Having worked in TV and radio for 30 years, this story really hit home for me. When the editors and newscast producers see climate change as ratings losing proposition, you know the battle for eyes and ears has been lost by the climate alarmists. – Anthony
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A stormy forecast for climate change reporting
By Margot O’Neill
Not all journalists believe the media has done a good job in reporting climate change.
Fresh from a sabbatical studying climate change reporting at the University of Oxford, the ABC’s Margot O’Neill considers whether or not the media has done a good job.
WHATEVER HAPPENED to climate change? This time last year climate change was a hot topic regularly appearing in news bulletins and on front pages. Phrases such as “the future of humanity could be at stake” were quoted, celebrities marshalled and 4,000 journalists prepared to descend on the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen. Apparently humanity’s future is now secure… or so it might seem given the paucity of journalism devoted to the issue in the mainstream media.
Where did all the climate change stories go? “The [programmers] are against it because it loses ratings,” says a senior BBC journalist. “The wave [of public interest] has gone. There is climate change fatigue. That is why I am not [reporting] it now.”
Other journalists agree. Even reporters at The Guardian, which especially targets environmental reporting, complain that it’s difficult to get a run. Another UK broadcast journalist said he was warned that putting climate change on prime time would risk losing a million viewers.
In a series of interviews with some of the UK’s top specialist environment and science correspondents, I explored the changing climate for reporters covering global warming – as part of the ABC’s Donald McDonald research fellowship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. Most of the journalists rated the media poorly on communicating what some have dubbed the epic news story of the century. “We have failed to engage the public,” said a broadcast journalist.
The key problems? The list is long but includes a cold winter in Europe, the distant impacts, the failure of the December 2009 UN climate change Copenhagen summit to produce a binding international agreement, public confusion about whether there is a reliable scientific consensus, and alarmist media coverage with Hollywood-horror headlines like “Be Scared; Be Very Scared!” that are more likely to induce the purchase of popcorn than solar panels.
‘Climategate’
The biggest hurdle mentioned by most journalists was the so-called ‘Climategate’, the controversy surrounding the publication of hundreds of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK between influential climate scientists. It was a “defining moment in all our careers,” according to an environment editor.
Given the underlying science has been exonerated in successive inquiries, what is it that the journalists believe they were guilty of? Firstly, they missed a cracking story that was instead first pursued by the blogosphere and which proved to be, unlike many other climate change stories, a hit with the public. After struggling to find stories the public wanted to read, a tabloid journalist observed “Climategate … got a strong response; it made climate change more topical.”
Many journalists say the UEA email hacking, combined with the discovery of an error regarding the melting of the Himalayan glaciers in the 2007 report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), also proved they had failed to cast a critical enough eye on climate science and that they had been far too dismissive of sceptics.
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I had just finished reading the ABC article seconds before switching to WUWT. I couldn’t believe my eyes – something that looked remarkably like a balanced, thoughtful report on ABC? Yes, there was the banner at the top, and yes, there was the phrase “The science is never settled” halfway down the page. My gast has been well and truly flabbered. I ‘ll have to Google for a nice, quiet religious retreat somewhere so I can rest and contemplate the meaning of life.
Interesting shift in the dynamic there….
You’re a bad influence Anthony… after reading this I couldn’t resist jumping in and firing a few salvos at the ignorant blog comments in response to the ABC article. The ABC’s audience is very pro-AGW so any semblance of leaning towards the science side of the debate gets gunned down by the CAGW trolls there.
To their credit the Aussie ABC occasionally puts skeptics up on their shows and gives them a chance. Usually you find that panels are left-leaning and the audiences especially so. But they do try… sometimes. It is, after all, in their mandate to be balanced.
“A BBC correspondent said it is arguable that journalists need qualifications in science, politics and economics to straddle the demands of climate change reporting.”
Duh! I am appalled by the comments on that article. There are people in Australia who actually believe that there is a shred of evidence that “global warming” is a threat and the skeptics are loonies! That says a lot about competent science reporting.
Curious. In Australia the dear ABC mentioned the ClimateGate emails once. When one of the various reports found no wrongdoing (and we’ve since seen how thorough the investigations were). At the time of the publication they were mysteriously silent.
I’m currently reading “The Hockey Stick Illusion”. Damn thing is such a cracking read its keeping me up till midnight for the last 3 nights and now my eyes are half hanging out.
In reading this book – I’m just GOBSMACKED by the arrogance and hubris of the climate research community. Every page is a case of “oh my god, how could they”? One WTF moment after another. Just when you think it can’t get any more awful, there’s more on the next page.
