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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Media giant Rupert Murdoch has just purchased the National Geographic. According to the Washington Post, Murdoch has provided the non profit organisation with a desperately needed financial lifeline;
National Geographic gets financial lifeline from Fox in $725 million deal
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Under the terms announced Wednesday, Fox will control 73 percent of the operation, called National Geographic Partners, with the balance held by the National Geographic Society. The partnership, based in Washington, will include a portfolio of National Geographic-branded cable TV channels, digital properties and publishing operations, most notably the magazine that has advanced the society’s founding mission — “the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge.”
The agreement provides a financial lifeline not just for the much-honored magazine, but also for the National Geographic Society itself, the organization’s chief executive acknowledged Wednesday. Like many print publications, National Geographic has been hurt by the onset of the digital era, which has put it on a slow trajectory toward extinction.
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Not everybody is happy with the new owner. Despite firm assurances of continued editorial independence, some alarmists are worried that Murdoch’s climate skepticism will influence the way the foundation awards grants to scientists;
Climate change denier Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic, which gives grants to scientists
The National Geographic magazine has been a nonprofit publication since inception in 1888, but that ends today. The long-running American publication becomes very much for-profit under a $725 million dollar deal announced today with 21st Century Fox, the entertainment company controlled by the family of Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch is a notorious climate change denier, and his family’s Fox media empire is the world’s primary source of global warming misinformation. Which would be no big deal here, I guess, were it not for the fact that the National Geographic Society’s mission includes giving grants to scientists.
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Read more: http://boingboing.net/2015/09/09/rupert-murdoch-just-bought-nat.html
BoingBoing cites the following video, as evidence for Rupert Murdoch’s climate skepticism;
Given the alternative to Murdoch’s generous terms was probably bankruptcy, where nobody would get any grants, you have to wonder why some alarmists are taking such a negative view of Murdoch’s financial rescue package; After all, alarmists have long argued that the deluge of government money available to climate scientists who produce studies which support the views of politicians, has no influence on the content of the studies.
Wonderful news! Best news NatGeo has posted in forty years!
Murdoch should spin off the alarmists into their own little enclave of news and reporting structure. All he has to do is set up their retirement, 401k as 100% green oriented and then open up staffing positions as voluntary transfers. Incorporate them and sell that group to the NYT.
Those that are left will probably be thrilled to focus on science and culture.
Follow-up by purging all falsehood based grant applications and seriously reconsider modern science frontiers.
It would be pleasant if grants already in motion could be cancelled, effective immediate; especially those lark in the Arctic or tropics kind. Grantees suddenly without funds need to start walking, now.
Sigh, what a daydream. Let’s just hope for honest full reporting.
“Murdoch should spin off the alarmists into their own little enclave of news and reporting structure.”
I like the B Ark idea better.
I must confess, I do love that solution too.
Cruel, very cruel. But appropriate, considering how many these people have beggared.
I would read NatGeo to Junior, apart from the climate and general green p*rn. So at one point I had nothing to read to him, and cancelled the subscription.
It’ll take a long time before they see my money again.
He will have to buy Cosmos and Scientific American as well. Sick to death of their totally unscientific reporting of climate issues. If you think about core scientific principles, the way cAGW/climate change/extreme weather/ ocean acidification/whatever the scare of the day is plugged, it totally defiles all the principles. REAL science is never settled. REAL science can never have the debate over. REAL science is not conducted by contrived controversy. REAL science is not conducted by belief. REAL science shares data/source codes for other scientists to try to find flaws in a theory for the advancement of knowledge. REAL science does not encourage the burning of books written by authors they do not agree with. REAL scientists should be outraged that dissenting views are shouted down and some recommend death sentences for those with the dissenting views. In REAL science, all it takes is ONE significant error in the data, methodology or modelling of a theory to debunk it. REAL science does not manipulate data to make it match a theory.
“Scientific” magazines that allow so much anti-science “protocol” to slip by without question should simply not be bought.
Could Rupert Murdoch be doing this as a public service? At some point the very wealthy begin to worry about their legacy. Could this be it? Let’s see if he continues in this manner.
I have the total collection of national geographics from 1938 until 1991 that my nieghbor gave me when I was a kid. There was an issue in the 70s about global cooling and the manmade coming ice age. It was’t just one article in Time magazine that alerted the public on this ridiculous scare like mainstream media has said.
