If anyone had engaged in a one-word internet search of the name “Oreskes” prior to October 31st, 2017, the results would have largely been for Naomi Oreskes, famed ‘exposer of corporate-corrupted skeptic climate scientists,’ with a sprinkling of other references to National Public Radio Chief Editor Michael Oreskes. After October 31st, albeit largely buried by news of the Manhattan terrorist attack, the news about Michael Oreskes’ alleged indiscretions was hard to miss.
Oreskes is an unusual surname. Focused as my internet searches were for people surrounding the origins of the ‘crooked skeptic climate scientists’ accusation, I ignored results showing Michael Oreskes as just a shared name coincidence.
However, in late September, I received a tip about the LA Times “Essential California” newsletter, with the basic question about whether the name Ben Oreskes there was related to Naomi in any way. It turns out Ben began working at the LA Times in February. When trying to see if he had any association with Naomi, I found Vice News’ Louisa Oreskes. One person with that surname in the field of journalism could be ignored; two prompts interest. Three begs the question, “what’s going on here?”
A combined search of the names Ben and Louisa Oreskes revealed them as Michael’s children. This prompted me to enter the combined search of Naomi and Michael, and one result straight from NPR webpages showed they are brother and sister.
Now we have a larger potentially troubling journalism problem. Do a site-specific search of the NPR organization’s mentions of Naomi Oreskes, and you won’t find a single news item containing anything remotely negative about her work, despite readily found criticism of her infamous “100% global warming science consensus” position which diligent NPR reporters could have found years earlier entirely on their own. Then there are the tales Naomi tells about how she entered this global warming arena, which evidently nobody questions even though an elementary inquiry into ordinary details about them yields not-especially-difficult-to-find contradictions. Even the simplest accolade in one of her Tweets is something which begs for extended questioning when anyone dives into details of who she was praising and how her praise of him falls apart.
To NPR’s credit, its ombudsman, Elizabeth Jensen, took the time in October 2015 to answer an NPR listener’s inquiry about the possible conflict of interest Michael Oreskes may have had with his sister:
… if Mike ever did try to influence our climate change coverage in a way that seemed to be inappropriate … there would be an uproar in the NPR newsroom and I’m sure word would get out to other news outlets. The journalists here are not shy about raising a ruckus when they think our standards have slipped.
Really?
This is the same NPR which permitted book excerpts from Laurie David featuring a false accolade about Ross Gelbspan, the same radio network which allowed Gelbspan to prominently mention his favorite leaked memo ‘accusation’ bits where zero time was allotted for rebuttal, the same radio network which interviewed him more than one time, and the same radio network which years later featured Al Gore’s bit about the infamous ‘smoking gun leaked industry memo phrase’ “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact,” where the NPR writer offered not one word of curiosity about that awkward phrase. This is same NPR where any reporting questioning the validity of accusations about skeptic climate scientists participating in a conspiracy with fossil fuel industry executives is hugely difficult to find, while there is little doubt of what their position is concerning the certainty of man-caused global warming, and what their position is about anyone who questions that conclusion.
This is the same NPR which featured two attack pieces on skeptic climate scientist Dr Willie Soon here and here, in which the first piece said Dr Soon was valuable to the “forces of climate denial” (the now non-functioning link was to an older version of Dr Soon’s Heartland Institute bio page, later replaced by a newer one), and the second piece cited the same Kert Davies who I traced back to the time when the false ‘crooked skeptic climate scientists’ accusation first got its media traction.
Where are these two hit pieces’ links noted literally side by side elsewhere at NPR? At NPR Ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen’s 11/2/15 response (click on the word “two” and then on the word “pieces” at that page) on why NPR had seemingly dropped the ball on reporting about the way Exxon supposedly knew its products were causing global warming. Ombudsman Jensen agreed with that assessment:
My take: The story was on the radar of at least some in the newsroom, but it seems to have fallen through the cracks. Given the latest repercussions—Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is among those calling for a federal investigation—the lapse was unfortunate. But the issue is still a live one, and it’s not too late for NPR to find some way of following up.
In an update to her piece mere days later, Ombudsman Jensen noted that the “Exxon Knew” story was finally being reported on at NPR.
