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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Media giant Rupert Murdoch has just purchased the National Geographic. According to the Washington Post, Murdoch has provided the non profit organisation with a desperately needed financial lifeline;
National Geographic gets financial lifeline from Fox in $725 million deal
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Under the terms announced Wednesday, Fox will control 73 percent of the operation, called National Geographic Partners, with the balance held by the National Geographic Society. The partnership, based in Washington, will include a portfolio of National Geographic-branded cable TV channels, digital properties and publishing operations, most notably the magazine that has advanced the society’s founding mission — “the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge.”
The agreement provides a financial lifeline not just for the much-honored magazine, but also for the National Geographic Society itself, the organization’s chief executive acknowledged Wednesday. Like many print publications, National Geographic has been hurt by the onset of the digital era, which has put it on a slow trajectory toward extinction.
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Not everybody is happy with the new owner. Despite firm assurances of continued editorial independence, some alarmists are worried that Murdoch’s climate skepticism will influence the way the foundation awards grants to scientists;
Climate change denier Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic, which gives grants to scientists
The National Geographic magazine has been a nonprofit publication since inception in 1888, but that ends today. The long-running American publication becomes very much for-profit under a $725 million dollar deal announced today with 21st Century Fox, the entertainment company controlled by the family of Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch is a notorious climate change denier, and his family’s Fox media empire is the world’s primary source of global warming misinformation. Which would be no big deal here, I guess, were it not for the fact that the National Geographic Society’s mission includes giving grants to scientists.
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Read more: http://boingboing.net/2015/09/09/rupert-murdoch-just-bought-nat.html
BoingBoing cites the following video, as evidence for Rupert Murdoch’s climate skepticism;
Given the alternative to Murdoch’s generous terms was probably bankruptcy, where nobody would get any grants, you have to wonder why some alarmists are taking such a negative view of Murdoch’s financial rescue package; After all, alarmists have long argued that the deluge of government money available to climate scientists who produce studies which support the views of politicians, has no influence on the content of the studies.
Maybe there’s a future for National Geographic. I’ve taken to mostly looking at the photos, still the best in the world, but I hate seeing “global warming” or “climate change” on nearly every article as if authors must demonstrate fealty in order to be published.
Consider the 11,000 or so published papers mentioning climate change in the Cook survey, a whopping 72 or so explicitly blamed human beings for global warming. The rest seem to have been “kissing the ring” (*).
* http://vatican.com/questions/113/kissing-the-popes-ring
I agree.Used to subscribe, but they lost me when the hysterics started..
Well I’m a Nikon person; not a Canon person.
So I don’t care, who owns National Geographic. They would never use any of my pictures anyway.
g
I got fed up with BoingBoing last year and said goodbye to it forever.
The most powerful thing the average person can do to voice their displeasure is to vote with their pocketbook. Don’t like the bow down to CC in your magazine, stop buying it. Don’t like the alarmism at the Weather Channel, don’t watch it. Don’t like when General Mills says they are going to fight CC by reducing their Co2 output, don’t buy their products. Don’t like the warmist lovefest at the Weather Underground, don’t go to their site. Don’t like Elon Musk riding the green subsidy gravy train, don’t patronize his companies.
The power of profits and money from consumers, clicks and eyeballs is very strong. If it’s not profitable to ride the Climate Change bandwagon, companies will find it difficult to continue to pursue that path. For the average person, this is the strongest voice they have. Most people are busy working and raising families and don’t have time to be an activist or write their representatives.
Murdoch’s just reliving his youth when the only publication out there that showed “boobs” was NG. It just ended up being run by boobs.
The “genteel ‘s” Playboy.
Also the pre-adolescent’s Playboy. And reprobate’s named Tom J.
Bunker Hill Jim
But for scientific boobs
Hand it to Scientific American IMO
Check out the photo in Gale, N.H. and Stos-Gale, Z. (1981) “Lead and silver in the ancient Aegean”. Sci. Amer. 244:142-152.
Photo on second page.
During the Victorian era a favorite family viewing public event was to see half naked native women on the stage illustrating how foreign ladies lived in the British Empire.
After all this time, back issue is pay walled.
I only read it for the articles.
I only look at it for photos of half naked native women.
