Joe Romm Breaks Media Embargo, Kneecaps Nisbet
Say one thing about Joe Romm, he understands the value of getting ahead of a story to try and influence the media narrative. He’s kinda like Mike Tyson in his prime, who would launch from his corner stool like a ball of fury as soon as the opening bell was rung and pummel his opponent into a sagging heap. Romm is similarly relentless and too goes for the quick knockout.
But like Tyson, who also had no compunction about biting off ears and hitting below the belt, Romm has shown that he’s willing to fight dirty. See, for example, this post from Romm yesterday, in which he breaks a media embargo, that astonishingly, a Harvard University-affiliated journalism watchdog, seems okay with. (Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Watchdog appears to accept at face value that Romm has accurately characterized this report by American University communications professor, Matthew Nisbet.)
So days before the official release of Nisbet’s report, he has been forced to wade through the mud that Romm has thrown up. Every journalist writing about the report will now be forced to sift through the mud, too.
And where are the referees who are supposedly interested in fair play? They are writing approving headlines like this:
Killing a false narrative before it takes hold
Even Tyson got called out when he mugged his opponents.
UPDATE: It should be noted: Robert Brulle, who was a peer reviewer on Nisbet’s report, and who didn’t like the conclusions drawn, dramatically jumped ship last week and is now doing everything he can (in tandem with Romm) to torpedo the report’s credibility. In Romm’s latest post on this, I see he’s saying that a “reanalysis” of the data has been done, with “the help of Dr. Robert Brulle.” Yeah, no axes to grind here.
Is this what passes for acceptable behavior among scholars? Is it ethically appropriate for someone who doesn’t like the results of a study he helped review then join forces with a partisan blogger to deep six the report before it is even officially released?
Good Tyson analogy. As soon as Romm realizes he is no longer scoring points he goes for the ears. And just like Tyson he is soon becoming irrelevant in the great climate debate.
How about putting aside your Romm soapbox for a moment and weird Mike Tyson ear-biting analogies and examine the merits of Brulle and Nisbet’s analysis? In this case, a peer reviewer’s concerns were not addressed and a study with a demonstrably false conclusion was published anyway, which should be of considerably more concern than Romm’s alleged “partisanship”. Your post is entirely fluff.
I’ve added an update to the post.
NewYorkJ: you’ve already read the entire report and judged its merits? Or are you just taking what you’ve been spoon-fed by Romm?
Nisbet Goes after Gore
Did not MT have a simliar opinion of the pros and cons of Al Gore on his Okie thread?
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2011/04/okies-from-muskogee.html
This is “Climate Science” at its best.
LoL…..I thought if it was “peer reviewed”, it was as writ come down from Heaven 🙂
So let Eli understand this, Andy Revkin posts the press release for Matthew Nisbit’s manuscript which someone paid for five people to review, cause the release says for immediate release and that is just fine, Joe Romm posts on the report and that is verboten? GEAFB, well, ok, they gave the bunny a good laugh. Churnalism at it’s best
Chris Mooney says
No one has yet taken on the part of the report that I find in some ways the most stunning: Nisbet’s attempt to claim that members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “in comparison to other social groups for which data is available [rank] among the most partisan and ideological.”
Nisbet also acts as if the notion that there were copious attacks on science during the last administration is just some biased opinion subscribed to by politicized AAAS scientists”“rather than a reality extensively documented by myself and many, many others, like the Union of Concerned Scientists.
For the moment, I just want to flag this”“I’ve collaborated with Nisbet in the past, but this is not something I can stay silent about.
Keith, it seems to me that you are most upset that now journalists are going to have to do some work and try to figure who is right rather than just getting a nice newsworthy contrarian story by regurgitating Nisbet’s summary.
Actually, Tim, based on the link you provided to Chris Mooney’s post on this, it seems that some journalists will merely regurgitate Romm’s posts.
I’m all for journalists doing a deep dive on Nisbet’s report. Too bad that Romm poisoned the waters and threw the baby out with the bathwater. Typical.
So Keith, when Mooney wrote “No one has yet taken on the part of the report that I find in some ways the most stunning”, he was lying and passing something from Romm off as his own? It seems to me that if journalist like Mooney does the “deep dive” and decides that Nisbet’s report is seriously flawed, you’ll dismiss this because they were influenced by the arguments of your Great Satan.
Tim, Tim, Tim,
Didn’t you see the previous post, where I identified Satan as a climate skeptic.