But the stories that still fell through the cracks at NPR back then and on up to the present were…
- how the sister of NPR Chief Editor Michael Oreskes apparently was the catalyst for the “Exxon Knew” prosecution efforts of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
- how Naomi openly admitted to meeting with Schneiderman before he began his prosecution efforts
- how Naomi was the topic of a Wikileaks Hillary/Podesta email
… along with myriad other problems surrounding Naomi’s efforts to portray skeptic climate scientists as ‘paid shills working for the fossil fuel industry.’ At minimum, they could have questioned the readily obvious political problem of a US congressman utilizing her services to rebut hearing testimony from a side of the issue which she is openly hostile toward.
Given what seems to be the overall appearance of political bias at NPR from failing to tell the complete story of the global warming issue – a problem I first mentioned in 2011 here – there might not have been any need for Michael Oreskes to quash negative stories about his sister. It’s conceivable that reporters and administrators at NPR may uniformly be able to summarize the collective global warming issue as “we can ignore climate deniers because the science of man-caused global warming is settled and because Michael Oreskes’ sister proved denier scientists are paid industry money to lie about it being not settled.” By way of example, it’s hard to miss the position of the NPR host here, where even her subsequent ‘effort’ to ask about alternative rebuttal came with a false premise label followed by the plain insinuation about settled science (click image to enlarge, full context here).
Has anyone at NPR questioned the science or the tactics of the environmental movement? Ultimately, question here is not whether blood thicker than objective reporting at NPR. Considering how a similar global warming issue bias is quantifiable at the PBS NewsHour without any nepotism involved, it is whether unrestrained biased politically-driven advocacy trumps genuine journalism across the spectrum of the mainstream media.
‘Objective reporting’.
I’m sorry – I’ll have to come back later. I couldn’t get past the headline.
NPR wouldn’t know what objective reporting is, if it hit them over the head with a baseball bat at high noon.
Same feeling here. It is bad enough that they have perverted their mission to one of parroting the party line on environmental religious dogma without question, but they actually seem to believe they are being objective. Self delusion is a cancer that prevents ever knowing the truth of an issue.
Next stop: a lengthy and sophistic deep discussion on the metaphysical nature of actual reality in which the Left gets to have the final say and win due to shrieking and tantrum-throwing.
NPR is the perfect platform for Lefties. An opportunity to say whatever you want on someone else’s money.
They are using the noun not the adjective when they say ‘objective reporting’…sophistry.
Good one.
Yes.
+ several.
Auto
In the 70’s and 80’s I used to listen to NPR News every day because they had a lot of interesting programs on then (John Ciardi’s Word Rambles comes to mind). By the mid 90’s the bias in their reporting got so bad I couldn’t take it any more and I stopped listening to them and I haven’t listened to them since then.
Correction: not progressives.
Repressives
Well Orestes was the Brother of Electra, who as I recall was quite a bad ass female, sort of in the Salome class.
G
NPR is part of the CAGW cabal controlled by the Progressives.
As always, I’m indebted to Anthony Watts for this platform, and I am indebted to the person who tipped me to the name Ben Oreskes, which sent me down the path of this piece. Remember, nobody has to be a climatologist to explore what’s wrong with the political side of AGW.
I’ve been looking through the Podesta emails and they’re quite revealing about what’s influencing the Democrats and why they’re so wrong about climate science. James Hansen shows up a lot, the D word related to climate also appears frequently and the COP, IPCC, UNFCCC and World Bank all show up far too often. There definitely seems to be an unhealthy obsession among the party elite.
Mr Podesta also thinks that he can influence the teaching of the Catholic Church:
“Sandy Newman wrote to Podesta: “I have not thought at all about how one would ‘plant the seeds of the revolution’, or who would plant them.”[42] Podesta agreed that this was necessary to do as Newman suggested and wrote back to note that they had created groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United to push for a more progressive approach to the faith, change would “have to be bottom up.”[42][43][44]” (Wikipedia)
Just as amazing is the fact that NPR routinely accepts the word of their reporter Adam Frank, whose degree is in Astrophysics, as the final authority on climate change. His false, misleading, and in many cases simply ridiculous statements on climate change are legion.
