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
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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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To me the major failing of the news media with respect to climate science reporting was listening only to alarmist scientific experts and then failing to verify their facts with other independent scientists, a fundamental error for any journalist .Here are two partial quotes from Don Gardner’s article called “ Slick talkers and bad forecasters”. Don is a journalist at the Ottawa Citizen in Canada.
“In the late 1980s, University of California psychologist Philip Tetlock got almost 300 experts such as economists and political scientists to predict the sort of thing that is routinely predicted in the news — inflation rates, economic growth, elections, wars, the fates of nations. In all, Tetlock gathered almost 28,000 predictions. Then he waited until the predictions could be judged.
As I discuss in my new book, Future Babble, the results of this grand experiment couldn’t have been clearer: The average expert was about as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee. (Hence, the chimpanzee on the cover, in case you were wondering.)
At this point, the cynic would scoff “what do experts know?” and walk away. But Tetlock dug deeper.
Some experts actually did worse than average, meaning they would have been better off flipping a coin. But others did better. They still weren’t great. The world really is unpredictable. But they showed genuine, if modest, predictive insight.”
Don further said in a later part of his article,
“But experts who gathered information from many sources, who were comfortable with complexity and uncertainty, and were more prepared to admit mistakes and adjust conclusions accordingly — these were the experts worth listening to. “
Read more
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Slick+talkers+forecasters/3708786/story.html
How many people turn on the TV or radio seeking propaganda?
Yet the media would still be supporting climate change, without question, if the fraud had not been exposed and the public knowing of the fraud. The key words relating to the reporting are……. without question.
Isotopious says:
November 4, 2010 at 2:29 am
‘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. ‘
I think you should see your therapist, old son – this is what is called, in psychological circles, deep denial. AGW has already been falsified and the really guilty are already instructing their briefs on the defences they’ll need when the House committees call them up to account. We are smiling here at WUWT, whatever you believe us to be.
Well having complained to the BBC about the programme “Countryfile” I recieved this reply:-
“Thanks for contacting the BBC regarding ‘Countryfile’.
I’m sorry to read from your email that you were unhappy with the use of ‘climate change’ used in ‘Countryfile’. I understand you felt the presenters were giving a biased opinion that climate change was caused by man and you feel reference should have been made that it’s a natural occurrence.
The BBC is committed to impartial and balanced coverage when it comes to this issue.
There is broad scientific agreement on the issue of climate change and we reflect this accordingly; however, we do aim to ensure that we also offer time to the dissenting voices.
Flagship BBC programmes such as Newsnight, Today and our network news bulletins on BBC One have all included contributions from those who challenge the general scientific consensus recently and we will continue to offer time to such views on occasion.
We’re guided by the feedback that we receive and to that end I’d like to assure you that I’ve registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, programme makers, channel controllers and other senior managers.”
Balance? I don’t think so!
I’ve been saying for about the last 3 years that the real ‘story’ was how the entire world got duped by a flawed and corrupt ideology. That is how history will show it and almost the entire MSM of the day completely missed it. No credit for scientists and not very much for journalists. Its just goes to show that for all the enlightenment of the modern world, we haven’t really moved that far from the Middle Ages.
Don Gardner wrote another interesting article called “Foredoomed is not forewarned” about the flaws of alarmist forecasts.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Foredoomed+forearmed/3663193/story.html
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2010/3057366.htm
George Munster award forum..
biased? the ABC In SPADES!!!
this is a cluster of self aggrandising so called scientists suggesting NO Sceptical reportage be allowed!
http://agmates.ning.com/forum/topics/norfolk-island-a-captive
combining agw and health politics ..
carbon cards for food fuel and power..
Perhaps our brilliant journalists will someday figure out that reporting on the sceptical side of CAGW might even increase their ratings. It is very intruiging they haven’t cottoned on to this sooner.
Capn Jack Walker says:
November 4, 2010 at 7:00 am
“No offence but last time I looked this ain’t a friendly society.
I never got to do masters or doctor , I was due and went.
But any day Pamela Grey got a problem. …….”
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Capn Jack, perhaps I missed it, but I can’t find where our Pamela has a prob here. Not that she strikes me as a person that typically needs much help. She usually gives better than she gets, but if there’s some fun to be had elsewhere, by all means, provide a link!
“Given the underlying science has been exonerated in successive inquiries”
The public observed those “exoneration hearings” and does not share the opinion that dirt wasn’t swept under the rug.
Big Journalistic caught looking at the plate #2, and that is chalked up to continuing Media bias. The dog & pony show was less than convincing.
From the article:
Now, a key BBC news manager has declared that climate science “isn’t quite a settled question”
Backtracking at the BBC. The climate “scientists” have embarassed their allies in the press. It’s only a matter of time before the press turns on them.
From the article:
“Then there’s the actual climate. If the scientists and insurance companies are right,[…]”
It seems to be difficult to understand, so i spell it out, if any journalist reads this.
Insurance companies earn their money by taking a premium; and the higher the customer perceives the risk, the higher the premium he is willing to pay.
That is why insurance companies are not objective in their publicly announced risk assessments. Especially the Munich Re specializes in such fear mongering.
Their internal risk assessment probably looks rather different, i could imagine.
Funnily enough she makes a claims , that the inquires support the science, which is impossible as the inquires themselves made it clear they did not look at the science. So she clearly has quite a distance to go on her m to enlightnement.
