Last week a number of people were in shock about the news that James Delingpole had his last column at the Telegraph. It was all rather abrupt. As to why, I have the inside scoop.
I asked James directly, and in a nutshell it was three things.
1. They paid him poorly, ’nuff said.
2. They never seemed to appreciate the kind of traffic and exposure he’d brought. Remember, Delingpole was the first MSM columnist to break Climategate, and I’m pleased to say he got the scoop from WUWT. But, they didn’t really recognize the asset, even though he won an award for his Climategate coverage. When Delingpole’s column won the Bloggie award for “Best Weblog About Politics“, they didn’t even mention it in the print edition or in the online main page. Usually when a columnist or writer wins such an award, the paper crows about it.
3. Often, they didn’t like the content. As we know, James skewers the left and in particular greens. He reports he was getting increasing pressure over his environmental essays.
Usually when people are the most angry at someone for something they’ve said or written, it’s because what they’ve said or written has some truth in it. While Delingpole pulled no punches when it came to describing (with great flourish) the defective nature of some aspects of the environmental movement, some ‘proper’ folks found it hard to stomach.
Of course, then we have this, which I find even harder to stomach:
Andrew Montford cited this as an example of Delingpole’s prescience.
So, now, the Telegraph’s loss is Breitbart’s gain, and just three days later, James has come out swinging:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/02/16/Lefty-Lies-UK-Floods
All in all, quite an exit mirrored by a grand entrance.
Finally, all this leads me to something I’ve been remiss at doing simply because the day to day business of running WUWT often gets in the way, and that’s to recommend James most recent book. He kindly sent me a copy, and while the title admittedly made me cringe, once I started reading it, I found it lighthearted and hilarious. It reads a bit like a dictionary, except every definition has a punch line. Highly recommended, click the cover to have a look.
Also, be sure to add Breitbart London to your bookmarks. Delingpole’s latest is: Whose Life Is More Important? Yours, Or A Shark’s?
Oh, and what essay on Delingpole by yours truly would be complete without this photo courtesy of our friends at “Skeptical Science”?
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Telegraph’s loss is Breitbart’s gain.
Nice props Tony. JD has well and truly landed at Breitbart with his merry Knights of Delingpole following along and the Telegraph is far poorer for it!
You go Delingpole! I too have been the victim of corporate myopia in this regard.,,,,,
Anthony,
You need to check out Greenfry.com
They are nice enough to supply hit lists of climate skeptics and deniers. I think I found a spot where you are honorably identified. I unsubscribe a week ago. They hate my guts too. When the blog lost their oversee.for a while, I got quite a bit of open forum on Sunspots. Since then all that was deleted. Now, it is SOP man-made global warming absurd to the 10th power.
Paul
REPLY: Doesn’t appear to be anything but a domain parking at that Greenfry.com URL? – Anthony
Like the Telegraph also like James Delingpole, the day Christopher Booker goes is the day I cancel my subscription!
I love Delingpole’s rapier wit and delight in sending some of the choicer bits to my two journalist Brothers-in-law.
The world needs a lot more journalists of his caliber.
Wow, Anthony, you guys are really ripped!
MSM in all countries pay their journalists poorly. That is why they are leaving to the new media, sometimes for other organisations (like James) or for themselves like Mike Smith and Donna Laframboise. It is also why the MSM produce such crap coverage of anything remotely like science. Only activists zealots would work for that type of money. If you pay peanuts and you get monkeys (apologies to all monkeys for the possible inference that the left wing journalists are monkeys).
The Telegraph is Dead to Me.
Not a Pause…an End.
(And they still print the sadly senile Geoffrey Lean.)
I have always enjoyed reading JD. It’s rather sad that myopia at the Telegraph has led to this, as I thought that paper was one of the few balanced publications left in Britain.
Welcome to Breitbart, and prosper! Here in NZ, I’ll keep following your posts.
The ‘Right Wing Club for the Good Ol’ Boys’ continues its online love in……..
Delingpole was late to the Climate Change Party and thinks that it started with ‘Climategate’.
Well: it didn’t. It started a decade earlier.
This isn’t about heroism, it’s about political credit.
Delingpole is a typical American joining a 20th century world war. Late to the party but demanding all the credit.
Many years ago, as my parents told us post WWII, The British media (as were their soldiers and air men) were the back bone of post WWII Europe. I am not sure what they call bone degeneration these days in Britain , but I am glad to see there are a few chips of the old block left! Welcome JD! (and I mean no matter were you publish btw)
97% of MSM journalists conform because that’s the way hey think they’ll rise to the top.
3% tell the truth.
I wonder where I read those statistics before?