The ABC has reported none of this.
There was a time when the ABC had a report of Climate Change in EVERY SINGLE news bulletin. Thankfully that farce seems to be over, but they are not playing the honest broker role at all, they’ve just gone silent.
The stuff of “The Hockey Stick Illusion” is one of the great scandals of our time. Once upon a time, the BBC Horizon, or the ABC “4 corners” would have made an hour long program investigating and reporting something like this. Instead they are still disgracefully complicit by saying nothing.
Fresh from a sabbatical studying climate change reporting at the University of Oxford, the ABC’s Margot O’Neill somehow manages to string 1200 words together about the Media’s coverage on the subject without any mention of the ABC’s own woeful performance that ABC Chairman Maurice Newman described as “GROUPTHINK”.
(See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/climate-balance-urged-at-abc/story-e6frg996-1225839329115). Seems like someone didn’t get the memo! It also seems, with the absence of any introspection on Margot’s behalf on ABC’s poor reporting (see http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/p/climate-coverage-at-abc.html) , that more tax payers money has been wasted for no improvement in performance, or will Margot be providing a refund for her tax payer funded trip?
For links see “Don’t mention the G-word” http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/dont-mention-g-word.html
The media is generally in the posture of looking for two extremes of a controversy and saying “Let’s you and him fight” (while we cover the story). It’s odd that in this subject they have abandoned this practice by suppressing one side. Makes one wonder why…
Is this the start of balanced reporting of climate issues in the Australian MSM. I very much doubt it, they’ve moved on to “climate disruption” now.
Everyday we are bombarded with stories of “climate calamity”, or articles stating that “If there is no price on carbon, power pieces will rise.”
Well I say phooey to that. This quarter’s power bill was more than last, and my wife and I used less energy.
There is a great program on Monday night TV called “Good New Week”. This weeks show mentioned nothing about climate change. I thought it odd as there usually is some mention of it, maybe there is a bigger change in attitude happening?
It’s a bad thing if climate fraud loses its prominence in the media. The corrupt political class who have been using CAGW as a means to tax and control us will not stop and the fraud will fall out of public consciousness…
Climate fraud, and how much it is costing us, needs to be kept in our faces until it becomes a serious vote loser…
The critics and skeptics of AGW are not just coming from science and journalism, but the law has stepped in, too. It all gives me hope.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/06/06/legal-verdict-manmade-global-warming-science-doesn%E2%80%99t-withstand-scrutiny/
Like everything else that sounds too good to be true, the full article did not live up to the promise of the headline. The last para, in fact, is as alarmist as anything else the captive MSM regurgitates. And relegating ‘Glaciergate to the realms of minor mistakes is nothing short of outrageous!
The journalist who wrote this piece is obviously singing from the government-approved song sheet – ‘Global Warming’ is so last year, dear, it’s ‘Climate disruption’ now, don’tcher know! She sounds as if she experiences a delicious thrill at the thought of the awful and calamatous future the climate has in store for us.
Progress such as this is not progress at all.
It is no wonder as almost all of Australia is flooded and wet and below average temps since winter. We are still stoaking the fire in early November to keep warm!
Record rain and record cold temps are a common occurrence. the Murray is flooding regularly, farmers have in the main had now well enough rain and the cold temperatures are causing disease, hay and sillage making is a nightmare. Desal plants that were built look like being waste of money white elephants.
Who wants to know about global warming in Australia?!
I’m not convinced of any shift in ideology. After all this is the ABC we’re talking about.
To participate in the ABC’s AGW debates down-under you need to be either :
– A Greens supporter
– A far left aligned Labor voter
– An extreme Socialist protagonist
– Or an Economist plus one of the above.
No science background, or even any basic understanding of science is required. Of course you need to prove is that you blindly believe in AGW so as not to corrupt the outcome of the debate. This ensures a fair and accurate debate outcome.
The Political Science is Settled, but that darn rain and cold just won’t go away !
Tnanks for reporting this mr. watts … I apprecite your candor on subjects that are pertinent to our lives.
The Climate Change Global Fraud was propped up on three pillars: The science, which turned out to be, at best, faulty. The (hyping by the) MSM. And the political machine.
The first pillar, science, collapsed with climategate and the fact that the planet failed to obey hockey-sticks and other the computer-generated temperature graphs.
Now its the MSM’s turn as this report shows.
And the political machinery supporting CAGW will soon die the death.
