Guardian: Sky News Australia is a global hub for climate misinformation

Essay by Eric Worrall

Sky News Australia has allowed “junk science, climate delayism and attacks on high-profile individuals working on the climate crisis to become mainstreamed”, according to The Institute for Strategic Dialog.

Sky News Australia is a global hub for climate misinformation, report says

Murdoch-owned channel creates and distributes content promoting climate scepticism across the world, analysis finds

Graham Readfearn
@readfearnTue 14 Jun 2022 03.30 AEST

Australia’s Sky News channel has become a central source for climate science misinformation around the world, gaining high traction among conservative social media influencers and networks, according to a report.

An analysis of a global network of climate science deniers and “delayers” and the content they shared found the News Corp Australia-owned channel was a key “content hub” for “influencers, sceptics and outlets”.

The analysis, published by UK thinktank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia consistently ranked highly for traction, pushing the partisan views of its hosts and guests to a global audience through social media networks.

Sky News Australia said it rejected the findings of the report, saying it would “continue to encourage debate” on climate change in its programs.

The report said: “Our analysis has shown how a small but dedicated community of actors boast disproportionate reach and engagement across social media, reaching millions of people worldwide and bolstered by legacy print, broadcast and radio outlets.”

A failure to stem “mis- and disinformation online” had allowed junk science, climate delayism and attacks on high-profile individuals working on the climate crisis to become mainstreamed,” the report said.

It said Sky News Australia and contributors from News Corp’s stable of newspaper columnists had formed a “system of content production and distribution” that promoted “scepticism of climate science and fear or confusion around mitigation efforts”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/14/sky-news-australia-is-a-global-hub-for-climate-misinformation-report-says

We obviously have to shield the public from harmful speech to ensure only approved green viewpoints are propagated, right? /sarc

The policy chair of The Institute for Strategic Dialog is Lord Adair Turner. According to Wikipedia, Turner served in high level UK Government positions such as his term as head of the UK Financial Services Authority, and has links to George Soros through Soros’ Institute for New Economic Thinking. Turner also in my opinion appears to be a radical population growth control advocate.

Yesterday Sky Australia’s Andrew Bolt had a great time ripping “the total idiocy” of our Australian political class, over their mismanagement of Australia’s faltering electricity grid and other issues. Andrew’s popular Bolt Report regularly holds politicians and other figures to account. Watching the Bolt Report, for me at least, is a similar experience to watching the USA’s Tucker Carlson.

So it seems obvious why silencing Sky is a priority for any greens who want to deflect public blame for the consequences of the economically ruinous green energy policies they promote.

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June 15, 2022 9:00 am

ISD muppets.
They are pushing what is effectively Positive Discrimination
i.e. Something even worse than the real thing because the practitioners are liars from the very outset. But they don’t realise, blinded by their own good intentions.

The net result is a self fulfilling prophecy – they only make everything worse

AGW is Not Science
June 15, 2022 9:35 am

Our analysis has shown how a small but dedicated community of actors boast disproportionate reach and engagement across social media, reaching millions of people worldwide and bolstered by legacy print, broadcast and radio outlets.”

Every time they start their whining about how somebody gets to express an opinion they don’t like, they always give such an eloquent description of their own side of the argument.

A failure to stem “mis- and disinformation online” had allowed junk science, climate delayism propaganda and attacks on high-profile individuals working on the climate crisis real science to become mainstreamed,

Fixed that one for ’em.

MGC
Reply to  AGW is Not Science
June 15, 2022 7:42 pm

Problem is, it is not just “an opinion they don’t like”. It is demonstrably false “skeptical” claims that are in direct, disingenuous contradiction to a century’s worth of well verified evidence.

Reply to  MGC
June 16, 2022 9:01 am

Let’s see your “evidence” then.

MarkW
June 15, 2022 9:39 am

Socialists really hate it when some doesn’t repeat their lies.

MGC
Reply to  MarkW
June 15, 2022 7:50 pm

Unfortunately, MarkW’s comment carries no credibility. He has far too often demonstrated, countless times in comments here, that he is entirely unable to discern genuine scientific truth from what are more than obvious “skeptical” lies.

ResourceGuy
June 15, 2022 10:22 am

Institute for Demagoguery

ResourceGuy
June 15, 2022 10:25 am

“Delayism” is plumbing new depths for “debate has ended” enforcement actions in the media and far-from-science politics.

Andrew Dickens
June 15, 2022 12:22 pm

is that a still from The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? Donald Sutherland?

June 15, 2022 1:38 pm

I think there’s a T-shirt slogan that describes this situation perfectly. “The Guardian. Wrong about everything, all the time.”
Link to background (And T-Shirt): https://camera-uk.org/2011/01/04/the-guardian-wrong-about-everything-all-the-time/

Tim Fallon
June 15, 2022 10:46 pm

But are their arguments logical and based upon credible evidence?

Carbon500
June 16, 2022 4:39 am

Our analysis has shown how a small but dedicated community of actors boast disproportionate reach and engagement across social media, reaching millions of people worldwide and bolstered by legacy print, broadcast and radio outlets.”

Isn’t that exactly how the climate doom-mongers ply their trade, and always have done?

James Bull
June 17, 2022 1:26 am

Australia’s Sky News channel has become a central source for climate science misinformation around the world, gaining high traction among conservative social media influencers and networks, according to a report.

Now here was I thinking that what I watched and read had the ring of truth to it as they give sources and context to what they are saying and seem to have quite robust debate with those that disagree. Many of those on the gravy train don’t allow comments or discussion unless it’s to blindly agree with the accepted narrative. After a talk a friend asked what they said was a genuine question on a forum about Global Warming and was instantly savaged for even asking the question let alone questioning the “truth”.

James Bull