Paul Chesser of the American Spectator writes about Andy Revkin’s lack of coverage at the NYT blog “Dot Earth”, in Andy Did Something Good Last Night, and gives him some points for posting a rebuttal.
That’s all well and good, but consider this:
Mr. Revkin stated in an earlier blog post that:
The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.
Having worked in TV and radio newsrooms myself for 25 years, I can understand and relate to Andy’s position, to a point, but I think that point is long past now.
- Like it or not, the files are now in the public domain, they aren’t ever going back to private. They can’t be put back in the bottle now.
- It appears, due to the content, that the people’s right to know outweighs the need for privacy.
- The FOIA process appears to have been purposely circumvented in this case.
- NYT has in the past had no compunction about publishing private, or even classified government information. For example NYT published information contained in classified documents related to surveillance in the now famous story Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts.
- In that NYT story it was said that:
Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation’s legality and oversight.
- In the US surviellance issue, appears that NYT thought the public’s right to know outweighed the need for secrecy, but that action isn’t consistent with previous reporting at NYT with far more volatile information.
- In the Case of ClimateGate, the files are not classified, the players are known and public, and due to what seems to be public “concerns about the operation’s legality and oversight” of CRU it would seem to me that the public’s right to know outweighs the FOIA limited privacy concerns, especially since it appears there may have been FOIA laws broken.
- Revkin himself appears in those CRU emails, suggesting the need for NYT reporting of the issue would be even greater to avoid the appearance of “running cover” for the scientists with whom he collaborated. Yesterday’s piece from Dr. Ray Pierrehumbert gives the appearance of “running cover”.
- Other media outlets are kicking your butt.
Here’s Paul Chesser’s piece, saying many of the same things:
Andy Did Something Good Last Night
By Paul Chesser on 11.24.09 @ 9:47AM
The Amazing Revkin of the New York Times, that is, who at about 5:00 yesterday posted a reader response to the whining of University of Chicago climatologist Raymond Pierrehumbert, who also contributes to the alarmist RealClimate blog. The responder is Geoff Smith, who is mentioned a few times in the Climategate emails. Smith challenges Pierrehumbert to overlook the “cyberterrorism” (Waaah!) and instead question: the deletion of emails to avoid Freedom of Information requests; the exclusion of research that CRU scientists and their colleagues disagree with; the “tricks” of playing with data to fit the scientists’ assumptions; and the desire to oust scientific journal editor who published the works of their enemies.
So, good for Andy for posting those succinct thoughts by Mr. Smith. But here are points deducted for Mr. Amazing:
1. He provides “balance” in his blog post by repeating verbatim the latest defense attempt on the scandal by the University of East Anglia. The spin includes, besides “out of context,” blah, blah:
CRU’s published research is, and has always been, fully peer-reviewed by the relevant journals, and is one strand of research underpinning the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world’s climate in ways that are potentially dangerous. CRU is one of a number of independent centers working in this important area and reaching similar conclusions. It will continue to engage fully in reasoned debate on its findings with individuals and groups that are willing to have their research and theories subjected to scrutiny by the international scientific community.
“Peer-review” and “reasoned debate” were two issues that were proven to be disregarded by Phil Jones and his henchmen. Why does CRU want to surge even deeper into laughingstock territory?
2. Still waiting for Andy to do some of his own original reporting, for actual stories in the newspaper rather than blog posts, after he said on Friday that repercussions “continue to unfold” and “there’s much more to explore.” Does his curiosity extend only to reader comments on his own blog posts?
3. He also posted yesterday a regurgitation of the Times’ position on global warming, which is the same as the old position (“consensus!”). Perfect timing Andy!
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You can’t bury a nice juicy scandal suggestive of nefarious wrong-doing — look how well it worked for the Nixon White House.
“”” JimB in Canada (09:34:21) :
Can anyone tell me if there are more emails and data coming?
I’ve heard this is only about 1/3 of the full amount of the emails I would love to know when the next big shoe will fall! “””
May not be any more to come JimB.
The Unzipped file spreads out to about 160 megs I’m told; so that’s where the extra 100 megs comes from.
But now we need the GISS “dogfood file” to cross correlate, with the one Phil Jones’ team put together.