Maybe I’ll take back my accusation that national geographic is getting like National Enquirer… We’ll see.
Another nail in the coffin of the glo.bull warming fraud !!!! The world is finally waking up from this nightmare !!
Awaiting moderation why ???? Is coffin a bad word ???
Marcus … ” f r a u d ” is one of the no-no words.
Testing the filter: “fr‍aud”=>”fraud”
Bout time NG moved away from photographs of African Titties, aka girls in aboriginal state, to something substantial.
Back in the day an Oxford Professor had meticulously measures African girls titties and came up with a theory that Global Human Warming was causing African girls titties to enlarge at enormous and uncontrollable rates.
Oh. The “Professor” … seems a ‘railroad engineer” from Calcutta who is hiding in a hospital from authorities in India.
Ha ha
Too bad! The National Geographic deserved to die. I was a subscriber for nearly 40 years, but it went totally over the cliff into warmist never-never land, and I cancelled it. It was no longer worth the money. Hadn’t been since the mid-90’s, actually.
If Murdoch had said “I’m going to run this thing the way it was back in the ’60’s and ’70’s”, then I’d cheer. But frankly, I hope the old coot fires everybody and turns the building into a condo.
Well, Murdoch could achieve a huge increase in circulation if he just starts being realistic and eliminates all the warmist fraudulent stuff. Subscription renewals or resumptions should be quite easy, as it once was a superb publication.
Glenn Reynolds has suggested that conservative groups ought to purchase “women’s interest” magazine publishers and then gently tweak the editorial slant from far-left to centrist-right, as being far more likely to change politics than spending a billion dollars on voter registration drives like Romney’s “ORCA” project. Especially since Romney’s “ORCA” completely melted down on election day and all that money was entirely wasted.
Same here. I’ll renew if I see 6 consecutive editions that don’t mention global warming. The photography really is remarkable.
Peter
I subscribed for years until their leftist ideology became too in-your-face. Also, I finally realized that many of my childhood nightmares came from viewing their stories on the Vietnam War. Maybe I’ll resubscribe for a few months and see how it is now.
National Geographic channel on Foxtel is becoming ever more warmist and therefore unwatchable. Let’s hope that changes soon.
I still occasionally watch a NatGeo or Nova special. I’ve just learned to turn off the last ten minutes or so.
“Now, how the study of the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy relates to the serious problem of catastrophic climate change.”
I subscribed to both Scientific American and NG until they started with the alarmism. I think it was NG that had a CGI cover picture of the Statue of Liberty up to its waist in sea water. I wanted to puke. But instead, I stopped subscribing, stopped buying the occasional copy at the news stand, and even stopped reading it at the barber shop.
Incidentally, my only source of smut was cut off…an unintended consequence.
That was the issue that caused me to drop my subscription as well.
Well you get fake pictures like that if you don’t use a Nikon camera.
g
Those who depended on grants to drum up phony global warming stories should be afraid. At the same time it is that type of story that has hurt the credibility of the magazine. There have been some very successful, very interesting, series on the tv channel. That should be profitable enough to sustain the company. I still don’t see how it is going to survive in a paper magazine format. If Murdoch can’t figure out how to keep it alive in the internet world, then it will die anyway.
I suspect subscriber drop-out from the disgusting barrage of “global warming” mentions was a factor in NG facing bankruptcy. Let’s pray the new owner does something about that as first order of business.
I read the magazine from cover-to-cover for years as a subscriber. I can’t even remember how long ago that was. Now, the only time I read it is in doctor’s offices waiting rooms (which is not very often for me). As soon as I come across the words “global warming” I put it down and pick up something more scientific and enlightening such as “Children’s Highlights” or “Lady’s Home Journal.”
Even “Women’s Weekly” becomes a saviour.. 😉
Even those aren’t safe bets any more, Stu. I’ve been reduced to reading and critiquing the local “Apartments for Rent” on those occasions when I foolishly neglected to bring a book.
I used to smuggle old copies of NG from the 40’s into doctors’ offices and hide them among the stacks of three year old women’s magazines.
Thanks, Eric Worrall.
Good!
This might save NatGeo. It became so biased it stinks.
