I just got word from the producer, that I will be on the PBS Newshour tonight. This is a long segment on climate change that will include several notable people from the climate debate, including Dr. Richard Muller among others. I don’t know what part of the hour the segment will be in, but because it is a feature story, I would suspect it not to be in the first few minutes. (Check local listings here)
I was asked by Spencer Michels, their San Francisco based correspondent, to do an interview. At the outset, he said that this would be an “in depth” segment. I replied that all I asked for was “fair editing” and he replied that there would be.
I was interviewed in my office on August 14th for about two hours. A three person crew (including Michels) with full production lighting was brought into my office where the interview was conducted. He was most interested in my surfacestations project, and my views on the severity of AGW effects and I replied at length. Later in follow up requests he asked for examples of weather stations in the SFO bay area that were affected and here is what I replied with in email:
=============================================================
===============================================================
Whether or not any of that supplemental info plus my two hours of time investment gets turned into a segment that reflects what I actually said is of course the question of the day. I have to think based on my interaction with Mr. Michels, which was quite pleasant, that it will be fair, though he did mention that there was quite a debate in the Washington office over my participation. So, that causes a little bit of worry to me.
On the plus side, he said something off camera that I thought was quite curious at the end of the interview:
You don’t seem that extreme.
I suppose that because I agreed that global warming occurred over the last century, and that Co2 plays a role (though isn’t the only driver) that he was surprised that he didn’t have a “denier” soundbite to work with. I spent a lot of time talking about station siting and the effects on absolute temperature and temperature trends as we discovered in Watts et al 2012, the logarithmic response of IR to CO2 in the atmosphere and other issues from a pragmatic viewpoint (IMHO).
Let’s hope he and the editors kept that thought about my supposed extremism when they edited.
UPDATE: My interview (a condensed version, though mostly accurate) is now online: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/17/my-interview-with-pbs-newshour-now-online/
“I asked for was “fair editing” and he replied that there would be”
I am reminded of Charlie Brown running and Lucy Van Pelt holding the football.
Lucy kept saying she would hold the football and Charlie kept believing it.
Lucy laughed and Charlie always ended up on the ground.
“I asked for was “fair editing” and he replied that there would be
Good luck with that. I expect that they will be as good as the BEST editing.
There could not possibly be fair editing. They don’t know what fair editing is! To them, making you look bad will be quite fair.
Congratulations, Anthony!
May you avoid the ego trap that usually accompanies elation.
I wish you success.
Oliver K. Manuel
Wear a t-shirt with the 1997-2011 global average temperature graph on the front.
Prediction: Anthony will be portrayed as a “dead-ender”
Predicted text from narration:
“While Muller has come into the mainstream with his acceptance of global climate change, others still stubbornly refuse to accept what the overwhelming majority of scientists agree upon: the earth has warmed and humans are the cause. One of the foremost among the fringe is Anthony Watts a former television weatherman who runs a popular internet blog……”
Not that I’d agree with that characterization. Just a prediction.
I work in an industry that inherently gets frequent interviews for both news and documentaries. On one occasion, we had several days of interviews to make a documentary segment. The reporter seemed to be very fair and competent. When the documentary aired, the story was completely different and wrong. We called the reporter and asked the obvious questions. He apologized, said it had nothing to do with him but his editor wanted to make it a better story. Yes, it was a more interesting story, just wrong and misleading. That was National Geographic.
Just checked to make sure I’m not geo – blocked. I’m not. Not all PBS content is available outside the USA.
http://video.pbs.org/program/newshour/
Title of todays Segment.
A change of heart for a global warming skeptic
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/on-the-newshour-tonight-3.html
Which links to the full popaganda page.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/topic/climate-change/
Well, first of all, yeah, that seems pretty optimistic.
Secondly, the “surprise comment” just tells me they didn’t do their homework. Kind of par for the course.
What does it tell you about the world we live in that the first response to a press interview is “I hope they don’t distort what I said to slander me?” And what does it say that this is a reasonable, pragmatic point of view?
While there have been a few positive developments over the last few (post-CG) years, I have very little optimism that PBS (of all orgs) will give Anthony much better than a “while he seems reasonable at first”.
For warmists and the Democratic Party, “extreme” means that you don’t agree with me.
“I have to think based on my interaction with Mr. Michels, which was quite pleasant, that it will be fair, though he did mention that there was quite a debate in the Washington office over my participation. So, that causes a little bit of worry to me.”
and
“You don’t seem that extreme.”
