"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Press Criticism Below the Fold

Below the fold (click on "read the whole post") at the Morning Energy column at Politico, a story that deserves more attention than that:

CLIMATEGATE CLEARING -More exoneration of the IPCC’s Climategate scientists – http://bit.ly/aPxVOs

AND EXCORIATION OF MEDIA COVERAGE – MediaMatters for America and 12 environmental organizations sent letters to editorial boards across the country asking them to update their coverage of the scandal. “Last winter, newsrooms across the world raced to add the newest layer to the then-controversy over stolen emails, the reliability of climate science, and the legitimacy of the findings of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The journalistic arms race on both sides of the Atlantic, enabled by the lax publishing standards of Europe and fueled by oil industry-funded climate deniers in the U.S., resulted in the mutual destruction of accurate reporting and an informed readership. These false reports had a measurable impact on public opinion. With the dust finally settling now six months later, it's painfully clear that news outlets across the globe hastily published hundreds of stories -- based on rumors, unsubstantiated claims, and the shoddy reporting of their competitors -- questioning the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activities are causing climate change. One by one, the pillars of evidence supporting the alleged "scandals" have shattered, causing the entire storyline to come crashing down.http://bit.ly/ctuczh

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Steve Bloom said...

Check out Andy Revkin's peculiar idea of a defense for having using the "mushroom cloud" quote from Pat Michaels in his front page CRU story last fall. The fact is Revkin needs to preserve the media-savvy Michaels, Christy, Lindzen and RP Jr. as sources for pithy contrarian quotes. Quoting e.g. Carl Wunsch just isn't likely to produce that "front page thought." Meh.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

If the media won't publish the story, take it directly to the politicians. E-mail them. Snail mail them. Phone them. Make sure they know the true state of the public's knowledge. Make ourselves heard.

(I think I'll at least write an e-mail to Sir Muir Russell, just for the sake of it.)