The problem, in my opinion, is that the journalists failed to do any actual journalism. How many times over the past 10-15 years have we heard twaddle like this from the media: “These are all of the world’s smartest scientists! How can we doubt them? They are far more intelligent than any of us! We must believe them! We cannot question them!” Oh, please. As a result these journalists ended up with egg on their collective faces and missed the story of a generation.
” How we adapt to a dramatically changing climate, if or when it emerges, could, sadly, become the most compelling story of all.”
Wow, doesn’t the writer realise that one of the few accurate prediction that can be made about climate is that it changes. Look at the history of previous epochs – mankind will adapt to the next sudden change whatever it is. At the moment it looks like we’re in for a cooler century again:-
1410-1500 cold – Low Solar Activity(LSA?)-(Sporer minimum)
1510-1600 warm – High Solar Activity(HSA?)
1610-1700 cold – (LSA) (Maunder minimum)
1710-1800 warm – (HSA)
1810-1900 cold – (LSA) (Dalton minimum)
1910-2000 warm – (HSA)
2010-2100 (cold???) – (LSA???)
“Given the underlying science has been exonerated in successive inquiries, what is it that the journalists believe they were guilty of? ”
Not adequately covering that
thinly applied whitewashstory too? Perhaps they’ve actually recieved a glimmer of the correct message as to the unscientific nature of CAGW but are still paralyzed by some internal dissonance? I hope!Nothing much changes in Britain
“What the Green Movement Got Wrong”
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/what-the-green-movement-got-wrong
A group of environmentalists across the world believe that, in order to save the planet, humanity must embrace the very science and technology they once so stridently opposed.
An excellent forensic piece on media climate reporting. However, in the last paragraph she seems to suggest that both she and her peers will continue to fear-monger and promulgate alarmist stories. She could have included a warning to her peers that unless they improve, they will similarly be duped by alarmists on the subjects of bio-diversity, ocean acidification and the ecomomics of solar and wind energy.
Dirk H re insurance companies: having competed with most of the major insurance companies for most of my career, I can give you a tip – don’t overestimate their intelligence. While it is true that alarmism suits insurers and particularly reinsurers like Munich Re, I am sure the loss modellers and PR guys in theses companies who come up with the stuff between them are fully onside with the consensus, the modellers because they instinctively believe models in preference to real life, and the PR guys and girls because they are urban trendies who want to be in with the cool kids at Greenpeace and WWF. Lethal combination.
Pamela Gray says:
November 4, 2010 at 6:20 am
The final words lacked only holy water and incense.
===============
And a call for Indulgences
Nothing likely to change at ABC…
From Andrew Bolt’s Blog…
Should journalists report the views of global warming sceptics – even just for balance?
A panel of “top” journalists and journalism academics, as chosen by the University of Technology Sydney’s far Left Centre of “Independent Journalism” and broadcast by the ABC, agree that on the whole the answer is … no, or rarely. (Listen at the link.)
Naturally, in accord with their commitment to debate, not one person on the panel is a sceptic, or challenges this group think.
The ABC’s Sarah Clarke says she prefers to rely on material given the “all clear” by the IPCC, and praises the ABC and Fairfax papers for having been two “responsible” outlets that have been “objective” on global warming.
Rest at: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/selling_out_their_craft_to_the_global_warming_cause/
ABC has not changed its spots. It just moved them around. I was a regular listener to the ABC Podcast, “Starstuff”, an audio astronomy program. I am sorry to say that the shrill “global warming/climate change” meme is now becoming ever present towards the end of these broadcasts. I am, as a result, unsubscribing.
Podcast here: http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/
“Environmental news” starts at 26:40min of the Neutron Star broadcast.
“the science has been exonerated”
That quote demonstrates they’re still not thinking clearly. Earth to Journalists: The science has barely been challenged thus far. The scientists have received a nice coat of friendly whitewash, but their incredible claims of doom have remained safely tucked in the corner away from the light of inquiry.
The Main Stream “News” Media’s business is to enhance viewership or readership, in order to make money. Creating panic aids greatly. It used to be, there were real investigative reporters, who, because they had studied closely the technical facts needed to analyze the situation, whatever the situation was, could create great scandals, and become famous in their industry, and make money for themselves and the news outlet they worked for.
Alas, those investigative reporters have become an endangered species.
That something called “climate” would accurately indicate future weather is preposterous. That molecules of what is no more than a trace gas in the atmosphere would cause much of anything to happen, other than that gas is essential to plant growth and vigor, and a good deal more of it would do no more than enhance the growth of plants, which are most of our food supplies, is absurd.
Specialists are those who learn more and more about less and less so that they end up knowing a whole lot about very little indeed.
Broad knowledge in all of the sciences is required to begin to comprehend that thing called weather and how it happens.
One of the most momentous inventions in modern times was the heavier-than-air flying machine. And, exactly who invented it? A couple of bicycle mechanics, with no “scientific” training, just a couple of guys who either didn’t know that scientists had proclaimed it to be impossible, or simply didn’t care what great scientists proclaimed.
At first, as I have read, this most wonderful feat was ignored, as it was thought that it surely must be a hoax, since it had been proclaimed to be impossible by men of science. But Orville and Wilbur Wright persisted, and before long, it had to be accepted that those two bicycle mechanics were right, and esteemed scientists were wrong.
The simple fact is, the consensus of conventional scientists and “experts” has been, by a far cry, almost always wrong.