FYI, I think Jensen was responding to several of my pointed emails and comments about the relationship between Michael Oreskes and Naomi Oreskes. I hit them very hard on this topic several times. Clearly the only honest response for Michael was to recuse himself from any review of any climate change stories, but that was never done.
What I’m curious about is whether NPR screens online comments to their stories. Do you find your “pointed” comments on npr.org stick around?
Yet NPR dismisses Willie Soon’s work on climate change, because his degree is in astrophysics. So is mine; my subfields were spectroscopy (carbon dioxide and water vapor) and planetary atmospheres, and by amazing coincidence, Earth is a planet with an atmosphere. My understanding of greenhouse gas calculations leads me to agree with Monckton that mild luke-warming is the likely result of our atmosphere’s increasing carbon dioxide.
Are you happy that you have a proper handle on the role of clouds in formulating your assessment of small positive sensitivity?
I think you should rephrase that to be “mildly warmer that it would otherwise be,” which may in fact mean less colder than it may get, and in any case, far too small a change to be considered a climate change.
I’ve never seen an instance of refractive insulation mixed into a bath that’s conduction chilling a light-warmed rock
making the rock warmer and warmer
as the insulation makes less and less light
reach and warm that rock,
not a single time in all thermodynamics.
So it must be in fact some VeRy
magical gassiness causing such violation of Conservation of Energy.
@dbakerber Also indebted to you for your hammering of NPR on the conflict of interest appearance, as NPR’s response is essentially the set-up for the rest of my piece. If a new Chief Editor was to arrive at NPR and direct the reporters to tell the whole story of AGW, THAT’s where the uproar would ensue, hardly different than what’s going on now at EPA.
So it’s up to a newsroom full of bias to detect bias. No wonder it finds none. In a similar process that’s how sexual harassment goes on for decades unreported, albeit with some payoffs involved.
Good catch – it’s become pretty clear that in every modern media outlet, the title “Ombudsman” is defined as “Smooth talker assigned to make excuses for all of the unethical behavior that goes on here every day”.
Yep and zero inspection or reflection involved. Wordsmithing for deflection is the key (only) skill employed.
“Smooth talker assigned to make excuses for all of the unethical behavior that goes on here every day”.
Kinda reminds me of Ben Affleck after the Harvey Weinstein thing.
I made the mistake of complaining to the CBC Ombudsperson of no particular sexual persuasion. The complaint was over an insane Kimodo Dragonesque (Bob and Ray) wherein Anna Maria “Spumante” seemed unable to comprehend responses from her victims and so she simply pressed on with her preconception that the polar bears we’re a dying. The OONPSP did not look at the substance of my complaint, which was Spumante’s refusal of her guests position, and rather she immediately leapt to the defense of the position that any fool could see the bears were a dyin’. Ombudsperson as defender of the ridiculous.
clear evidence of a stupid gene … when both brother and sister show symptoms …
Or a clever side payment scheme
“…the combined search of Naomi and Michael, …showed they are brother and sister.”
So they share the same genes and are both corrupt.
Is it nature or nurture?
“we can ignore climate deniers because the science of man-caused global warming is settled”
In what Universe is a climate sensitivity with +/- 50% uncertainty settled science? And on top of this there’s all the additional uncertainty added by the fabricated RCP scenarios. There’s less uncertainty about the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life being ubiquitous, yet this is far from settled.
Aside from the question of nepotism, it appears as though the dominant media shilling for Global Warming is coming from a rather SMALL, cloistered, fully-indoctrinated, family group. Yeah, I’d say blood (and paychecks) are wayyyyy thicker than objective, unbiased (completely free-from predetermined conclusions) scientific reporting about the earth’s REAL climate.
i think it is patronage more than nepotism determining the attitudes at NPR. There is an attitude among many “liberal arts” educated people that everything is a matter of opinion, or fitting a political worldview, so everything should be judged by the same standards. “Appeal to authority” is not a fallacy, but their guiding principle.
NPR & PBS don’t dare to be even-handed because their donor-bases would cut its donations.
I suspect that a majority of NPR & PBS nongovernmental funding comes from ordinary people.
The problem arises when a lot of rich cuckoos volunteer for NPR & PBS Boards and leadership positions. They’re the one who drive policy and recruit employees.