The National Geographic has been nothing but a shill for the Global Warming, Climate Change Industry over the last few years, publishing more and more fiction and propaganda, becoming unwatchable and unreadable. Let’s hope things change or Murdoch is just throwing good money after bad.
Oh no, I’m being moderated, which words have dropped me in it?
[Sorry, no idea – mod]
Check your list – my company used to have “shill” on ours.
Whee! Confirmed. “s” “h” “i” “l” “l”.
Mr Murdoch, Sir I have a nice collection of NG’s at home cheap sir, $1,000,000 ( and they are starting to lean my place downwards on one end.).
I would like to believe this means that NG will abandon the eco-nut movement. But it depends whether Murdoch is still being blackmailed by Soros.
Think about it, if you are a wealthy skeptic of AGW, what media outlet would have more leverage on public perception to bring about a change of opinion?
I have heard my acquaintances use Nat Geo as a validation for their faith in climate change doom.
An effective way to overcome the MSM bias is to do as Murdoch has done – slowly but surely over time – the AGW meme will give way to at least a more open and balanced public exposure to both sides. Whether or not this will happen is still in the future. …any computer models to predict future public opinion on this topic?
How soon can Rupert Murdoch take over Nature magazine?! Biggest bunch of climate extremists on the planet, that bunch……
Reblogged this on Utopia – you are standing in it! and commented:
Last time I looked, The Australian newspaper has been calling for action on global warming in its editorial since the late 1990s. News Corporation is a carbon neutral corporation as I recall
Murdoch tends to let the existing editors of publications he buys have a free hand. He’s explicitly promised that in this case. I doubt that there will be much change–maybe 10%.
I wonder how he thinks he can make money from Nat Geo, given that the big trend toward online material and against printed magazines (and against paying for digital subscriptions) is running so strongly against it.
Yes, he is a businessman. People underrate the importance of that when you are in the newspaper business.
Maybe Murdoch will oversee National Geographic’s “funeral” and then go on to establish something else less AGW-oriented.
Unless NG changes, there’s little reason to expect sales to change…..
Making money? He’ll make money. Consider that he now has rights to everything before they climbed onto the propaganda bandwagon. That is a very rich vein for mining.
I hope National Geographic is turned around. Even if it just vetoed the topic of global warming (under all it’s names) it would be a step forward, but I’m hoping for more, such a stand for sanity and common sense and plain good old fashioned science. If it is going to continue as is, it’d be better for it not to be rescued at all.
I grew up with NG in the family home, but I won’t touch it now, not even in the dentist’s waiting room. I do hope that $725 million is not wasted.
What about advertisers?
Well, if National Geographic was “on a slow trajectory toward extinction”, existing advertisers were suffering. Advertisers would do well out of a magazine with a good strong and factual science base. We’ve all lived with alarmism for 30 years, it’s time to step away from this nonsense and start looking at what is real and not not panic over what “might” or “could” happen if we don’t cave in to extreme demands.
There will always be advertisers. Those who don’t want to step away from green political correctness will find plenty of mags and papers supporting the meme. There are still plenty to choose from. Those advertisers who want to move into a new future and away from the old would welcome a change.
As it happens, I have subscribed to National Geographic since 1973 – and I do surely hope that “Murdoch’s climate scepticism will influence the way the foundation awards grants to scientists”.
I got a subsciption for the National geographic as a gift. They first copy was just obsessive climate extremism from cover to cover. I’ve not even bothered opening the rest and I will not ever accept another such gift let alone buy a copy.
After all, alarmists have long argued that the deluge of government money available to climate scientists who produce studies which support the views of politicians, has no influence on the content of the studies.
Well said!!
But what these snouts in the trough of the public-sector really hate is not CO2 but the private sector. Because “I hate CO2” is just another way of saying “I hate the private sector (… and particularly industry)”.
In common with many commenters here, I used to subscribe to the magazine. If Murdoch can clear out the propagandists, I might just buy it again. He might have problems doing that, not because anyone can stop him but simply because an alarmist culture seems to pervade almost everything in the magazine.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/the-decline-of-popular-science-journals/
Pointman
My thoughts exactly. I let my subscription lapse but I miss the old non-biased NG. I’ll be back if Murdoch can restore some realism to it’s pages. Here is hope. GK
What we have here I think is a classic case showing adherence to O’Sullivan’s First Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.”
