His last day will be December 21st, 2009. Dot Earth can be viewed here.
I can’t say I’m surprised. About a month ago, I had an email exchange with Andy on this subject, where he shared with me that he might leave.
While I often disagree with Andy’s postings, I will say that he has been extraordinarily civil to me and also to Steve McIntyre, compared to some others in the same business of writing about climate (you know who you are). He has never not responded to an email I’ve sent him.
He’s been a worthy opponent, let’s hope that whomever replaces him (if there is a replacement, NYT is doing major staffing cutbacks and employee buyouts) has the same or higher standards of conduct.
He cites frustration with journalism and also personal fatigue after routinely working virtually 24/7 in recent years. This I can understand. Keeping WUWT running these days demands similar efforts.
Yale Climate and Media Forum has more details.
On behalf of WUWT and it’s community, please join me in wishing Mr. Revkin good health and success in his next venture. – Anthony Watts
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Note to commenters: I’m only saying this so that none of you do.
“In a way, this is cheering news” or variants of that CRU message will not be tolerated in comments.
Good luck Mr. Revkin. Maybe you will find the truth once you get out of the NYT cocoon.
“The Old Grey Lady” is busy digging her own grave.
Good luck and clear thinking Mr. Revkin.
Does anyone know what the response to Revkin leaving the NYT has been over at RC?
He reminds me of George McFly in the movie Back to the Future.
The bully (Mann) always made him do his homework and treated him like a gopher. Now Andy Revken (McFly) seems to have finally summoned the courage to ball up his fist and hit back.
True sceptics respect the right of others to hold contrary views. This is what an open society is about. Best wishes to Andy Revkin, an honest opponent in the global warming debate.
Good luck Andy, stay ‘unpredictable’ and fight churnalism. If you’ve got a buy-out, sure there’s a book from your experiences of being in the climate wars.
Revkin said he had made his decision to leave two years ago, because he was fatigued.
He stands out only because other journalists have been so much worse. One cheer.
Mr Revkin may indeed have fallen prey to the financial difficulties of his employer. The NYT has long since ceased to be an objective reporter and with that comes a lack of credibility and the result is financial distress.
Revkin, who in my opinion trends warmist, now has the double difficulty of writing about a subject that has just lost huge credibility in it’s core sources, for a publication that suffers the same difficulty. It is best that he move on while he still has a modicum of reputation remaining.
Journalist are only as good as their sources. Think about a reporter that needs to produce a daily story. How much time do they really have to do independent research? They depend on sources feeding them information.
The politicians know this so when they want to influence public opinion to further the party line, they feed stories to friendly (desperate?) reporters who amplify the message to the public.
Reporters don’t want to be cutoff from their sources so they do their best to keep appearing friendly. The result is the media bias that we all see and complain about.
Of course good reporters cultivate multiple sources and use their good judgment to present a fair and balanced picture to their audience. But that requires a lot of work. It is fair easier to be a shill.
Best of luck in your future ventures Mr Revkin.
The NYT is sinking fast.
Hopefully his leaving is not a result of the AGW promoter mafia following through on their threats against him.
The promoters, we see clearly now, cannot withstand even mild dissent, much less actual scrutiny.
Could Andy Revkin possibly be so disappointed by both Climategate and other similar events that he no longer has the same zest and commitment as before? He may not have become a sceptic, rather have lost his faith and drive.
Did he go or was he pushed?
My opinion is that this is a damage limitation exercise – for Revkin and the NYT. Both guilty parties know the brown stuff is going to hit the fan in the coming days, weeks and months because both parties know what they’ve been propagating is fraudulent and that any and all investigations will expose this.
Will the BBC’s Roger Black and Roger Harribin be next – Harribin was exposed by this Sunday’s Mail on Sunday newspaper as having changed BBC news eco stories at the diktat of militant activists (who later crowed about their total control over the BBC’s correspondents).
Is this true ?
It’s right above the Russian Connection part of the article about 7/8ths of the way down the article in the attached link.
“Last week, Michael Schlesinger, Professor of Atmospheric Studies at the University of Illinois, sent a still cruder threat to Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, accusing him of ‘gutter reportage’, and warning: ‘The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists … I sense that you are about to experience the “Big Cutoff” from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included.’ ”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235395/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-Climate-change-emails-row-deepens–Russians-admit-DID-send-them.html#ixzz0ZlgrwTTU
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235395/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-Climate-change-emails-row-deepens–Russians-admit-DID-send-them.html
I wish Andy well. Lot of talent there. I’d like to suggest to him that if is wondering how things got to this point, he might want to reflect on the philosophy of “post-modernism”. We hear about post-modern economies and post-modern literature and post-modern philosophy and post-modern politics and post-modern science and… post-modern journalism. “Post Modernism” os basically the notion that responsible citizens must make a stand to combat inequality and injustice, that not taking a stand is a political act and neutrality and even-handedness are nothing more than an endorsement of the status quo.
Andy (and perhaps George Monbiot, as well) has discovered the moral bankruptcy of that philosophy. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Anthony, maybe see if he’d want to guest post here … of course, after a vacation. Seriously.
@Dennis Wingo.
Don’t know if you’ll see this but regarding mapping relationships in the emails.
It’s not too difficult if you have the original emails from the dump.
Make yourself a free account on https://analyzethe.us/
This is the free Palintir java app that will allow this. Palintir is mindblowing! Check their blogs from the main site http://www.palantirtech.com/ to see it in action.
The upload all the emails into https://analyzethe.us/
It will take some time but it will be worth it.
I have played with it but haven’t had the time to really learn how to use the app.
Here is a pic: http://tinypic.com/r/v3osgy/6 of what I’m talking about.
Palintir will index everything about the emails including the body.
Here is an example of what I’m talking about: http://www.palantirtech.com/government/analysis-blog/transparency
As for Revkin leaving, he deserves the same pat on the back he has given skeptics.
Pace University announced this morning that New York Times science and environment correspondent Andrew Revkin will be leaving the paper to become a “Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding” at the University’s Academy for Applied Environmental Studies.
http://volokh.com/2009/12/15/revkin-from-nyt-to-pace/
So long, Andy. I’m a skeptic and I wish for you what you wish for me. Maybe another trip to Tahiti and a Gauguinian epiphany would be good for you.
P Gosselin (01:31:29) :
He reminds me of George McFly in the movie Back to the Future.
The bully (Mann) always made him do his homework and treated him like a gopher. Now Andy Revken (McFly) seems to have finally summoned the courage to ball up his fist and hit back.
By slinking off the field.
That’ll show ’em.
I’m glad to see that this is such a love fest for the soon to be departed Mr.Revkin, but I think it’s misplaced here. Too may people are commenting on how nice a guy, he is, how polite! Who cares?! I agree with Claude, his manners mean nothing, it’s his relationship to scientific truth that is at issue to me; it’s the fact that his articles are part of the massive Bernaysian maipulation that’s been working to undermine our sovereignty and individual liberty, as well as imposing huge new taxes that will impoverish us, that make him just like the rest of them, as I see it. No difference between him and Borenstein when it comes to it.
However, in his favor, I will say it’s true that a known enemy is easier to deal with than an unknown one!
NZ Willy (17:58:08) :
OT: IARC-JAXA’s gone nutty, rolled back to December 10. Wonder what’s up?
Geminids.
Science journalism prof at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Tom Yulsman, has long regarded Revkin as his model.
Except that to my knowledge both shared compete ignorance of the media’s distorted reporting of the 2006 Wegman report. Neither read it.
Nor did they read the NAS North report.
Both have a falsely inflated perception of journalists’ honesty. They cannot see through their own deluded authority.