Jay,
Realclimate is a political blog so why shouldn’t it be owned by political operative. Nothing wrong with that.
who was the NYT reporter who covered for Stalin the 1930’s because he was so compromised he declined to report the truth?
[Reply: Walter Duranty. ~dbs, mod.]
[REPLY – Yeah, and he got a Pulitzer for it. ~ Evan]
When you talk about investigative Journalism, today’s players are mostly clowns.
For example. The Original Constitution of the United States is about four pages long; today, maybe a pocket version is 30 pages.
Governor Palin’s Book; “Going Rogue” is about 450+ pages long I’m told.
The Associated Press; the hornet’s nest of investigative Journalism has assigned 11 (eleven) investigative Journalists to look for typos In Palin’s book.
The as now revealed Congressional Socialized Medicine and tax bill, is now 4064 pages long; so AP has assigned two investigative journalists to research that so they can report what is init to the American Taxpayers. The Congress people haven’t read it since it doesn’t apply to them.
Yes journalism is still alive; well barely. Well I just learned that all those two AP investigative reporters are going to do is to count the pages, and verify that 4064 number of pages.
Maybe Dot.Earth could report on the socialized Medicine and tax bill. That would keep Andy out of trouble for a while.
” Brian Macker (09:55:42) :
Jay,
Realclimate is a political blog so why shouldn’t it be owned by political operative. Nothing wrong with that.”
Since the scientists and Al Gore are on apolitical agenda, you are correct…..
It’s funny how these people maintain that the documents were ‘obtained illegally’, ‘stolen’ etc.
If the documents pertained to virtually any field other than AGW, they would be said to have been ‘leaked’
Perhaps a lawyer can answer a question for me; If a newspaper accepts gov’t assistance and/or bailout money in some form (havent heard much on this in the news for many weeks), would the news organization then be subject to FOIA regulations ?
Reply to Chris,
The WSJ has covered this and other controversies very well. It is as the top of my list. I will say this about the NY Times and the Dot Earth Blog, its actually a good place to get a two sides of a particular topic. I may not like the bias of the reporter but there is reasoned give and take from people that write in. While the regular readers and blog contributers there may have the same inclinations of Mr. Revkin, a hot topic like climate gate draws out the folks with a different point of view. They also have a sort for most recommended that allows you to quickly focus on the best comments. This also probably gives you a perspective of where his audience stands on a given topic.
Oddly enough the NYT didn’t seem to have this problem with posting Sara Palin’s private emails acquired illegally during the previous Presidential campaign. Wonder why they’ve had an a sudden attack of ‘ethics’ now?
The email were likely picked up on the /pub end of an ftp server, placed there for anyone to find. My guess is that it’s one of the internal people to CRU who had been the butt of tirades by the ‘elite’. There are examples of such internal lashings in the emails. Take your pick.
Revkin, like Jones, doesn’t get it.
Andy, you are pinning your reputation on someone who is coming unglued due to the fact that they, and the company they have kept, are in deepest goo up past their eyeballs.
jorgekafkazar (09:40:42) : I’m thinking of writing a book about ClimateGate and media involvement. I’ll need a descriptive title that sums up the situation succinctly. Maybe “The Silence of the Whores.”
jorge, please don’t drag down that ancient and honourable profession to the level of these deluded fraudsters 🙂
Regarding whether or not all files have been leaked, there’s this from the AP this morning:
Trenberth, a well-respected atmospheric scientist, said it did not appear that all the documents stolen from the university had been distributed on the Internet by the hackers.
Source
As far as Glenn taking the NYT to task for its double standards, how about Fox hiring the very same guy who drew out battle strategy in the sand for all the world to see? I too am waiting for legit journalism to come on board with reasoned reports on this growing scandal. Rush, Glenn, and that other guy just don’t rise to what I call investigative journalism, anymore than the guy who dug out the underground stall trying to find a car does. That they are all on Fox news is telling. It’s like watching news on the Eugene, Oregon channel. They add nothing to news and likely add a drag to other news channels and reporters wanting to look into the truth.
jay (09:01:42) :
Environmental Media Services is part of Fenton Communications.
