The Cabbie & Climate Change
Grist’s ace climate writer does some reporting in New York City…well, actually, he pulls a Thomas Friedman and talks to a taxi driver, who then becomes the symbolic Everyman in ace climate writer’s post.
(For those not familiar with this device, Thomas Friedman, when parachuting into European capitals or Middle Eastern cities, is fond of using taxi drivers as the symbolic Everyman of a particular country or ethnic group.)
So the cabbie, prompted by Grist’s ace climate writer to give his opinion on global warming,
ended up going on for a full 10 minutes. I so wish I could have recorded it. It was a perfect articulation of what I take to be the general orientation of millions of Americans.
The Grist ace climate writer, apparently unfamiliar with the long, fine tradition of NYC cabbies and their willingness to expound on all subjects known to mankind, conveniently decides that the views of his cab driver are representative of “millions of Americans.”
Cabbie informed pundit commentary is such a peculiar genre. But whatever. The Grist ace climate writer then goes on to call this NYT article by an actual reporter “unforgivable dreck.”
All I can picture is the reporter rolling his eyes.
Geez. Is this the only vox pop journalist that doesn’t know precisely how much horsesh*t vox pop actually is? What a plank.
“But the average reader will come away with no way of weeding through the claims, no perspective or context, no incremental gain in understanding.”
I love this bit. That the “average reader” needs instruction and guidance from a journalist in order to gain understanding – that they cannot formulate their own understanding when given merely the plain facts of the matter. Blows me away. What happened at the EPA hearing is what happened. It was reported. There is no moral to the tale, no epilogue.
Roberts’ burgeoning desire to settle the story is palpable. Perhaps he’s bored with all this dilly-dallying. One has to wonder if “Steve” the cabby isn’t merely a vehicle for Roberts to express his own frustrations with the annoying unsettledness of the science. That’s both the beauty of vox pop as well as the sin of lazy journalism.
Of course, I am solidly behind David, and dare I say it, Joe, on this one.
But Keith, I am confused. If you don’t want to talk about this stuff, if your response to these criticisms is just to dismiss them, why do you keep bringing it up?
Because his audience wants to read about this stuff and appreciates Kloor doing the actual prospecting.
Ask anyone involved with any reported event — the journalists got it wrong. For the most part, journalists are c average narcissistic lit majors, lazy, and always able to spot a trend in one cabby’s remarks, or in what the cashier said.
And yet, if you ask them, they are the height of objectivity and impartiality.
Including Keith Kloor, who will labor for hours over his blog, but will hone to the common sense wisdom. the common knowledge, the safe position, the politically correct line, and not spend an afternoon on the simplest of the denier’s claims: were the investigations a whitewash, in what sense were the climate scientists and the science cleared?
So David Roberts gets it wrong.
Check out a mirror Keith.
Yes, it is true that many lazy journalists do not go further than interviewing a taxi driver, or a small time trader in the bazaar, or perhaps a university student, and that these ‘informed’ individuals are always good for quotes, even if they’re only the figments of a reporter’s imagination.
Reading the post above, one is left with the impression that perhaps Grist, whoever/whatever he/it is, had done a particularly egregious interview with another illusory figure. I am glad I didn’t take Keith Kloor’s word for it, and clicked on the Grist website.
This time it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise: Steve, the taxi driver, actually is pictured with his cab. So we have photographic evidence of the cab driver that’s been interviewed, not just the reporter’s word for it. The only downside is that Steve’s surname hasn’t been given, and that is a breach of journalistic and evidentiary standards, unless there are valid reasons for not providing a surname on public record.
Other than that, it is hard to see what the problem is. The author of that Grist article has gone further than many professional journalists in identifying the cab driver.
One can only speculate that the real problem bothering Collide-a-scape blog owner isn’t an imaginary cab driver with a view, but a real cab driver with a climate skeptic view.
There’s no single overriding reason, just bits and pieces he’s heard here and there. (Something about volcanoes, sunspots, how scientists used to predict global cooling, etc.) He’s not totally sure what he thinks, but he’s heard enough contradictory facts and theories to render the whole thing fishy.
Just a steady trickle of nonsense over the years from various sources is all it takes. I know someone who was more skeptical after reading Michael Chrichton’s novel. He’s also pretty conservative. Some are easily duped because they want to be, and because they don’t have the expertise to know better.
Michael (2):
Can you point to where I ever said I don’t want to talk about this stuff?
Perhaps you’re confused because I and John Fleck, as he discusses here, have “grown tired” talking with you about it.
David Roberts, though, is the caustic equivalent of you when it comes to journalism’s supposed culpable role in all this. I thought his taxi-driver informed commentary was fairly ironic and amusing, in light of his sharp criticism of the Broder article. Additionally, Roberts is a habitual whiner when it comes to articles not meeting his satisfaction.
“Just givitame straight!” he kept saying. What he obviously craves is clarity”
The taxi driver doe not want clarity. It’s not the same thing. Clarity requries not-truth – or not the whole truth, which is the same thing. Broder wants not-truth in journalism. How much not-truth does he accept in his science.
Poli-advo-scientists do themselves no favors trading clarity for truth.
THere was a media debate post climategate.
where one editor ( It hink it was the SUN!) had said even his taxi driver had now mentioned the mediavel warm period..
Fiona Fox (science amd Media centre), and Richarcd Black (BBC) were some of the other participants..
Whining is exactly the right word for this kind of stuff. Conservatives have been doing this for decades, the msm, lamestream media etc… its pathetic. Just disappointing to see liberals getting in on the act. Why do most people around the world accept global warming and Americans don’t? People don’t like to sign up to a narrative where the play the bad guy, they make their own narrative.
I also find it ironic that some can take such offense at anything critical said about climate science and then turn around and condemn the entire profession of journalism as being incompetents and rubes.
Barry says-
“THere was a media debate post climategate.
where one editor ( It hink it was the SUN!) had said even his taxi driver had now mentioned the mediavel warm period..”
Hehe- where climate science gave ordinary folk an awareness of El Nino, climategate gave them the MWP. 😉