In the late 70s I worked with a group of earth scientists. There was a presentation in which it was pointed out that we had experienced an unprecedentedly stable climate for 10,000 years. If that were going to end, cooling would be the most likely cause. So, yes, scientists were seriously entertaining the possibility of global cooling. They weren’t laughing at the idea but they did not seem particularly concerned.
During the ’70’s cool scare’ this was a real thing to worry about because we are technically on the downside of the present Interglacial. No Interglacial in the last 2.5 million years has lasted very long compared to the much longer Ice Age cold cycles.
The worry that this Interglacial will last forever and be evil because it will be as warm as before the first Ice Age is pure fantasy and above that, utterly silly since evolution in the northern hemisphere shot upwards under the hammer and anvil of the cold Ice Ages. In Africa and Australia where the Ice Ages had little effect, evolution was much slower and we see what the pre-Ice Age flora and fauna probably looked like in say, Europe and Canada.
For example, mastodons evolved from the same genus as elephants only they changed very radically over the duration of the previous Ice Ages and only went extinct this time around due to human hunters.
Subscribed to the National Geographic for years. Had to stop when the “science” of exploration was turned to leftist or globalist causes, most precisely Anthropogenic Global Warming. Its editorial board was taken over at about the same as that of (almost) every environmental organization I belonged to and prestigious science journal I faithfully read such as Nature and Science — even popular science pubs such as Scientific American. All part of the scam. Unfortunately Rupert is part of it, supporting it, and his kids are even worse. The international dollars from scamming industrialized nations, the U.S. first and foremost, and their tax payers seems to be terribly alluring. I wonder why they chose the element and molecule of energy life, beginning with carbon, to control in all its manifestations??? This is super-villain stuff. Call in the super-heroes.
Hopefully they will allow Scientists like Curry and Ball submit articles
Hey! I tried to buy National Geographic but I lost out in the bidding war with Murdoch. After their bid went to $149.95 plus free coffee and donuts for all employees for a month, I had to drop out. I just couldn’t see how I could recoup my acquisition cost from subscription revenue.
NatGeo is also unabashedly in the anti-Israel camp, regularly running pro-Hamas photo essays of noble Gazans digging “survival” tunnels. If it folded, would be no loss.
At least since the ’70s they’ve gone over to the dark side. They favorably compared North Korea with South Korea and the Sandinistas with the people that Nicaraguans actually wanted to run their country.
I remember the good old days when Curtis LeMay was on the board of National Geographic….all the lefties I knew were so upset with that, and their coverage of the Viet Nam war (not “peacey” enough, apparently) They cancelled THEIR subscriptions. They had foldouts of all the cool American military planes. Heaven to a nerdy, jet-loving dork like me.
BTW, here in Canada the comments in the Toronto Star (think The Gruniad or New York Times with even duller and obnoxious writers) were so very, very upset as well. I asked “and how many of you actually have subscriptions to cancel, or have purchased a magazine in the last decade?”. No answer…
The National Geographic Channel we get here in Canada is basically crap. I know that, with Canadian Content rules (don’t ask…), we have to put Canadian crap on it as well. But the shows like “Hot Tuna”, “Hillbilly Whatever”, etc., are barely A&E quality.
“I know that, with Canadian Content rules (don’t ask…), we have to put Canadian crap on it as well.”
The Red Green show is pretty good. http://www.redgreen.com/
More Canadian content means more ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ nights! should be every night in the week and repeats during the summer.
Same as many above. Loved NG as a child and still peruse it at news stands. But the shrill, psychotic references to global warming in so many articles led to a canceled subscription.
The issue that had on it’s front cover a picture of the Statue of Liberty standing in ocean water up to Lady Liberty’s waist, should have been the final one for this once grand publication. That would have been so appropriate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/20/national-geographics-junk-science-how-long-will-it-take-for-sea-level-rise-to-reach-midway-up-the-statue-of-liberty/
Lady Liberty could someday have water up to her waist but I would be much more worried about her having ice up to her waist. That actually happened not all that long ago.
“Lady Liberty could someday have water up to her waist but I would be much more worried about her having ice up to her waist. That actually happened not all that long ago.”
