WUWT readers may remember this story I wrote about the clowns from Old Pulteney’s “Row to the Pole” who had headlines blaring in Britain exclaiming they had rowed to the “north pole”. Telegraph, BBC, and Independent geography FAIL: “Row to the Pole” never made it to the “North Pole” – they are 790 miles short
I pointed out that not only were they NOT at the north pole, they weren’t even at the north magnetic pole which had since moved due to the Earth’s normal processes.
As I explained before the trip even started, there’s no “pole” achievement here, not even close. They are 738 KM short of the actual magnetic pole. The 1996 magnetic pole doesn’t exist there anymore and thus can’t be a pole of any kind.
The Telegraph article says:
The successful trip to the Pole, described as the “greatest ocean rows of all time”, was only possible because of more seasonal ice-melt in the Arctic that has opened the waters up.
No mention of the fact that they aren’t even close. The actual North pole is 790 miles away:
Most any child in primary school taking an introduction to geography could spot this error, which makes the Telegraphs error doubly embarrassing.
Following my lead, WUWT reader Neil Turner issued a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) in the UK over this glaring inaccuracy. They responded with a ruling and agreed the Telegraph erred. Here is part of the email exchange from the PCC and the Telegraph:
And here is the microscopically sized “correction” printed today on page 18, next to the nude wrestler story and the fashion news. It doesn’t even contain the word “correction”.
Neil writes in his email to me:
My observation is that it is typical that the misleading story received far greater prominence than the correction. I took this up with the PCC, and they explained that the size, font etc of correction is leaft at the Editor’s discretion.
From my perspective, the editor’s discretion, shown above in it’s placement and size, is pretty much the journalistic equivalent of “eff you!”.
What a bunch of gormless cobblers.
Meanwhile Jock Wishart and the crew enjoys the spoils of their sponsor, the Old Pulteney whisky company, caring not at all that people think he’s reached some sort of geographic pole. Such is the way of the world today, fluff and failure make headlines whiles facts get buried on page 18 next to the nude wrestlers.
Well, since this company wishes to sponsor fraud.
DO NOT BUY THEIR PRODUCT. If you have friend slugging down their product, when the drunken brawl is over explain to them that they are sponsoring a company that has no compunction about stating lies to push their product. If they will lie about that, would they also have no problem stating a lie about what is in their product?
How can you then trust them when they state that no primate urine was used in the manufacture of Olde Pulteney?
The “correction” doesn’t even state that it is a correction and is worded in a way to almost be a further endorsement of the NP falsehood. Saying that they rowed to the 1996 magnetic pole would, for many people who don’t follow the issue closely, make them think that 1996 must have been the last time it was “certified” and that, therefore, they actually got to the accepted magnetic NP. Oh, and everyone knows the magnetic NP is up north close, kinda, to the real NP. So as far as the “correction” goes, it is certainly *not* intended to inform the reader that the original article was misleading and that the group was nowhere near the NP; rather the “correction” is intended to reinforce the impression that the group got, for all practical intents and purposes, up there where the NP is.
Wait a minute. You mean they didn’t row back? None of these guys seem to be able to do much of anything in the Arctic without Kenn Borek.
The actual North pole is 790 miles away:………..
……..and solid ice
For the record, I also submitted a complaint to the PCC against the Telegraph and got a similar response. I have also had similar responses from the Guardian and the Independent.
I’m with John in L du B – “You mean they didn’t row back?” WUWT?? I wonder if they abandoned the boat and gear there, leaving it as trash, or just what they did with it? I mean, it may just be the angle or something, but the tail of that plane doesn’t look like it fits with something large enough to put the boat in, does it?
If you are looking for the true magnetic pole in the Northern Hemisphere (it is surprisingly the South magnetic pole), go East young man, your destination is Central Siberia.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/mag_maps/pdf/F_map_mf_2010.pdf
You mean no mention of the reason why they stopped at some off the wall place rather than the NP was TOO MUCH ICE in the way! Plus, they didn’t even try to row back.