My link in my previous comment didn’t take you to his post, but to Mooney’s highlighting of Romm’s “reanalysis” post.
It’s good to have you back in the mix. BTW, you going to do a post on Nisbet’s report, examining it for yourself? Or are you just going to parrot some of the talking points of others?
The believers like Romm know this study kicks out one of the major legs of their bs stool:The one that allows believers to kid themselves that they are part of a small elect group of enlightened ones fighting the big bad Koch family big oil paid denialist scum.
You take it away and maybe some who have been tricked into buying into AGW calamitous myth making might see that instead they have been manipulated into being part of a mindless mob.
Jeff Norris,
MT’s okie post was much broader than Gore. It showed the results when scientists, in Keith’s words, join forces with partisans. This alliance culminated in almost universal support of Obama among the climate concerned in the last election. Even though an examination of records and campaign literature showed McCain clearly better, the partisans assured the climate concerned Obama was the man of their dreams. Those dreams have turned sour.
Paul
From Nisbet’s Conclusions on ideology
“Second, as a natural human tendency, the political
preferences of scientists and environmentalists
likely lead them to seek out congenial sources in the
media and to overlook the polarizing qualities of
admired leaders such as Gore.”
A lot of groups are having regrets about Obama. They should have remebered that Campaigning is Easy Governing is Hard
Is this what passes for acceptable behavior among scholars? Is it ethically appropriate for someone who doesn’t like the results of a study he helped review then join forces with a partisan blogger to deep six the report before it is even officially released?
Keith, I do believe you hit the nail on the head. Chris and Thomas are reprehensible. The numbers on the tables are the only thing they want to spin and I bet a buck, it is going to turn out a difference similar to that of skeptics that argue temperature records. There is really going to be a small difference, but the record keepers of the 503 will be undisputed 😉
Anyhow, countering all of the meticulously cited sources in a “Reasonable” way is going to be an arduous siege that is going to NOT easily dismissed with stupid terminology like “DEBUNKED”. Not Evil, Just Romm continues…
As I have said earlier, one of the first things to do to restore any sort of credibility to “climate science” is to toss Romm and the “Team” at RealClimate under the bus.
Romm apparently can’t help himself and now is going to be sandbagged by smarter people who will do the addition and note that, if anything, Nisbet can be shown to have underestimated the funding imbalance between climate sceptics and warmist true believers.
It is hardly difficult, for example, to argue that every nickle spent on the IPCC and its reports should be counted in the warmist column simply because the documents, much less their summaries were sore embarrassingly biased. Outfits like the EPA might have their funding counted as well simply because they were entirely unwilling to be objective.
But do, please, keep with the narrative because as you yell you cannot hear the laughter of the recession weary as you trot out ever more implausible threats and insanely optimistic “cures”. When you can hear that laughter, a few of you, will retreat to your labs to get real evidence, to a engineering level, based on observation rather than model, and we’ll next hear from you in about thirty years (about when the PDO reverses) with, well, science.
Keith, I’ve read the report, the critiques and Nisbet’s responses. Nisbet’s two main conclusions don’t hold up. How about you? Do you have any substantive comment on the report?
Nisbet should treat Romm, et al, like the dirty dogs that they are and sue the pants off them and ClimateProgress.Org for every penny they have. This is disgusting! They ain’t been right, or left, or down the middle! Mann-kind should always go the legal route in such cases. Not only has Romm & Co. not been nice, as usual, they’ve attacked an American University man. (SarcOff)
The comparison of Romm & Co. to Mike Tyson was absolutely perfect!
Serious question, with the release of the report, has Nisbet released his data base on line? working papers?
For a brief analysis of the content of the report in relation to the issues Keith raises, see http://ecologicalsociology.blogspot.com/2011/04/climateshift-controversy.html
Gary, thanks for the link. I see Roger Pielke Jr. is weighing in, too (and he was a reviewer.)
Tim (17),
I’m still digesting the report and doing some reporting on it, in preparation for a post to come later in the week.
The post I wrote yesterday was in reaction to Romm’s efforts to torpedo it before it even came out (and a journalism watchdog approving of that). I’ve said along that the report should be judged on its merits–honestly, not in a hyperpartisan manner.
and yet you still haven’t (weighed in). why is that?
ok keith, can you then explain what exactly is hyper-partisan about how the report has been judged? To me hyperpartisan would be saying the report sucked because it was funded by X, or the author was a known cavorter with Y, etc. But in this case there isn’t any of that. Just a critique of the methods and unsupportable conclusions.
once again your ridiculous pathos with he-who-shall-not-be-named appaers to be clouding your judgment….
