Yesterday I posted a story from CBS News: Quake n’ Bake: Global Warming Causes More Energetic Earthquakes?
The main headline was this: Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming
This drew a lot of attention because of the total lack of verifiable science associated with it. I posted some graphs of USGS data showing that the opposite was true, that recent earthquake energy was actually less that in the early 1900’s, and several commenters pointed out that the source of the story, a Dr. Tom Chalko, has some less than stellar associations with what I would describe as “new age” mysticism, such as Thiaoouba Prophecy and “reading your Aura”. He also writes a dandy piece entitled “Global Warming: Can Earth EXPLODE?” which is linked to a website he runs about “bioresonance” where you can buy a “bioresonant” shirt.
So with that sort of science background available on the web for anyone to see in a few seconds of searching, one wonders how CBS News was duped into running a story like this without even bothering to check into the author. This makes the “historic” Microsoft Word documents used by Dan Rather to discredit President Bush’s National Guard Service look like a peer reviewed science paper.
The story gets weirder. CBS attributed the story on their website to the Associated Press (AP) and you can see that clearly in the screen capture of the story below. Odd thing though, there is no dateline, as you usually see with an AP story, and no story author:
Click for a full sized image or see the full text as a PDF file here
After apparently learning of the less than scientific associations of the lead author of the research, CBS removed it from their website as of about 3 p.m. EST on June 19. This was the original link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/tech/main4191556.shtml
Here is where it gets interesting, after CBS pulled the story from their website, I did some searches for it on the Associated Press website at www.ap.org thinking it would still be there.
The story is not found in searches at www.ap.org using “Tom Chalko” or “earthquake global warming”
At the www.ap.org search, for earthquake(s) we find many stories either side of it on June 18th:
But nothing about the Chalko story. Putting in the authors name “Tom Chalko” also yields nothing on ap.org. I wasn’t content with that, so I asked my radio station newsroom at KPAY to run a search on the AP wire stories they receive; nothing turned up. I also asked the editor of our local newspaper, the Chico Enterprise Record, to run a search, and he also found no evidence that AP had transmitted this story.
A further point- it seems to be only connected to CBS News, and their attribution to the AP appears when I do Google News searches such as this one:
“earthquakes global warming Associated press” or “Tom Chalko AP” the only association that appears is the CBS story with (AP) in it, as shown in the screencap below:
Click for a larger screencap image
As seasoned internet news junkies know, if the story had run on the AP wire service, it would have showed up automatically in several newspapers, radio, and TV station websites. But it did not.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=869983
MSNBC also apparently fell for the Marketwire story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25222766/
Taking the investigation one step further, Jeff Poor of the Business & Media Institute asked CBS News and AP about it in the story he filed:
“On June 18, CBS.com posted a story claiming that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago because of global warming. The story had no byline, but was attributed to the Associated Press. The story was identical to a June 17 Market Wire press release attributed to Tom Chalko, the scientist that made the claim of the earthquake/global warming link. However, as of 3 p.m. on June 19, the CBS.com story was no longer available and both CBS.com and AP were blaming the other side for report. ”
“According to Mike Sims, director of news and operations for CBSNews.com, the story was an Associated Press story that came across their wire, but Susan James, a researcher for the Associated Press, told the Business & Media Institute no such story exists in their database. “It’s not an AP story,” James said. “It’s not turning up in our archives.” Sims did not immediately return an inquiry for a response to the Associated Press’ claim. The original story and the identical press release detail the alleged increased danger from earthquakes as a result of global warming.”
So from the four different angles, Google, my local radio station newsroom, my local newspaper newsroom, and AP itself, it has become clear that this was never an Associated Press story. Yet it is even more clear that CBS incorrectly attributed the story to AP, and then removed it without so much as a note, much less a retraction.
In my opinion, CBS News has no credibility left. This opinion is qualified by: I’ve been to CBS in New York to do work for CBS Newspath, and spent 25 years on TV at two CBS News local affiliates. I’ve been associated with CBS News during my entire TV Meteorology career. I trusted it at one time.
It’s one thing to screw up a story, it happens. But it is quite another to incorrectly attribute the source, and then to remove the story with no notice or retraction or recognition of the error whatsoever.
