![national-geographic-logo[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/national-geographic-logo1.jpg){kind=logo}
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
…
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.
…
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.
…
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.
Gee, I didn’t think the chucking of my NG gift subscription issues still wrapped in plastic and in the waste can could have that impact.
And not the recycle can either.
Well the grant worriers aren’t even subtle about their biases! What’s wrong with NatGeo giving grants to the whole spectrum of research on climate? The worriers are really worried that the propaganda wing of the science will be cut off and maybe a scientist or two who have evidence that AGW is overblown might get a grant. Just insisting on all data and code being supplied and reviewers including a professional statistician would be enough to cut a lot of the crap out. Hey, if the climate is on a long trajectory of warming, what we really want to know is the extent, uncertainties and the positives and negatives it may bring. If it’s cooling, same thing. How could a real scientist be against this ‘agenda’.
The anti-capitalists took over climate science a generation ago. The purpose of the upcoming meeting in Paris is to kill capitalism, despite any claim to the contrary you hear.
Since Climate Science isn’t about science, or even the environment, grants to look at actual science are counter to the objective, and must be prevented.
That’s much too logical and detailed for the gut reaction, spin community.
I didn’t renew my subscription because of the constant CAGW meme in every article. I wrote them and told them to stop the CAGW meme. For several years I returned their renew subscription letters with the hand written message “Stop the global warming propaganda and I’ll renew my subscription.” They quit sending postal paid renewals instead.
If they stop the CAGW propaganda I will renew my subscription.
Its not like nat geo can get any more broken, what with all the reality tv shows and all. My dad was absolutely disgusted with how they ruined his long awaited show featuring Norwegian tow guys who rescue trucks and cars in winter. After the ridiculous and stupid US and ganadian stuff, here’s sensible, practical people who get on with the job. And then they made it into silly reality tv and ruined it.
The fact that it was Murdoch alone who stepped up and put such a big chunk of change into the organization is what has the climate alarmists worried. They, more than anyone else, know that money talks and big money talks louder! The ‘climatological drift’ has changed direction. [analogous to continental drift].
Is there a penguin that hasn’t been counted, or a starfish that hasn’t been measured, or a future catastrophe that hasn’t been modelled? The only remaining job for climate “science” is to slowly back away from IPCC4 and claim the alarmist predictions weren’t “base cases” as none of them come true. That should only take 1-2. And they’ll have to subsist on the tens of $billions already coming from the public sector.
I cancelled my NatGeo subscription a long time ago when I started to notice the climate catastrophism direction. If Murdoch can clean up the Editorial group so that the magazine exhibits a truly empirical scientific approach rather than one espousing progressive (I hate that word – prefer socialist) ideology then I may start the subscription up again.
NatGeo’s descent into communism is what made such a great buying opportunity for Murdoch. No dark cloud without a silver lining.
Murdoch always supports the use of military violence to achieve political objective. He loves wars,and always supports them:
The point of having a propaganda network is to brainwash people. That’s that’s why our dictators in the glorious west grovel to the “King Maker” who employs an army of “opinion makers.”
https://www.google.com/search?&q=Murdoch%2C+King+maker
Despite our familiarity with such brutally honest terms and our willingness to use them on occasion, we still babble and shriek about the illusion of “freedom & democracy,” like the lowly proles in Orwell’s 1984 celebrating an increase in the chocolate ration following an actual reduction.
Propaganda works.
I stopped reading their book when it turned into a left-wing rag. Maybe Murdoch can save it by including things like real climate info instead of the onslaught of dogma the book has become.
i have so much fun trying to guess which psuedonym David Appell is posting under.
The trolls and facebook Dims I know are twitching on the floors and banging their heads.
Since they do not know, Murdock’s sons are in charge and they are rabid alarmists liberals. Already they are muscling around on Business news and fox tv.
Anything that says Fox on it triggers malfunctioning electrical discharges in their brains.
NG used to be one of my very favorite mags ever and I used to enjoy their TV documentaries also. But like so many have already stated here, I dropped my subscription many years ago when they started with the AGW catastrophisizing. At a point prior to that , they at least attempted to point out the positive sides of the (always) changing climate , i.e. the greening of the Sahara and other formerly barren areas , etc.