Question for anyone really: Is the flowchart linked to on Pielke’s site really the climate concerned community’s strategy to bring about policy change?
As Eli pointed out, Andy Revkin jumped the embargo. Once that happened, Nisbet’s report was fair game; Romm shouldn’t be criticized for following a broken rule.
Brandon,
Andy Revkin in this comment to Climate Progress addresses the charge that he broke the embargo first:
My Tumblr.com post was of the *summary* and was designed to attract attention to the paper without judging its conclusions “” in other words to foster the kind of analysis you seek.
By jumping the embargo, you simply force the “traditional” media now to rush to conclusions even faster than they might otherwise have done “” without the kind of independent analysis you call for.
Spend more money on educating the public. Use people like Lambert, Romm, and Manson.
This whole thread is about Keith trying to torpedo dissent. Joe Romm and others have offered a critique of various aspects of the Nisbet’s work (which certainly has Pielke’s fingerprint on it). Keith is simply dismissing these critiques without a shred of substance.
To expand on Mooney’s critique, Nisbet implies that the tendency for AAAS members to identify less with Republicans and conservatives as indication that such preferences must lead to biased and illogical connclusions on their part, rather than concluding (or even considering) more logically that partisan preferences is more of a result of what the various party leader attitudes are towards science. One party and those associated with an ideology denies evolution science, climate science, health effects of various chemicals, and denigrates their research and in some cases their character. This logically leads scientists away from that party. It certainly doesn’t imply that this leads to illogical conclusions on their part. It’s a classic causal or nonsequitur fallacy.
So in the spirit of this all, allow Eli to point out that Revkin says hecopied and pasted a press release to attract attention to Nisbet’s paper and he, Revkin, had no idea of whether the work was any good and then he moans that Romm paid attention to it? Come on, that doesn’t even pass the low level giggle test.
But the data contradicts the orthodoxy. The data is clearly wrong.
Perhaps it’s just a matter of adjustment- has anyone thought to change the sign to negative for the environmental group funding figures? Inverting the figures has worked for us in the past. As for the media charts, we’ve found that if you sample a single news weekly in Idaho the results are robust until early 2010 when they fall apart. We’ll just graft on NY Times stories at that point to make the figures look the way we want them to. This, of course, is standard statistics and would look great on the cover of the next UN report.
The real question is who is going to take the lead on pointing out that American University isn’t a “real” university and Nisbet is not a credentialed “climate-social-scientist”?
“This whole thread is about Keith trying to torpedo dissent. Joe Romm and others have offered a critique of various aspects of the Nisbet’s work (which certainly has Pielke’s fingerprint on it). Keith is simply dismissing these critiques without a shred of substance.”
Huh? I don’t see keith dismissing anything? I see him encouraging people to read for themselves.
here is the bottomline. Thoughtful people will read Nisbets piece. If they find that Romm has a slanted view of things, then Romm has done more harm to himself. If they find Romm is correct, then he’s basically useless.
Lazy people, will just accept Romm at face value and wont even read the piece. or they’ll read it to confirm what they already believe. They will miss other errors in the piece or they will fail to realize that some points in the piece are valid.
If more people were like Eli and Tim, and just accepted the fact that Romm is perfect in every way, life would be so much easier. Let’s talk about Revkin or Keith.
#29: “This whole thread is about Keith trying to torpedo dissent.”
That has to be among the most ironic statements ever made on this blog. If there is anyone who tries to squelch dissenting opinion, it would be Romm, and that is clearly what his preemptive attacks on Nisbet’s report was all about.
Romm flails against his falling credibility. Partisanship, as MT and this study shows has, shall we say, limitations. There’s a growing awareness. The strategy and tactics advocated and executed by the partisans are a failure. The partisans have to answer for the climate disaster that is Barack Obama.
If there is anyone who tries to squelch dissenting opinion, it would be Romm, and that is clearly what his preemptive attacks on Nisbet’s report was all about.
So far you haven’t explained why you think Romm, Brulle, Mooney, me, or others are wrong, or if they are wrong at all, and you claim everyone who agrees with them is “spoon-fed”, which is why your piece qualifies as empty rhetoric, style over substance, of which you are in good company here (Mosher, Paul Kelly, etc.). It’s just your usual knee-jerk reaction get whenever Romm says something. Romm Derangement Syndrome?