I also was a subscriber for over 40 years and finally, I just could not support the constant barrage of alarmism. Will require for me longer than 6 issues to tell if he has managed to bring more balance to the current focus of the sky is falling routine.
I cancelled my subscription to National Geographic many years ago, because its content, including photography, became unbearably burdened with leftist ideology. Maybe its acquisition by Fox would result in providing less money to the alarmist crowd.
However, there’s a downside to Murdoch acquisitions. Since he bought Wall Street Journal, I cannot afford this uniquely reasonable newspaper, they want upwards from $400 per year, which is ridiculous. After all, there’s Web nowadays.
May I suggest that editorial content of the print magazine is not Murdoch’s priority.
His group earns its money from movies and TV.
in a world of ever more targeted television viewing he needs high-brow documentary content – Jersey Shore won’t sell Mercedes.
This is about the TV channels.
Yes, I think that is probably the case. even though we want this to be about ideals, it no doubt is only about profits.
It is definitely about the TV channels which is why the buyer is 21st Century Fox. 21st Century Fox is Murdoch’s movie and TV media company, while his print media is owned by his News Corp. company. Murdoch has had an ownership interest in the NatGeo cable channels dating back to 1997. This purchase just expands his ownership to 73% of all of National Geographic’s various media holdings (magazines, maps, TV, etc.).
As for grants, I doubt much will change. Murdoch bought a 73% interest in the “for-profit” media company, National Geographic Partners. The National Geographic Society, which dispenses the research grants, is still an independent non-profit. The Society not only owns a 27% stake in National Geographic Partners, but it just received $725 million from Fox to add to its endowment (and, no doubt, to continue promoting the global warming agenda).
For more info, see the NatGeo website: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150909-21st-century-fox-media-partnership/
Maybe he will buy Scientific American too (-:
Just like many really bad movies go direct to video, Nat Geo should go direct to the dentists waiting room. Only ten are required to make a very effective door-stop.
Wonderful news! Best news NatGeo has posted in forty years!
Murdoch should spin off the alarmists into their own little enclave of news and reporting structure. All he has to do is set up their retirement, 401k as 100% green oriented and then open up staffing positions as voluntary transfers. Incorporate them and sell that group to the NYT.
Those that are left will probably be thrilled to focus on science and culture.
Follow-up by purging all falsehood based grant applications and seriously reconsider modern science frontiers.
It would be pleasant if grants already in motion could be cancelled, effective immediate; especially those lark in the Arctic or tropics kind. Grantees suddenly without funds need to start walking, now.
Sigh, what a daydream. Let’s just hope for honest full reporting.
“Murdoch should spin off the alarmists into their own little enclave of news and reporting structure.”
I like the B Ark idea better.
I must confess, I do love that solution too.
Cruel, very cruel. But appropriate, considering how many these people have beggared.
I would read NatGeo to Junior, apart from the climate and general green p*rn. So at one point I had nothing to read to him, and cancelled the subscription.
It’ll take a long time before they see my money again.
He will have to buy Cosmos and Scientific American as well. Sick to death of their totally unscientific reporting of climate issues. If you think about core scientific principles, the way cAGW/climate change/extreme weather/ ocean acidification/whatever the scare of the day is plugged, it totally defiles all the principles. REAL science is never settled. REAL science can never have the debate over. REAL science is not conducted by contrived controversy. REAL science is not conducted by belief. REAL science shares data/source codes for other scientists to try to find flaws in a theory for the advancement of knowledge. REAL science does not encourage the burning of books written by authors they do not agree with. REAL scientists should be outraged that dissenting views are shouted down and some recommend death sentences for those with the dissenting views. In REAL science, all it takes is ONE significant error in the data, methodology or modelling of a theory to debunk it. REAL science does not manipulate data to make it match a theory.
“Scientific” magazines that allow so much anti-science “protocol” to slip by without question should simply not be bought.
Could Rupert Murdoch be doing this as a public service? At some point the very wealthy begin to worry about their legacy. Could this be it? Let’s see if he continues in this manner.