One night, after a Philadelphia concert several old ladies were seated at my table due to lack of room in the restaurant. The ladies, a very loose description, discussed sandbagging lowbrow shows they didn’t like.
I mentioned Dr. Who, played by Peter Davison at the time and the ladies went into tirades about how they hated that show. That no matter what they did to the schedule, Dr. Who fans kept watching it. The current 2AM time slot at that time really hurt my sleep, since I had to be at work at 6AM.
Then one old bird confided to me, that we need not worry. She had inside word that the show was going to be cancelled soon.
We took our cheesesteak sandwiches and left.
No more donations to the elitist PBS!
I agree with Tom here and to expand on his comments, the Left believes that all truth is relative, scientific truth being no exception. This justifies for them the changeability of facts to suit and support “the struggle”. Of course, facts themselves do not change just because someone finds them inconvenient. Rather, the denial of facts results in seriously faulty decision making and the necessity of coercion to extend the shelf life of “foundational false facts”.
The cynicism is astounding really and made all the more so by the reaiisation that the vast majority of these social justice warriors grew up in comfortable middle class white households. The real driving force behind their goals is actually power. Just power. Over others.
Excellent expose’, Russell Cook!
You well outline the litany of socialist NPR collusion with socialist climate alarmists, to indoctrinate their listeners and viewers into the AGW catechism. It is collusion but, apparently, the Russians are not involved…..
As for NPR’s position statement: “….there would be an uproar in the NPR newsroom…when they think our standards have slipped.”
Are there ‘journalistic standards’ for collusion and half truths?
The predominate journalistic standard for NPR and much of the MSM is that collusion and half truths are not only acceptable, but necessary, when they either benefit the political left or damage the political right and unethical if they do otherwise.
Superb piece of research and reporting, Russell. Nice going.
The desperate and the deplorable? Or the unspeakable and the unmentionable? Two people who clearly have an agenda to push.
Any time someone claim that NPR is in any way balanced, point out that NPR was the platform for ultra left-wing commentator Daniel Schorr for 25 years, but they have never provided similar access to a conservative voice. Way past time to pull the plug on their public funding.
Thank you for jogging my memory, “Daniel Schorr” is the person I got sick of listening to in the mid 90’s and he is the reason I quit listening to NPR News.
I have never heard a single second of air time on NPR on any skeptical viewpoints. I quit my annual membership due to their completely one sided climate coverage.
Where climate is concerned, NPR is nothing more than a propaganda broadcasting operation.
Christopher Joyce, Adam Frank and a host of others routinely and obligingly regurgitate the press releases of their sources.
There is no fact-checking; there is no skepticism; there is no investigation; there is no verification; there is no dissent; there is no contrary opinion.
John W. Garrett
“There is no fact-checking; there is no skepticism; there is no investigation; there is no verification; there is no dissent; there is no contrary opinion.”
Ah!…..It follows the precedent set by the BBC years ago then.
Just as a slight derail I watched a BBC program called ‘Click’ last Sunday during which they repeatedly asserted that weather is getting more and more extreme owing to AGW. They further insisted that any and all crop failures in Africa are due to the same carbon dioxide ‘menace’.
Wrote to the BBC and the Science Minister pointing out that this directly contradicts all of the available empirical evidence in the form of weather records and insisting that they immediately retract and stop the gross distortion of the data and what can only be construed as politically motivated lying to the public.
Not holding my breath.
cephus0
Let me consult my Anthropenic Global Warming Oracle………Hmmm……Let me see.
Oh yes!
Dear Mr. cephus0,
[Melodious Stephen Fry commentary required]
(Ahem!) The BBC’s policy is entirely in line with the global concencus of 97% of scientists, which agrees that……YOUR……..scientific ‘EVIDENCE’ [emphasised, dramatic lean at the waist, with bulging eyes and lop sided grin to the audience ~condescending chuckle ripples round the boardroom~] is no more than that of the wanderings of a Heretic Degenerate. SIR! [authoritative table palm slap].
It is,sir, OUR considered opinion [pompous sweeping hand gesture addressing the board] that you sir, are a cad, a bounder and a nincompoop, but we are [conspirational lean forward into a giggling whisper] unable to accuse you of such because we are, of course, too politically correct [knowing, conspirational wink to the assembled board] to say that.