I read Nisbet’s piece independently. I find that it reaches some (but not all) key conclusions that are not supported by the full evidence, and not rationally derived, as I suspect most objective people would. Try putting your faux balance garbage aside and look at the critique on its own merits. Just pretend Romm isn’t involved if that suits you better.
Lots of beating up the messenger going on in the climate world all of a sudden. It’s Romm, It’s MT, It’s Eli, It’s Gavin, It’s Gore, It’s Mann, They’re too nerdy, They’re too dumb, They’re too smug, They’re not technical, They’re too technical, They’re too mean, They have a bad message, They have this and They have that. Excuses, excuses.
The media slings mud, it sticks. Yes, there are tribes. The tribe with the right message can’t a find way to get it out there. The ones with the large microphones and the most media savvy are blameless, of course.
Who is Joe Romm?
Do all of the partisans screaming at each other realize that no one else is listening. No one cares about your issue any more. We are having a national election here in Canada. Global warming and green issues in general are of no importance. Even “reliable” newspaper columnists are acknowledging that
Why don’t you all come out of your echo chambers and realize that you have alienated the people who wanted to support you. If someone says that your tactics are not working. Look around. The are not.
Keith, Romm’s crtiticism of Nisbet is dissent. It is not squelching dissent. Also, up is not down and black is not white.
Tim. Dissent is typically construed as a philosophy of opposition to prevailing accepted positions. It seems to me that the prevailing opinion is that the deficit model is correct. Its the prevailing opinion that the anti global warming movement outspends enviromentalists by huge margins. its the prevailing opinion that Joe Romm has never made a mistake or done anything untoward. It’s the prevailing opinion that Gore has never said anything wrong and that he is the perfect spokesperson. Nisbet questions some of those prevailing opinions. He is dissent. Romm does not dissent. Romm recapitulates the accepted order of things.
It’s funny in europe the leftists I talked to could not see how the US left could accept the authoritarian style of the AGWers. I explained that the jackboot was on the other foot
New york:
“So far you haven’t explained why you think Romm, Brulle, Mooney, me, or others are wrong,”
I explained very clearly why you were wrong. You were wrong when you suggested that “This whole thread is about Keith trying to torpedo dissent.”
This whole thread is not about that. In fact this comment is not about keith at all. This comment is about you making a claim you could not back up. When you can see and admit that then what you say about nisbet may be worthwhile. But if you read this thread and get it wrong, then why should I believe you can get Nisbet right?
Get it? Your inability to fairly construe what goes on here in this super simple thread disqualifies you to say anything convincing about nisbet or anything else.
So read Keith again. See if you can get the basic point. It’s not about Nisbet. Its not about Keith. It’s about what Romm did.
Personally, I have no issue with Romm’s sleazeball tactics. I won’t consider a single thing Romm says. I’ll read the report. Like keith suggested.
Dissent (Webster’s):
1. to withhold assent
2. to differ in opinion
its the prevailing opinion that Joe Romm has never made a mistake or done anything untoward. It’s the prevailing opinion that Gore has never said anything wrong and that he is the perfect spokesperson.
If that’s what Nisbet is characterizing as the “prevailing opinion”, he’s attacking a strawman, and this further weakens his case. While Mosher’s characterization of Nisbet’s argument might appear in itself to be a strawman, Nisbet’s work does try to push a narrative regarding AAAS scientists not far from that view. I posted earlier on that matter on Mooney’s blog.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/04/19/the-nisbet-report-on-our-climate-failures-part-i/#comment-96766
When reading Mosher & Watts rantings, I get the picture of them portraying themselves of leaders (at different levels) of a cult uprising against the evil scientific establishment, standing up for the poor oppressed “skeptics” and “luke-warmers” everywhere. And there’s no shortage of those who are prone to that sort of empty rhetoric. It’s entirely self-serving nonsense.
#41,
I’ll read the report. Like keith suggested.
What’s stopping you? With the time you spent here tone trolling and foaming at the mouth over Romm and anyone who might think Nisbet’s analysis is flawed, you could have made good progress towards that goal.
Newyork:
Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea (e.g. a government‘s policies) or an entity (e.g. an individual or political party which supports such policies). The term’s antonyms include agreement, consensus (when all or nearly all parties agree on something) and consent (when one party agrees to a proposition made by another).
That is the meaning that I think keith is referring to.