We breathlessly await an expose of this geographic deceit —
at Real Climate, Deltoid, Climate Progress, etc.
Help, I’m turning purple very fast…
Okay, wait for it … now, “Send in the apologists” (R. Gates et al) …
Katabasis1
Well done. I was aware that there were two complainants. Did the Guardian and Independent issue a correction ?
I followed this Annual British Arctic Folly daily on their website. It was clear to me from that source from the beginning that they intended to row to the 1996 site of the magnetic north pole. You don’t have to con the newspapers, they’ll do it to themselves.
From here it just looked like a bunch of good ol’ boys (British style) had come up with an idea for an adventure and sold it to a gullible sponsor. Interesting that they spent their final night on an abandoned DEW line base. Still waiting for the report on the “science” that was done.
Anthony needs to issue a minor correction of his own: the “mud wrestling” story was actually about a male-on-male nude wrestling scene in the 1969 film “Women in Love”, no mud involved. I noticed because that scene scarred me for life when I saw it on cable; to this day I haven’t been able to watch WWE “sports entertainment”. 🙂
When WUWT first ran the story I went to the team’s web site and posted a remark about their inaccuracy. There was one other similar entry at that time. The response was that they were simply going to the last place certified as the NMP and had stated so. In a later post the team asked their “fans” to ignore the naysayers.
“If you are looking for the true magnetic pole in the Northern Hemisphere (it is surprisingly the South magnetic pole), go East young man, your destination is Central Siberia.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/mag_maps/pdf/F_map_mf_2010.pdf”
That shows the field intensity, not its direction, so says nothing about the location of the poles.
I think henceforth I shall refer to their product as “Old Pole-Phony.”
I’ve never even seen their stuff on sale. They’re trying to prolong stuff on their Facebook page, but no one’s really interested anymore. I shouldn’t think their sponsors have received a ROI.
I had a similar problem with Geoffrey Lean (their environmental correspondent) when he got Arrhenius CO2 sensitivity wrong – but only by a factor of 3. He quoted a preliminary paper that Arrhenius retracted two years later. Any correction? Any apology?
Yep you guessed it. Science and truth is a foreign land to many of these jokers – mind you there’s an idea promote him Foreign Correspondent in Kabul.
Those guys drink whiskey like little girls.
It was an out-and-out lie. Blatent. Unretracted. And then they have the temerity to bleat that they got there “because the ice melted”, making up an image of open water at 90 degrees north. It simply reeks of childish I-told-you-so, coupled with the calculated gamble on people’s ignorance and apathy: that nobody “of consequence” would dispute it. Just like the Goreacle’s little cookie jar experiment, they got caught with their hands in one. So what! What tripe.
It’s common place for corrections in newspapers to be very hard to find, regardless of how much the original, incorrect story was hyped.
When the presenters of BBC’s “Top Gear” drove to the “North Pole” in 2007 … same thing: they went to the 1996 MNP location. They showed a car’s GPS location on screen as they arrived, so there was no confusion about where they actually went. The Wikipedia page states this as if that was the plan, but on the show the word “magnetic” was never mentioned. Oh well …
I think it makes a much better story that they did reach the North Magnetic Pole – 15 years late!
Old Pulteney drinkers are either in no hurry, or don’t sweat the details.
If a Sponsor doesn’t care about accuracy, why should it care about quality?
Mark Thomas says:
September 30, 2011 at 11:29 am
“If you are looking for the true magnetic pole in the Northern Hemisphere (it is surprisingly the South magnetic pole), go East young man, your destination is Central Siberia.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/mag_maps/pdf/F_map_mf_2010.pdf”
That shows the field intensity, not its direction, so says nothing about the location of the poles.
~
Not to get you upset or anything M. Thomas, but .. the magnetic N. Pole direction since ew 1996 is heading towards Siberia.. Vuks is just saying well maybe part of it is already there. Magnetic axis still working its way over..not the same as geographic n. pole.
Vuks did you shows us once how the magnetic equator fluctuated with the N. magnetic pole fuctuations or was that my imagination? Someything about a westward drift of the SAA in there somewhere.