[Self opinionated monologue] It is beyond our remit to examine the prospect of anything other than a flat earth, because, of course, we live in the modern times, when we are about to launch the balloon expedition ‘Around the World in 80 days’; which we know, will of course fail miserably as it plummets to its doom upon reaching the precipice.
The recent ‘Blue Planet’ is of course evidence of that stated fact because of course, whilst the world may be round, it can be seen quite clearly from the satellite observations, that it is a flat disk.
Kindly do not trouble us again, ever, with your conspiracy theories that challenge our settled science on the Earth’s composition, nor it’s climate, which of course, is entirely predictable.
Yours faithfully,
The BBC.
[Cue, standing ovation from the board of governors, glasses of scotch all round, and much hilarity ensues]
Bring on the molestable dancing girls serf……….Turn the fu**ing dictaphone off child!
I thought much of this was known for a fairly long time and just assumed it was common knowledge. A simple search even of Wikipedia has some of this basic information. Therefore it should be no surprise that her books, like Merchants of Doubt, were given many plugs by NPR. Where you find one snake, you generally find a whole den of snakes nearby. Ok, poor analogy… I apologize in advance.
“her books, like Merchants of Doubt, were given many plugs by NPR”
I think I recall hearing her interviewed, with friendly questions presuming she had authoritative opinions. It would help make a case against NPR if a list of occasions when her books or opinions were pumped was assembled. Maybe a FOIA request would do the trick.
NPR is a pool of “free” money, much like government. Accordingly, it attracts parasites, like the Oreskes.
Looks like Russell Cook has identified the man-made ‘unnatural push’ that Nick Stokes was looking for!
Here’s another Podesta email which unambiguously shows how politics took over climate science.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/20575
Is the women the one with ear rings and the rug ?
If you put a gun to my head, I’d rather date the brother than the sister.
You need have looked no farther than Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Oreskes
She has three siblings: Michael Oreskes, a journalist; Daniel Oreskes, an actor; and Rebecca Oreskes, a writer and former U.S. Forest Service ranger.
Source is her dad’s obit:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UTZiQYhzBXwJ:www1.cuny.edu/mu/we-remember/2013/03/04/irwin-oreskes-professor-emeritus-at-nycs-hunter-college-who-taught-lab-science-dies-at-86/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
You can find images of all four. The whole family got a severe beating with the ugly stick, not that I’m one to talk.
@Gabro: Actually, you caught me in my own bias against Wikipedia there. Wikipedia can be trusted as far as it can be thrown, since the public can alter entries to it at any time (although on specific AGW material, any honest attempts to correct biased material gets reverted back to the bias sometimes within minutes). I tend to only reference Wikipedia items, as I did with the very first link, when it showcases the depth of their pro-AGW bias. Don’t get me started on Wikipedia’s William Connolley, I did a 7-piece series on his involvement in the smear of skeptics: http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=3887
It’s not shady dealings if you regard yourself as noble and selfless.
/sarc — but with more than a grain of truth.
NPR (as well as Public Television) has an unmistakable bias on the climate change issue, and it’s certainly nothing new, I would say virtually all media has a similar bias except for outfits like Fox News and their confederates, who are openly biased in the opposite direction. It’s hard to trust anything said in the media about the climate issue. The NYT, which I read on most days, is one of the most egregious practitioners of climate bias.
For that reason it’s difficult for me to get exercised about conspiracy and collusion claims concerning NPR. They are a decidedly liberal voice on virtually every issue and have been for a long time, and certainly long before the Oreskes were ever on the radar, and global warming is hand in glove with this. And I don’t see how anyone can change this in today’s environment, when polarization reigns and nobody listens to anyone else.
On NPR and Public TV, listen very carefully to the names that support these institution, and their programming, in a big way – particularly the large foundations. Most of these institutions have a policy of promoting progressive causes (the Koch interests are a glaring exception). So, you could fire all the Oreskes from every position they inhabit and it wouldn’t have the least affect on the prevailing bias in their respective institutions.