I have the total collection of national geographics from 1938 until 1991 that my nieghbor gave me when I was a kid. There was an issue in the 70s about global cooling and the manmade coming ice age. It was’t just one article in Time magazine that alerted the public on this ridiculous scare like mainstream media has said.
In the late 70s I worked with a group of earth scientists. There was a presentation in which it was pointed out that we had experienced an unprecedentedly stable climate for 10,000 years. If that were going to end, cooling would be the most likely cause. So, yes, scientists were seriously entertaining the possibility of global cooling. They weren’t laughing at the idea but they did not seem particularly concerned.
During the ’70’s cool scare’ this was a real thing to worry about because we are technically on the downside of the present Interglacial. No Interglacial in the last 2.5 million years has lasted very long compared to the much longer Ice Age cold cycles.
The worry that this Interglacial will last forever and be evil because it will be as warm as before the first Ice Age is pure fantasy and above that, utterly silly since evolution in the northern hemisphere shot upwards under the hammer and anvil of the cold Ice Ages. In Africa and Australia where the Ice Ages had little effect, evolution was much slower and we see what the pre-Ice Age flora and fauna probably looked like in say, Europe and Canada.
For example, mastodons evolved from the same genus as elephants only they changed very radically over the duration of the previous Ice Ages and only went extinct this time around due to human hunters.
Subscribed to the National Geographic for years. Had to stop when the “science” of exploration was turned to leftist or globalist causes, most precisely Anthropogenic Global Warming. Its editorial board was taken over at about the same as that of (almost) every environmental organization I belonged to and prestigious science journal I faithfully read such as Nature and Science — even popular science pubs such as Scientific American. All part of the scam. Unfortunately Rupert is part of it, supporting it, and his kids are even worse. The international dollars from scamming industrialized nations, the U.S. first and foremost, and their tax payers seems to be terribly alluring. I wonder why they chose the element and molecule of energy life, beginning with carbon, to control in all its manifestations??? This is super-villain stuff. Call in the super-heroes.
Hopefully they will allow Scientists like Curry and Ball submit articles
Hey! I tried to buy National Geographic but I lost out in the bidding war with Murdoch. After their bid went to $149.95 plus free coffee and donuts for all employees for a month, I had to drop out. I just couldn’t see how I could recoup my acquisition cost from subscription revenue.
NatGeo is also unabashedly in the anti-Israel camp, regularly running pro-Hamas photo essays of noble Gazans digging “survival” tunnels. If it folded, would be no loss.
At least since the ’70s they’ve gone over to the dark side. They favorably compared North Korea with South Korea and the Sandinistas with the people that Nicaraguans actually wanted to run their country.
I remember the good old days when Curtis LeMay was on the board of National Geographic….all the lefties I knew were so upset with that, and their coverage of the Viet Nam war (not “peacey” enough, apparently) They cancelled THEIR subscriptions. They had foldouts of all the cool American military planes. Heaven to a nerdy, jet-loving dork like me.
BTW, here in Canada the comments in the Toronto Star (think The Gruniad or New York Times with even duller and obnoxious writers) were so very, very upset as well. I asked “and how many of you actually have subscriptions to cancel, or have purchased a magazine in the last decade?”. No answer…
The National Geographic Channel we get here in Canada is basically crap. I know that, with Canadian Content rules (don’t ask…), we have to put Canadian crap on it as well. But the shows like “Hot Tuna”, “Hillbilly Whatever”, etc., are barely A&E quality.
“I know that, with Canadian Content rules (don’t ask…), we have to put Canadian crap on it as well.”
The Red Green show is pretty good. http://www.redgreen.com/
More Canadian content means more ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ nights! should be every night in the week and repeats during the summer.
Same as many above. Loved NG as a child and still peruse it at news stands. But the shrill, psychotic references to global warming in so many articles led to a canceled subscription.
The issue that had on it’s front cover a picture of the Statue of Liberty standing in ocean water up to Lady Liberty’s waist, should have been the final one for this once grand publication. That would have been so appropriate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/national-geographics-junk-science-how-long-will-it-take-for-sea-level-rise-to-reach-midway-up-the-statue-of-liberty/
Lady Liberty could someday have water up to her waist but I would be much more worried about her having ice up to her waist. That actually happened not all that long ago.
“Lady Liberty could someday have water up to her waist but I would be much more worried about her having ice up to her waist. That actually happened not all that long ago.”