Let’s hope that’s the message Mr. Michels took back to the Washington office.
Richard Muller recently was a guest of The Diane Rehm Show on PBS’s radio twin, NPR, along with a a couple of full- blown burners. Muller actually came off as rather reasonable alongside those two.
Muller was introduced as a “reformed” former skeptic and spent most of his time countering flat- out lies and propaganda, but still was firmly on the side of CAGW.
This evening’s News Hour will be interesting, indeed.
With Anthony as guest, would PBS stoop so low as to…
never mind.
clipe says:
September 17, 2012 at 1:47 pm
“popaganda”
Makes me think of Idi Amin.
It’s a little worrying that Spencer Michaels views one side as extreme. I assume a reporter/story writer has to approach a subject with some preconceptions. Let’s hope that the process of doing the story showed him that there is reasonableness on both sides of the global warming hypothesis. The warmers lose me when they start concocting feedbacks that amplify the basic warming due to CO2.
Here is the interview with Anthony:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/why-the-global-warming-crowd-oversells-its-message.html
It’s up on the website, but how much of it gets aired is anyone’s guess.
Fingers crossed.
Good luck with the fairness and balance. Looking forward to that link, if only to see how your ‘public service’ media compares with ours (a.k.a. the BBC …).
Set the sky+, should be interesting.
Bob Tisdale: September 17, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Well, let’s hope they give you a fair shake, Anthony.
Please post a link to the interview. I, for one, unplugged my television about 5 years ago. And I can guarantee you I have not missed it.
——————-
Yes,please post a link.
Unplugged from TV about 15 ys ago myself. At the time the wife asked when I was going to stop the cable?….I told her it was stopped….2 weeks back 🙂
Been a couple of TV shows I have bought as DVD, such as Firefly and Breaking Bad, but mostly TV does not seem worth the time.
“ANTHONY WATTS: … it’s clear the temperature has gone up in the last 100 years. But what percentage of that is from carbon dioxide? And what percentage of that is from changes in the local and measurement environment? ”
This is a very misleading statement. It does not allow for the fact that real warming, if any, has been brought about by natural causes, such as changes in solar activity and clouds. It implies that measured warming is a result of a combination of CO2, station siting and UHI.
If you can, I’d suggest having your own recording, even if it’s just voice, to be able to show what may have been edited out. Of course they’ll have to edit some things for time but to be able to show what may have been edited for content.
Good luck. I’m expecting they’re going to do the same thing Nat Geo did in their extreme weather piece. Increased temps will cause X but, even though we haven’t seen it yet, it’s coming. You’ll get your piece and then they’ll be a “however”.
PBS has it out in print. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/why-the-global-warming-crowd-oversells-its-message.html
The local PBS radio station, KQED, is definitely biased against “deniers,” as I show below: Here is an excerpt of a letter I sent to the two on-air hosts concerned, and the PBS ombudsman:
I was talking with [a woman] about the Climategate emails and the next time I saw her she said she heard on KQED that they were fake. Astounded, I tried to assure her they were genuine, and the next day I discovered this excerpt (Forum, Dec 7 2011, at 33’36”) on your web site:
Caller: [asks why AGW skeptics aren’t featured more, and mentions ClimateGate]
Krasny: … we did talk about the emails, uh–
Flatow: They’ve been, they’ve been disproven,–
Krasny: Yeah, right, they’ve absolutely been disproven, incontrovertibly…
I think you do your readers a disservice with such careless or uninformed speech. To my knowledge, no one else disputes the authenticity of the emails. Example: the Wall Street Journal reports “at least one scientist involved—Mr. [Michael] Mann—has confirmed that the [Climategate 2.0] emails are genuine, as were the first batch released two years ago.” (November 28, 2011). My quick google finds no one denying authenticity of the Climategate emails’. Your language — both of you! — suggests otherwise.
You two are both intelligent and fluent, so let me be blunt:
Can you cite a source supporting your on-air statements above?
If not, are you (a) ignorant of the details; (b) sloppy in speech, or (c) biased as the caller suspected?
No answer from any of the three, of course. During a fund drive a few months later, I wrote to the fund raising director promising a significant contribution if they would confirm what they said on-air, or retract-on air. Again, no response.
The program is still available at http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201112071000.
They aren’t STILL trying to pass off Muller as “once a skeptic” are they.. ??
“Once” in his case means between 2 sips of tea ! ie HE NEVER WAS !!!!
Did he ask you if you thought the moon landing was faked?