Activistscash.com don’t think much of them; see link
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/110
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/about/visiting/
The Goddard Institute for Space Studies is located in New York City at the intersection of Broadway and West 112th St. in the Morningside Heights-Columbia University neighborhood of Manhattan. Right at the corner on the first floor of our building is Tom’s Restaurant, a restaurant which you will likely recognize if you have ever watched the TV program Seinfeld.
Our front entrance is just a few steps east along 112th St. from Tom’s. Immediately above the entrance is a sign stating 545 West 112th St. There is a smaller sign to the side stating 2880 Broadway, our official address.
The following links are provided for the use of visiting scientists and conference attendees. As GISS is a small research installation and because of government security regulations, it does not provide for drop-in visitors. Tours are available only on an extremely limited basis. Contact Ms. Emily Michaud at emichaud@giss.nasa.gov or 212-678-5641 for further details.
Reaching Manhattan
Gavin Schmidt camps out a couple doors down at Realclimate.org
A couple thoughts on deleting e-mails:
The IT guys writing here already know this, but I have not seen it mentioned in a thread yet. May also have missed it in the flow of comments but….
Depending on the e-mail system used, deleting e-mails from the desktop does not delete the e-mails, as copies of everything are retained on the e-mail server. Just because they think they deleted the e-mails does not mean they are gone. Purging the e-mail servers of all e-mail will be another thing entirely and would require a forensic IT type to recover. And they ought to be recoverable unless overwritten on the server.
FWIW, this sort of cover-up normally results in jail time.
Bring popcorn, indeed.
i’m struggling to understand why he and other media are so reluctant to follow this story up. i’m not a conspiracy theorist i think human greed, ego, groupthink and incompetence are much more likely candidates for the apparent action of HadCRU scientists, but this is what bothers me about the media;
let’s say for the sake of argument that there is a conspiracy (by lizards(!) or whoever it is “running the establishment” this week). what pressure could “the establishment” put on an NYT journalist to prevent follow up of the story? the only thing i can think of would be denying acccess to future off-the-record comment and sources. particularly sisnce the event took place in the UK and don’t affect US juristictions from a legal perspective. i can’t see the US “going along” with the UK “establishment” for the sake of national interests.
so i’m left with the assumption that there is no grand conspiracy and therefore no way pressure could be brought on the NYT to suppress investigation. which leads me to conclude that any journalist has everything to gain and nothing to lose by following the story up. yet the media is very quiet given the potential implications. it baffles me – surely there’s another Woodward and Bernstein out there or have we all become so apathetic?
Has someone put together a list of who exactly is implicated by these emails?
I know we’ve got
Phil Jones
Michael Mann
Keith Briffa
Ray Bradley
Gary Funkhouser
Dave Schimel
Tom Wigley
Mick Kelly
Who else, and are these appropriate to put on the list?
Once this list is put together, every scientific paper that they’ve written or been involved with should be scratched as invalid. What will we have left after that?
It’s such a pathetic statement that it’s a parody of itself.
The NY Times cannot expire too soon.
One wonders, though, why ALL of these emails and ALL of the data aren’t readily available to ANYONE.
We’re talking about world policies dependent on this data.
Absolutely none of it should be occult.
Just a little reminder folks. The NYT knows better. There are legal cases in which there are racial jokes or sexual jokes transmitted in an office. Companies have been sued for them in that they created a hostile environment. courts found all messages are the asset and also can be to the liability of the company/owner of the computer and it’s files. Martha Stewart did jail because electronic notes and written notes do matter and showed she lied.
Revkin’s silence indicates that at least one of these apparent co-conspirators is receiving competent legal advice. I enjoy the squeals of Jones as much as anyone, but seriously, he should STFU. He is really a moron.
I would also like to point out:
10. There is – AFAIK – no sensitive private information in the files. You will see an occasional “I hope X is well” and “I have just arrived to conference Y”, which is trivial. There is one case about one person being ill and undergoing an operation, but no details are given and this is necessary to understand the circumstances of that specific mail exchange. That they *express* themselves in a personal way, doesn’t mean the mail itself is personal. These E-mails are work-related mail by public servants paid for by the tax payers, and they cover what they do in their work role.
–Ahrvid
Great points. Any one of those points is sufficient to make one wonder why Mr. Revkin didn’t feel like he was setting himself up to look like a hypocryt.