During the last glaciation (not that long ago), the ice was a mile or two over her head … and moving.
…some alarmists are worried that Murdoch’s climate skepticism will influence the way the foundation awards grants to scientists…
gawd I hope so
Me, too!
well said!
Little by little, the CAGW leviathan is falling. Though they will attempt to put a brave face on, the Paris sham will be a near-total failure. The days of the Warmunist ideology are numbered, and deep down, they know it.
Citizen Murdoch snags another.
Maybe the NG will concentrate more on GEOGRAPHY and less on saving the planet.
I hope so. I used to really enjoy it.
Me too. I have always loved geography and weather…and went on to get degrees in climate and meteorology. I should be an obvious marketing target for a magazine like Nat Geo yet they continually insult my intelligence and needlessly play politics with the natural world. Just take me around the world once a month and show me cool stuff. No need to make it political. The world speaks for itself.
There is a lot of this sort of comment on this thread. The complaints about reduced readership being attributed to the internet are unfounded. It’s the same situation with MSNBC and the NYT, readership is down because the nonsense level is too high.
Read National Geographic cover to cover from the age of 6. I remember when my new wife started buying me subscriptions taking over from my father supplying the magazine. Then about 15 years or so ago the quality of the articles went downhill – both in subject and quality of information. After putting up with it for a couple years, I gave up and cancelled the subscription. Forty years of reader loyalty pi**ed away by the liberals who took it over. Not surprised to see they ran out of other people’s money. I’m sure I’m not the only loyal reader they lost.
I have gotten Nat Geo subscription as a Christmas gift for a decade and throw it straight in the trash. Their coverage of climate change is so biased and incorrect that I can’t trust any of their other stories where I’m less knowledgeable.
I have not informed my generous friend that I hate her gift and that it wastes trees. Perhaps now, I’ll start reading a bit to see if they start actually covering the issues rather than being a propaganda rag.
I suspect Murdoch won’t change it much…perhaps push it even more to the left. He is a capitalist and knows that bias sells. People don’t want balance. They want to be fed.
NG – RIP
Puzzled!
In the UK the newspapers owned by Murdoch are the Times and Sun. Neither title can be described as either vocally sceptic nor vocally alarmist.
On the Alarmist side we have the Guardian and the Independent. On the other side we have the Telegraph and the Daily Mail. The Telegraph cover both sides of the spectrum. Booker is sceptical, Geof Lean (and Louise Gray although she may have left) are alarmist. The logic of the argument is that you are not 100% alarmist you must be a denier.
Correct. In Oz, news.com.au is a far left, warmist cesspool with collective A666ott Derangement Syndrome. They even hired an Economics editor from Fewfacts (their worst ever).
Statistically a Murdoch journo is far more likely to vote Green than a random person.
They were singled out because they employed FOUR conservatives.
The reason I cancelled my NatGeo subscription years ago is that they had become blatantly liberal, socialist, and no more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the Democratic party.
The CAGW alarmist drivel they published made me gag.
I might even start buying it again!
I think the pendulum is gradually swinging on the subject of climate change. Just the other day NBC news said President Obama was in Alaska to draw attention to the climate change debate. They actually said, “climate change debate”.
Just read the forum comments on this at Boingx2 and WOW! Nice group of hate filled “geniuses” foaming at the mouth. Per what I read, anybody who doesn’t believe that CO2 is going to destroy the planet and wipe out the human race is a science denier and deserves a slow painful death. Not only does sitting behind a keyboard make you smart, but brave as well.
Hopefully they will start cutting back on their Global Warming fear mongering but I’m sure they will keep pushing the other junk science of Evolution which is their main job.
Would be hilarious if their coverage of cagw became less biased but was perceived as more biased by the devout.
The “perceived as more biased by the devout” is almost guaranteed….. 🙂
“National Geographic has been hurt by the onset of the digital era, which has put it on a slow trajectory toward extinction.”
No. Libtard control has it headed to extinction. People buy periodicals for content, content, content. When content turns to crap, people quit buying. Blaming the digital era is a lame, but popular, excuse.