James Delingpole is a valuable climate truth warrior. I remember back in the Climategate days, I was always spreading his articles far and wide everywhere on internet blogs including WUWT. I’ve heard him a number of times interviewed on Alex Jones Infowars radio. JD is very well known and appreciated in many media circles. Breitbart got a great catch. Moves like this make MSM more irrelevant by the minute. Alternative internet media news is kicking lamestream media’s butt. MSNBC and CNN barely get 500k viewers an evening, 15 years ago that number was closer to 15 million viewers an evening. Mainstream media will die a miserable death because virtually no one goes to their channels anymore. MSM doesn’t give people the type of news they want to hear. You’d think they would wise up, if for nothing else, a better paycheck.
I used to happily pay for a subscription to the Telegraph. Now I am glad that simply going into my firefox options and deleting the Telegraph cookies means I can read it for what it is worth. Free.
We stopped buying the Daily Telegraph over three years ago. Been buying the Daily Mail but beginning to have doubts about them. Wondering about the Spectator.
Fortunately I’d finished breakfast before seeing that Skeptical Science mashup again. But you’ve got under their skins. Respect and thanks, Anthony and James
Would it be possible to change the sidebar link to his Breitbart blog?
Perhaps Rhys Jaggar should do more research on J. Delingpole before posting.
(If only not to appear ignorant.)
good luck james. my politics is not always in alignment with yours, but who’s complaining about that. you always make me laugh. we all need to stick together to beat the CAGW dragon. besides, aren’t we always being told diversity is good! lol.
besides, the Tele is no longer the conservative paper it once was. now, if you wrote a humourless article, such as the one below, for Huffington Post, with no sense of the ridiculous, and with a headline & text that actually accepts CAGW, you could be writing for the Murdoch Press!
19 Feb: News Ltd. Australia: Some futurists aren’t worried about global warming or overpopulation
IT’S almost impossible to view the news anymore without seeing something negative related to global warming, overpopulation or environmental degradation of the planet. The facts speak for themselves. Pollution is rampant in many cities. Entire forests are being cut down. And the human species is adding over 200,000 new people a day to the world. Environmental scientists have warned for years that the human race is dramatically affecting the planet and its ecosystems. Humans are changing the climate of Earth, consuming all its finite resources, and causing the disappearance of over 10,000 species a year.
Despite this, a growing number of futurists, many who are transhumanists — people who aim to move beyond the human being using science and technology — aren’t worried. While New York City, Boston and Miami may be partially underwater by 2100, many futurists don’t plan to be around in the flesh by then. And if they are, they’ll have the technology to walk on water…
Within a few years, humans will begin attempting to download their first thoughts into computers. Soon after, a software interface will bring to life our authentic virtual personalities. Eventually, especially with the help of artificial intelligence, we will complete a full upload of our brains, and our minds and its thoughts will freely move in and out of machines. We will be digital avatars of our biological selves…
Will this new phase of human existence require as many resources from the planet as we are currently using? Will we continue to eat food? Breathe air? Depend on water? Procreate? The answer is probably not…
There are probably zero futurists who feel good about damaging our beautiful planet. However, many of them realise that the benefit of the species’ rapid evolutionary ascent outweighs the harm progress is causing to Earth. Our planet is strong; it can handle climate change and an expanding human population while our species prepares for the transhumanist age. The evolutionary outcome of humanity will be better for turning a blind eye on Mother Earth. Exponential technological growth, increased prosperity from globalisation, and maintaining world peace are the critical issues of the future, not global warming, overpopulation or environmental degradation.
This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/some-futurists-arent-worried-about-global-warming-or-overpopulation/story-fnjwvztl-1226831221065
I wish James Delingpole every success. He may have come a little late to his position on man-made global warming…but then so did I after many years of believing what the BBC and my newspapers were telling me. He may be the Court Jester of Skepticism but as a consequence has attracted much more attention than other more staid figures. Absolutely overall a force for good. And pretty fearless, which is rare.
It is a bit unfortunate for us single issue campaigners on “climate change” that he is such a red-blooded libertarian, but you cannot have everything!
Where Delingpole goes, there I will follow him. No more Telegraph for me.
I don’t know why the Tele do this. I used to buy it every Tuesday when I lived in London because Mark Steyn had a column. Then they got rid of him.
Now Delingpole. As mentioned above if Booker goes that is the end.
I have to say though, that I do very much enjoy Geoffrey Leans column…. just not for the reasons he would like.
btw the writer of the News Ltd/Huffpo piece is:
Wikipedia: Zoltan Istvan
He is best known for his controversial novel, The Transhumanist Wager, a #1 bestseller in both Philosophy and Science Fiction Visionary and Metaphysical on Amazon…
He’s explored over 100 countries—many as a journalist for the National Geographic Channel—writing, filming, and appearing in dozens of television stories, articles, and webcasts. His work has also been featured by The New York Times Syndicate, Outside, San Francisco Chronicle, The Daily Caller, Sail, BBC Radio, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, Animal Planet, and the Travel Channel…
Istvan blogs for Psychology Today (The Transhumanist Philosopher) and The Huffington Post…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoltan_Istvan
James, you see how the media would flock to you if you wrote like Zoltan!
Dellers’ book title is a very English trait … you need to understand a bit of English humor first in order to appreciate the title.