Global warming has now been turned into a computer game for kids, where one can even have the opportunity to kill most of the global population by spreading a virus and thus save the planet. As in such computer games, for CAGW it will soon be: GAME OVER.
A bit off-topic, but check out this piece by Roger Helmer MEP, who was recently invited to the CRU at the University of East Anglia.
The way they tried to <a href="http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/ueacru-who-are-the-%E2%80%9Cdeniers%E2%80%9D-now/" title="put the block" on some of Roger’s colleagues (Lord Monckton, Jame Delingpole) from attending is very telling.
Apparently we global warming denying ignoramuses are still getting things “out of context”!
“…Then there’s the actual climate. If the scientists and insurance companies are right, it will produce increasing horror temperature, drought and precipitation events as well as more natural catastrophes. How we adapt to a dramatically changing climate, if or when it emerges, could, sadly, become the most compelling story of all….”
Hilarious, Margot’s a blonde:
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200909/r441456_2131086.jpg
Anyone remember swine flu?
How much money did the vaccine companies make out of stoking up that scare? How many medics got catapulted into the media limelight by jumping on that bandwagon? And when did they “prove” that swine flu was not a serious threat to public health.
Did we ever get an apology?
I can’t remember the date, but there was a point the press began to realise that the only people dying from swine flu were people who normally died from seasonal flu and as they only cared about the one or two who might die only because of swine flu and didn’t care about the 20,000 who die each year of the cold in the UK … it became a none story.
Likewise “global warming” has got to that same stage. The press have realised that none of the “extreme weather” is anything but the equivalent of normal seasonal cold deaths and they can see the public have got fed up to the back teeth of this none-scare.
So, just as the swine flu scare machine was dismantled in a virtual news blackout, so we can look forward to the steady dismantling of the global warming scare machinery until in a few years time someone will say: “whatever happened to global warming?” (or not given the lack of press analysis of the press-created swine flu hysteria)
Yeah, and unless you can prove that AGW is wrong, you too are
[/snip]. Scientific discovery holds no prisoners, and all at WUWT are [/snip].
And I don’t give a hoot what you think, all are guilty.
By the way, ignorance is bliss, so don’t worry.
🙂
This post links nicely to a documentary on Channel 4 in the UK this evening called “What the green movement got wrong!”
It’s only scheduled to last one hour but I think there is enough meat in this topic to keep the viewer entertained for 26 x 1 hour long weekly instalments over 4 series!
Yes, come to think of it, it’s now a long time since I have had to put up the the drivel that what classed journalism put out by Roger Harribin on the BBC Ten O’clock News. He was on virtually every night this during 2009.
My guessing is he has taken a serious beating from the sensible stick (BBC Compliance). Shame, I would have paid good money to watch that.
Anthony says it best; “the battle for eyes and ears has been lost by the climate alarmists.”
The battle has been lost for some time. This article demonstrates that the losers are beginning to suffer the consequences of their arrogant behavior. Viewers are voting by changing channels, or dropping subscriptions.
I canceled subscriptions to Scientific American and National Geographic some time ago, after subscribing for decades, because their one-sided, hysterical warmist nonsense grew intolerable. I wrote and explained my reasons at the time; they did not deign to reply. I note with some satisfaction that SciAm has been forced to cut its staff by 30% or more and NatGeo is in similar dire condition.
But I’ve also canceled subscriptions to trade magazines when columnists or editors use their position to promote their ignorant bigotry regarding warmism. I choose the words ignorant and bigotry with care; these people don’t even claim to be familiar with the science and the literature, but publish statements to the effect that “deniers” are stupid, evil, both, or worse.
I don’t subscribe to the notion that one must have an advanced degree in certain physical sciences to be qualified to express an opinion about “climate science” or any other science. Trade magazine writers are entitled to their opinions, but when they use their publication to insult me, I withdraw my support.
My letters to the circulation department stating the reason(s) for my canceling the subscription and requesting a refund invariably get a reply. These magazines know very well that their livelihood depends upon their subscriber base, for while subscription fees barely cover the cost of printing, the number of subscribers determine both demand and pricing for ad pages.
So I’ve received a few apologies, one columnist was fired after an especially egregious insult, and reduced the torrent of paper into my home. No organized boycott is necessary – one canceled subscription to a newspaper or magazine, with a polite letter explaining the reason(s), will do more to put a stop to this nonsense than any amount of debate with self-interested tax-feeding parasites of any stripe.