Speaking of content, this just in:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/09/10/weather-channel-cuts-al-roker-show/?intcmp=hpffo&intcmp=obnetwork
Duh Weather Channel is “going back to it’s roots.” Yeah, sure.
Gee, I didn’t think the chucking of my NG gift subscription issues still wrapped in plastic and in the waste can could have that impact.
And not the recycle can either.
Well the grant worriers aren’t even subtle about their biases! What’s wrong with NatGeo giving grants to the whole spectrum of research on climate? The worriers are really worried that the propaganda wing of the science will be cut off and maybe a scientist or two who have evidence that AGW is overblown might get a grant. Just insisting on all data and code being supplied and reviewers including a professional statistician would be enough to cut a lot of the crap out. Hey, if the climate is on a long trajectory of warming, what we really want to know is the extent, uncertainties and the positives and negatives it may bring. If it’s cooling, same thing. How could a real scientist be against this ‘agenda’.
The anti-capitalists took over climate science a generation ago. The purpose of the upcoming meeting in Paris is to kill capitalism, despite any claim to the contrary you hear.
Since Climate Science isn’t about science, or even the environment, grants to look at actual science are counter to the objective, and must be prevented.
That’s much too logical and detailed for the gut reaction, spin community.
I didn’t renew my subscription because of the constant CAGW meme in every article. I wrote them and told them to stop the CAGW meme. For several years I returned their renew subscription letters with the hand written message “Stop the global warming propaganda and I’ll renew my subscription.” They quit sending postal paid renewals instead.
If they stop the CAGW propaganda I will renew my subscription.
Its not like nat geo can get any more broken, what with all the reality tv shows and all. My dad was absolutely disgusted with how they ruined his long awaited show featuring Norwegian tow guys who rescue trucks and cars in winter. After the ridiculous and stupid US and ganadian stuff, here’s sensible, practical people who get on with the job. And then they made it into silly reality tv and ruined it.
The fact that it was Murdoch alone who stepped up and put such a big chunk of change into the organization is what has the climate alarmists worried. They, more than anyone else, know that money talks and big money talks louder! The ‘climatological drift’ has changed direction. [analogous to continental drift].
Is there a penguin that hasn’t been counted, or a starfish that hasn’t been measured, or a future catastrophe that hasn’t been modelled? The only remaining job for climate “science” is to slowly back away from IPCC4 and claim the alarmist predictions weren’t “base cases” as none of them come true. That should only take 1-2. And they’ll have to subsist on the tens of $billions already coming from the public sector.
I cancelled my NatGeo subscription a long time ago when I started to notice the climate catastrophism direction. If Murdoch can clean up the Editorial group so that the magazine exhibits a truly empirical scientific approach rather than one espousing progressive (I hate that word – prefer socialist) ideology then I may start the subscription up again.
NatGeo’s descent into communism is what made such a great buying opportunity for Murdoch. No dark cloud without a silver lining.
Murdoch always supports the use of military violence to achieve political objective. He loves wars,and always supports them:
The point of having a propaganda network is to brainwash people. That’s that’s why our dictators in the glorious west grovel to the “King Maker” who employs an army of “opinion makers.”
https://www.google.com/search?&q=Murdoch%2C+King+maker
Despite our familiarity with such brutally honest terms and our willingness to use them on occasion, we still babble and shriek about the illusion of “freedom & democracy,” like the lowly proles in Orwell’s 1984 celebrating an increase in the chocolate ration following an actual reduction.
Propaganda works.
I stopped reading their book when it turned into a left-wing rag. Maybe Murdoch can save it by including things like real climate info instead of the onslaught of dogma the book has become.
i have so much fun trying to guess which psuedonym David Appell is posting under.
The trolls and facebook Dims I know are twitching on the floors and banging their heads.
Since they do not know, Murdock’s sons are in charge and they are rabid alarmists liberals. Already they are muscling around on Business news and fox tv.
Anything that says Fox on it triggers malfunctioning electrical discharges in their brains.
NG used to be one of my very favorite mags ever and I used to enjoy their TV documentaries also. But like so many have already stated here, I dropped my subscription many years ago when they started with the AGW catastrophisizing. At a point prior to that , they at least attempted to point out the positive sides of the (always) changing climate , i.e. the greening of the Sahara and other formerly barren areas , etc.