I do agree, though, that what the guest blogger is doing here to call out the bias in these institutions is a useful exercise. Their reporting on climate issues is a joke, and their reporting on any other important issue needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.
“NPR (as well as Public Television) has an unmistakable bias on …” pretty much every topic.
Much like our own dear ‘Auntie’ BBC. An interesting phenomenon repeated in Australia too I believe.
On BBC radio today a press regulating body was questioned about left-leaning political bias, the response being that there was clearly no bias because … the body was funded by private money! Bias is king, maintained by a web of banalities.
At least the Koch interest support “Nova” on PBS which is generally a good program though it is getting a little tiresome to listen to PBS shoehorn “Man-made Climate Change” into just about every program these days.
The post misses the most recent news. Michael Oreskes was forced out of NPR last week after multiple allegations of sexual harrassment surfaced in the wake of the Weinstein fiasco. The CEO who was covering for him has taken a medical leave of absence. It seems Oreskes morals, whether on climate skeptics or female coworkers, are not very sound.
At least Naomi is immune to sexual harassment charges. Right?
That’s more accurate than it is kind.
But please don’t give the warmists any ammunition concerning sexism, etc. This piece is taking a strip out of the left concerning their fake concern for objective reporting. Let’s stick to the facts: she’s a partisan hack out of her depth, with few actual science qualifications.
my recommendation to NPR is to refuse any government subsidies. That way they can shed their hypocritical mask and finally come clean and be the liberal outfit they are anyway. It would be more honest towards the many small donors
Honest liberals? You’re new to this, aren’t you?
Please tell me you’re not just now figuring out that NPR is biased.
Oh, I’ve known that since the 1980s, along with the same about the PBS NewsHour somewhere in the 1990s. My second-ever online article was about the PBS Ombudsman’s talking point excuse for “fair balance.” http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/the_lack_of_climate_skeptics_o.html The point of the exercise here was to showcase how NPR apparently sincerely believes that their form of ‘journalism’ is not actually political propaganda. The only way we fix the bias of the MSM is to confront them with their own hypocrisy and force them to defend it … which they can’t with any plausibility to objective observers. Their core audience is a whole other matter.
Most “journalists” really believe the stuff they get passionate about. They are no longer taught to distinguish between facts and beliefs – those are the same now. Facts are whatever supports your beliefs.
Journalists pursue a political objective they feel strongly about, like gun control which honestly is just based on people’s attitudes and opinions, as they do for agendas supposedly based on science. The problem is they have no time or training to understand the science, so to them its just more people’s opinions that are important. They believe in the end game (DOOM if we don’t do something RIGHT NOW) and so bang on their drums as hard as they can to make the eclipse go away. People have acted this way since prehistory.
I don’t really get upset about journalists acting this way – they are just being people. Its the people who have supposedly been trained in science (i.e. have a science or technical degree) that behave this way that disappoints and infuriates me.
And people being hypocritical, or deceitful? Again, its just people being people. The honest ones are the surprise at my age. I have seen it all.
Move along folks… Nothing to see here…
What would you really expect from the ‘Safe Spaces’ crowd?
https://www.msn.com/en-au/lifestyle/familyandrelationships/a-top-psychologist-says-parents-who-argue-tend-to-raise-more-creative-kids/ar-BBEJM6H
Bringing up kids who can think for themselves is completely anathema to them.
The Oreskes remind me of the “Orcses” as Gollum/Smeagol calls them in Lord of he Rings. There is a family resemblance.
Brad Keyes, where are you?!?! It’s a Naomi story! I long for your rapist wit….uh, rapier wit!
There are only two things that upset an NPR reporter.
Not getting their paychecks on time, and a communist losing an election.
The real problem is that facts have a Liberal bias. That’s Fake News is so popular on conservative news.
To overextend a metaphor, when you look out, you see teeth from the back.
Try naming one, but prepare yourself for the demolition!
One person with that surname in the field of journalism could be ignored; two prompts interest. Three begs the question, “what’s going on here?”
You have misused the phrase, “begs the question.” It doesn’t mean “invites the question.” “Begs the question” means there is a logical flaw in an argument, usually that the conclusion has been preordained because it was hidden in one’s assumptions.
