teenagers. We believe (some don’t) that the innocence of the young must be protected from the full reality and responsibility of the adult world. Children are (were) progressively exposed to various aspects of true reality so that they become able to stand on their own feet and navigate through life.
BBC’s ‘Trusted News’ is an overt attempt to extend the rules of protecting childhood innocence into the years normally associated with being an adult, so that all are treated as children and incapable of thinking for themselves. Films marked as 18+ or PG mean that the content is only for those that are adult and therefore able to judge for themselves whether to watch or not. For an adult it is important to have access to all views and information and as a consequence it is up to the adult to work out fact from fiction, or friend from foe. In my judgement the BBC is peddling fiction because they make a point about it being the truth and they are therefore a foe.

14
0
zebedee
zebedee
1 year ago

Some people say that Marianna Spring should not have got the job because she embellished her CV. Actually it makes her perfectly qualified to move from being a self propagandist to a professional propagandist.

29
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI)

“…is a partnership, founded by the BBC, that includes organisations from around the globe including; AP, AFP, BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Financial Times, Information Futures Lab, Google/YouTube, the Hindu, The Nation Media Group, Meta, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, the Washington Post, Kompas – Indonesia, Dawn – Pakistan, Indian Express, NDTV – India, ABC – Australia, SBS – Australia, NHK – Japan.”

Marvellous. And there we have it – the job lot of news organisations that should not be trusted.

Last edited 1 year ago by huxleypiggles
33
0
Epi
Epi
1 year ago

“COVID-19 pandemic which killed over seven million innocents”

Few of whom were actually killed by “Covid19’. Bearing in mind that only 5% of deaths had Covi19 as the sole cause of death on their death certificate. I believe this was pretty much the case for the rest of the “Western world”. So about 350,000 then – is that a pandemic? The rest of course being slaughtered by the actions of their governments introducing cruel, malicious, unscrupulous, inhumane, unethical and ultimately genocidal policies and regulations. Whilst lining their own pockets with gold in the process. Despicable doesn’t even cover it.

Last edited 1 year ago by Epi
25
0
Epi
Epi
1 year ago
Reply to  Epi

Brett Weinstein and Tucker sum it up https://t.co/ku3O5BdeoF

Last edited 1 year ago by Epi
7
0
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago

Indeed. How the hell was the “Hottest in 125,000 years” nonsense “verified”.

So how come the Vikings farmed far more of Greenland than now we can?

How come Hannibal got his Jumbos over the Alps?

How come the Romans grew red grapes in the North of England?

And how come the Sahara was verdant, with forests, lakes and rivers as a result of it being much warmer 5k years back? (Answer – Milankovich, and the 21k year cycle)

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-sahara-swung-lush-conditions-years.html

We’ve been far warmer in the Holocene. And to suggest we have global records that stretch back 125,000 is drivel. Global coverage started with satellites in 1979, and pre 1900, weather stations were concentrated in a band in the middle of NA, and West Europe – otherwise thinly scattered, or non-existent. Never mind the SST

Bollocks upon bollocks – as real verification would have stated clearly

Sent the above to the BBC as a complaint. Awaiting their reply.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67861954

6a010536b58035970c0120a75431d3970b
RecordTemps
18
0
Peter W
Peter W
1 year ago

TNI is just another propaganda organisation pushing their own agenda (misinformation) and the TV licence is paying for it. Another good reason to defund the BBC.

14
0

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