During the last glaciation (not that long ago), the ice was a mile or two over her head … and moving.
…some alarmists are worried that Murdoch’s climate skepticism will influence the way the foundation awards grants to scientists…
gawd I hope so
Me, too!
well said!
Little by little, the CAGW leviathan is falling. Though they will attempt to put a brave face on, the Paris sham will be a near-total failure. The days of the Warmunist ideology are numbered, and deep down, they know it.
Citizen Murdoch snags another.
Maybe the NG will concentrate more on GEOGRAPHY and less on saving the planet.
I hope so. I used to really enjoy it.
Me too. I have always loved geography and weather…and went on to get degrees in climate and meteorology. I should be an obvious marketing target for a magazine like Nat Geo yet they continually insult my intelligence and needlessly play politics with the natural world. Just take me around the world once a month and show me cool stuff. No need to make it political. The world speaks for itself.
There is a lot of this sort of comment on this thread. The complaints about reduced readership being attributed to the internet are unfounded. It’s the same situation with MSNBC and the NYT, readership is down because the nonsense level is too high.
Read National Geographic cover to cover from the age of 6. I remember when my new wife started buying me subscriptions taking over from my father supplying the magazine. Then about 15 years or so ago the quality of the articles went downhill – both in subject and quality of information. After putting up with it for a couple years, I gave up and cancelled the subscription. Forty years of reader loyalty pi**ed away by the liberals who took it over. Not surprised to see they ran out of other people’s money. I’m sure I’m not the only loyal reader they lost.
I have gotten Nat Geo subscription as a Christmas gift for a decade and throw it straight in the trash. Their coverage of climate change is so biased and incorrect that I can’t trust any of their other stories where I’m less knowledgeable.
I have not informed my generous friend that I hate her gift and that it wastes trees. Perhaps now, I’ll start reading a bit to see if they start actually covering the issues rather than being a propaganda rag.
I suspect Murdoch won’t change it much…perhaps push it even more to the left. He is a capitalist and knows that bias sells. People don’t want balance. They want to be fed.
NG – RIP
Puzzled!
In the UK the newspapers owned by Murdoch are the Times and Sun. Neither title can be described as either vocally sceptic nor vocally alarmist.
On the Alarmist side we have the Guardian and the Independent. On the other side we have the Telegraph and the Daily Mail. The Telegraph cover both sides of the spectrum. Booker is sceptical, Geof Lean (and Louise Gray although she may have left) are alarmist. The logic of the argument is that you are not 100% alarmist you must be a denier.
Correct. In Oz, news.com.au is a far left, warmist cesspool with collective A666ott Derangement Syndrome. They even hired an Economics editor from Fewfacts (their worst ever).
Statistically a Murdoch journo is far more likely to vote Green than a random person.
They were singled out because they employed FOUR conservatives.
The reason I cancelled my NatGeo subscription years ago is that they had become blatantly liberal, socialist, and no more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the Democratic party.
The CAGW alarmist drivel they published made me gag.
I might even start buying it again!
I think the pendulum is gradually swinging on the subject of climate change. Just the other day NBC news said President Obama was in Alaska to draw attention to the climate change debate. They actually said, “climate change debate”.
Just read the forum comments on this at Boingx2 and WOW! Nice group of hate filled “geniuses” foaming at the mouth. Per what I read, anybody who doesn’t believe that CO2 is going to destroy the planet and wipe out the human race is a science denier and deserves a slow painful death. Not only does sitting behind a keyboard make you smart, but brave as well.
Hopefully they will start cutting back on their Global Warming fear mongering but I’m sure they will keep pushing the other junk science of Evolution which is their main job.
Would be hilarious if their coverage of cagw became less biased but was perceived as more biased by the devout.
The “perceived as more biased by the devout” is almost guaranteed….. 🙂
“National Geographic has been hurt by the onset of the digital era, which has put it on a slow trajectory toward extinction.”
No. Libtard control has it headed to extinction. People buy periodicals for content, content, content. When content turns to crap, people quit buying. Blaming the digital era is a lame, but popular, excuse.
Speaking of content, this just in:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/09/10/weather-channel-cuts-al-roker-show/?intcmp=hpffo&intcmp=obnetwork
Duh Weather Channel is “going back to it’s roots.” Yeah, sure.