Harry the Hacker says:
– The stuff of “The Hockey Stick Illusion” is one of the great scandals of our time. Once upon a time, the BBC Horizon, or the ABC “4 corners” would have made an hour long program investigating and reporting something like this. Instead they are still disgracefully complicit by saying nothing. –
Hats off to you, Harry. Yes, the whole CAGW is a massive wake-up call for the scientific community which has seen its reputation for accuracy, balance, honesty and integrity shredded – but it is also an absolute CATASTROPHE for international journalism.
Just look at O’Neil’s 2nd paragraph:
– ‘Where did all the climate change stories go? “The [programmers] are against it because it loses ratings,” says a senior BBC journalist. “The wave [of public interest] has gone. There is climate change fatigue. That is why I am not [reporting] it now.” –
The utter humiliation of that comment is almost certainly lost on both O’Neil and the hapless ‘journalist’ who made it.
The CAGW issue is BURSTING with cracking news stories involving corruption, worldwide public deception, data manipulation and harassment of dissenting scientists.
The Climategate ‘exoneraters’ who run green energy companies. Unreported. Anthony’s shocking investigation into UHI effects on weather stations. Unreported. Hal Lewis’ resignation from API. Unreported. Mann’s Hockey Stick shame. Unreported. Failure of climate models to predict flattening of the warming curve. Unreported.
All “unreported” because they are not served up on a plate by University/State/Government/Research Institute Press Officers to lazy journalists desperate to launch the next bogeyman on their gullible audiences.
But hang on. Maybe those audiences are not so gullible after all. What our BBC man perceives as ‘climate fatigue’ is actually public distrust. Journalists in the mainstream media have seriously underestimated the wisdom of crowds. We know when we are being sold a pig in a poke.
The effect is, unfortunately, corrosive. This morning on the BBC’s Today programme, I listened to Justin Webb interviewing Michael Grade about another BBC news humiliation (reporting that Band Aid contributions had been used to buy arms in Ethiopia). There was not one iota of evidence to prove this breathtaking slur, which Sir Bob Geldof generously described as “an unusual lapse in standards by the broadcaster” (sorry, Sir Bob, you got THAT wrong).
Webb’s interview was perfectly fair and did not shy away from the hard facts about BBC failure. But all the time I was listening to it I was, I am ashamed to say, criticising him for his technique, picking him up on minor points and generally behaving in a lip-curling manner to the way he was conducting a perfectly fair interview.
Why? Because in the past I have heard Webb’s craven interviews on climate change, marvelled at his absolute lack of journalistic enquiry and cringed in embarrassment at the pat-a-cake questions he served up in wide-eyed awe to the agenda-driven Establishment figure in front of him. And so now I don’t trust him.
This is a terrible state of affairs. Both the media and the “warlarmists” (my portmanteau word for those scientists who are both warmist and alarmist) have created a public antipathy towards them (James Delingpole and others are honourable exceptions) that is steadily widening.
I do not know what the outcome will be for the reputation of science. Neither do I know whether journalists are either incompetent or conniving. The world, however, is departing the MSM in droves and turning to the internet – and its abject failure to report CAGW in an objective, balanced, and courageous way is surely one of the reasons why.
So it’s not climate fatigue – indeed, thanks to the internet, the public are much better informed and interested in these matters than ever before. No ‘senior BBC journalist’ it is not that – so let me spell it out for you. And, as you are not scientifically trained, I will write slowly so that you fully understand….
W-E D-O N-O-T B-E-L-I-E-V-E Y-O-U
The change in media mood in ABC and other big media outlets could have been affected by the deepening La Nina and the cold and super-wet weather in many parts of east and west Pacific. South Thailand, some southern provinces of the Philippines, are in deep floods. Really bad timing for the UN FCCC meeting in Cancun just more than 3 weeks away. I briefly wrote it here, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2010/10/un-fccc-meeting-in-cancun-wheres-global.html
From Mike Haseler on November 4, 2010 at 2:21 am:
I certainly remember the swine flu vaccine. President Obama, on behalf of the American public, bought enough doses for the entire US citizenry, all legal residents, and for about another 60 million people who just happened to be wandering through US territory. Something like a half to a third of them were never used. It also seems pretty clear it should have been known from the start the order had no chance of being delivered and used before the surge hit and passed through, for such as the surge turned out to be.
But, for some mysterious reason the public was getting panicked, and prompt authoritative action in the midst of panic is the mark of a true leader, right?
Does anyone know if expired vaccines have to be disposed of as bio-hazardous waste, presumably by likely unionized workers?