Accurate science reporting, particularly in stories attributing almost anything to “global warming” in the mainstream media has been woefully inadequate, but this is pure incompetence on the part of CBS.
NOTE: Thanks to Carsten A. Arnholm of Norway who provided the screencap of the original CBS story shortly after it had been removed, and to Barry Hearn for the PDF version.
Also, I made a small correction to the wording on 6/20 I meant to say “dateline” as usually appears on AP stories, not “byline”.
Disappointing. The state of science reporting in the media is simply atrocious. They’re all about fantasizing about things, looking for the big “doom and gloom” stories which will get them a few more views and a view more advertising dollars. Seems to be a problem with their news paradigm more than anything else.
Today’s journalists and editors simply don’t have the knowledge that the previous generation had. This is espeially true in the sciences. This story should have triggered a big red flag just from the physics aspects alone. How does a 1 to 2 degree temperature change trigger a quantum jump in earthquake severity?
All journalists are lazy anyway. Most of their time is spent rewriting press releases . If the source seems OK, especially one that reinforces their worldview, then the facts are OK. This has been true for years. The media’s reputation carried them when they were wrong. Now readers who know better, can quickly challenge the story as happened here. I pity the current journalists. They know there are readers far brighter than they are. They know they can blow holes in their stories. One of the best ways to fight this, is the old fashioned Orwellian way that occurred here.
Make the story unhappen.
Let’s hear it for verifiable science!
I’m concerned about fear-mongering because the majority of folks believe something just because it’s in print and don’t use higher critical thinking skills. Hmmmm…
“Mac”
http://antioxexpress.wordpress.com/
http://www.greensfirst.com/5039
To anyone still interested in this, the whole AP/CBS thing seems to have gone down as follows.
CBS always seems to reformat (AP) and other stories from other sources in a unique fashion. With (AP) they cut out the author and other info that heads the piece and just insert the (AP) symbol. Everyone else leaves all that material in. Furthermore, at the end of the article CBS inserts a slightly non-standard bit of boilerplate about the story coming from (AP)–they use roman numerals for example (MMVIII), where (AP) does not .
Now, Marketwire is a mostly Canadian service, and you can’t find too many (or any) articles from it on CBS. I suspect a release from them got incorrectly reformatted as (AP). Nothing dishonest, although the appallingly stupid aspect of running the article as news in the first place still remains.
In a sense, though, CBS has been about the best behaved media entity in this whole matter. MSNBC still links to the story, and so does the Globe and Mail.
REPLY: Sounds plausible, and fits the known facts, thanks. – Anthony
I may be mistaken, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Marketwire is a propaganda machine for the AGW crowd. That they make sure that the MSM get the press releases for any warmer scientist.
You know, I would be inclined to believe a theory that some scientific study had concluded that data suggest that variances in solar magnetic forces caused changes in stress forces of the tetonic plates, thereby resulting in an increase/decrease in seismic activity and magnitude of that activity.
But……
Magnetism wasn’t even mentioned in this Chalko flake’s PDF paper.
Can any one think of anything that they haven’t blamed “Global Warming” on? I’ll bet they’ll even try to blame the next ice age on Global warming. LOL
Can you believe that I had someone post in a forum, saying that, “Global warming absolutely cannot bring an end of an ice age”?
He think the Earth will blown up soon ?
i think the God create us to learn much, to learn Earth effects, but there is a limitation.
God bless you, all!
Hey guys, I just checkout the MSNBC site for the story again. I first viewed it a few hours ago, but by comparison, it appears that they have shrunk the text. It’s so small now it can hardly be read. It may be gone altogether soon.
[…] The link to the article is here. Yes, that is the real link, and yes, it leads to a 404 error page. That’s because CBS pulled the story. A screenshot of the story on CBS can be found here. […]
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CBS and news equate exactly to Goebbels and news. CBS and news equate exactly to Hegel and news. Long live Mass Media, because they motivate the Masses (I guess that is what it means). Even if they make their supposition disappear, the masses will remember it as fact.
That is why I don’t watch CBS, ABC, MSNBC, ad-nauseum, “news.” I’m not into limbic level motivational programming.