Your tax dollars at work
“Noble cause corruption” at work. BTW – corruption is corruption. Except maybe at NPR.
CO2 is plant food, which the United States of America generously provides to farmers around the globe, enhancing the growth and productivity of food crops everywhere at no expense to those who benefit. Those who claim CO2 is hazardous at 0.04% volume in our atmosphere are metaphorically ‘spreading an imaginary brand of fertilizer’ all their own!
The observably real and present dangers to our Global Environment are socialism, communism, islamic terrorism, and oppressive dictatorships. These present dangers are observably killing hundreds of thousands of people each year, each to achieve their own destructive agendas against humanity. In the face of that murderous reality, increasing plant food CO2 molecules in our atmosphere from 3 molecules to 4 in 10,000 is laughably and/or sickly irrelevant. Providing more food to a hungry world is a true benefit. Let’s focus our mutual attentions on the real issues that impoverish and kill people.
At the same time, let’s be reallyskeptical of climate griff-ters assertions that Stokes AGW alarmism and causes the gullible to go ‘crackers345’!
To quote the great Iowahawk, “Journalism is about covering the important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
Isn’t it obvious from the NPR quote?
“if Mike ever did try to influence our climate change coverage in a way that seemed to be inappropriate … there would be an uproar in the NPR newsroom”.
Clearly shilling for one’s alarmist sister does not seem “inappropriate” to NPR.
I listen to NPR all the time and it is rabidly pro-global warming. There is no attempt at balance whatsoever.
“Has anyone at NPR questioned the science or the tactics of the environmental movement? ”
Uh, no.
It’s what they all believe in and agree with.
“The story was on the radar of at least some in the newsroom, but it seems to have fallen through the cracks”
As they say, that’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
The reason why I love gossipy tidbits about the media as reported in places like Frank Magazine (in Canada, Private Eye in Britain, Spy in the US before it went full Graydon Carter), was that the media NEVER reports honestly about itself out of professional courtesy. They’ll drag anyone through the mud, but ignore the vices of their own.
Remember: Drudge only took off when he published that Newsweek spiked the Monica Lewinsky story. NBC spiked the Weinstein story. The lid is off.
Funny, though, how they still make fun (and hate) Nixon for his cover up, but keep getting caught themselves.
Or, as Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds says, just think of journalists as card-carrying Democrat operatives and it all makes sense.
I have not and will not ever pay for NPR or the equivalent state level affiliated stations – misappropriated tax dollars notwithstanding. We’re talking pledges here. I listen regularly. Never pledged a cent, never will. Unlike most listeners, I enjoy pledge drives for the sheer contrariness of knowing no matter the tender heartstrings they pluck, my steadfast resolve to see them sink (preferably) or swim on their own shall endure. Same goes for PBS. My radio alarm is tuned to NPR and I start most days waking to some left wing lunacy on the station. That and a stout cup of coffee never fails to get my day going. This morning’s offering featured an annoying liberal encouraging fellow leftists to include _PR in their estate planning considerations. Ze claimed to have been a faithful listener for fifty plus years and had been uplifted by becoming a Legacy Circler or some such. Seems enough to condescendingly harangue friends, neighbors and coworkers about what and how to think in life. Must they also fund perpetual virtue signaling in death? Yea, verily, they self-indulgently must. Seems a waste to me. Akin to exorbitant expense in the name of carbon reduction. Surely we can think of more useful things to do with our money?
To be fair, we must credit NPR with the sole, only, unique, and solitary news program “Wait, Wait! Don’t Tell Me!” that admits honestly and upfront that two out of three stories presented are wholly false and made-up by the celebrity who offers them.
And let’s not forget “Car Talk”, certainly one of the funniest programs ever,
There’s a lot of value in NPR and I still send them a small contribution. It’s like reading the New York times – there’s great stuff but you have to hold your nose a lot of the time.
Time for NPR to come out of the closet. Everyone knows they are a political advocacy group that uses the public airways to dispense propaganda with a thin veneer of news coverage to give a pretense of journalism. Which is not a problem, as long as the money taken from taxpayers does not fund it. I have a choice which propaganda I listen to. I do not have a choice how much tax I am compelled to pay. Public funding of political advocacy groups is not acceptable.