“When reading Mosher & Watts rantings, I get the picture of them portraying themselves of leaders (at different levels) of a cult uprising against the evil scientific establishment, standing up for the poor oppressed “skeptics” and “luke-warmers” everywhere. ”
Huh? well since I was the first promoter of the term “luke warmer” which was coined during one of our discussions on CA, and since I’m responsible for the tagline and helping to flesh out and codify what our positions are, I think I’ve got a fair amount of standing. First off the scientific establishment is not evil and we haven’t characterized as such. We have limited our criticism to named individuals and certain administrative practices. We have criticised those practices as falling below a standard we would call “best practices.” To date, no one has defended the practices we criticized as being “best practices.” If you would like to defend the actions of CRU as best practices, please feel free to do so. However, the inquirys disagree with you and agree with me. FWIW.
Newyork:
“What’s stopping you? With the time you spent here tone trolling and foaming at the mouth over Romm and anyone who might think Nisbet’s analysis is flawed, you could have made good progress towards that goal”
Nothing is stopping me. However, we have a matter to settle first. That matter is your ability to read a simple thread and get the topic. The first topic is Romm’s tactic. That should be easy to handle. It goes like this.
Steve: Romm, really tried to poison the well. We should read the report and discuss it in detail. My main focus will be how he analyzed the handling of the climategate issue, that’s one area where I think I might be able to add something.
Newyork: Ya, I wish that Romm hadn’t muddied the water, I’ll read the report as well and we can discuss it when we are both done.
Steve; Cool, have a nice day, I’ll get back to you when I’m done.
Instead, you prove yourself incapable of reading what Keith wrote, incapable of finding any fault whatsoever with Romm’s tactics. That signals to me that any conversation about Nisbet will be futile. And, so it goes.
Mosher, I, along with everyone else so far who’s taken a critical look at Nisbet’s work, are interested in substance. We want to see if assertions are supported by evidence. Your crowd is interested in style or appearance. I get that. You’ve not been able to challenge any of the critiques, so you attack style, hypocritically too, since you’re using the same tactics you falsely accuse others of doing, dismissing out of hand anyone who might dissent from the narrative Nisbet is attempting to establish. Lastly, a core attack on style fails miserably, as Revkin’s earlier report on Nisbet’s work indicates, which renders this thread just another desperate Romm-and-anyone-who-might-agree-with-him-bashing thread, designed to torpedo any reasoned critique.
Well said NJ. Now Keith it’s been a few days. Do you have any comment on the substance of Brulle’s critique or are you going to stay focused on the spectacle. If I didn’t know any better I’d say that YOU”RE the one that’s trying to stifle debate/dialogue….
“I think I’ve got a fair amount of standing.”
Indeed. 🙄
Like I said NYJ, it’s easy.
“Mosher, I, along with everyone else so far who’s taken a critical look at Nisbet’s work, are interested in substance. We want to see if assertions are supported by evidence. Your crowd is interested in style or appearance. I get that. You’ve not been able to challenge any of the critiques, so you attack style, hypocritically too, since you’re using the same tactics you falsely accuse others of doing, dismissing out of hand anyone who might dissent from the narrative Nisbet is attempting to establish.”
my crowd? Not sure who that is. I care about finding people who can dispense with the appearences quickly. So you agree that Romm’s little trick wasn’t what we expect from the best of our journalists? good.
I’m not attacking style. i am asking you a question. the question is simple. You know the answer. You were wrong in your characterization of what Keith was doing. It’s easy. You were wrong.
I’m not dismissing any conclusions Romm or other draw about the substance of Nisbet’s piece. I’m doing something different. I’m doing this.
When I discuss the science with skeptics I ask them if they can admit to some simple facts we all know. C02 warms the planet it does not cool the planet. IF they cannot agree to that, then I know we have no meeting of the minds on what constitutes a fact. So, I move on to find people who do know that black is black and white is white. I’m doing the same thing with you. We can all see how you were wrong about keith. it’s not a big deal. you were wrong. When you can say that, then I will know that you are a person it makes sense to engage.
it’s a test. it’s not about the style. its not about the appearence. Its not about nisbet. Look, if you cannot see that you made a silly mistake about what keith wrote, then I’m not sure talking to you about nisbet will be productive.
having read nisbet i’d say my position is closer to Romm’s than you think. But that’s not even on the table yet. First things first. You got keith wrong. It wasnt a substantial error. Just own it and we can move on. Anybody who can read the thread can see you dodging that. its not about the style. its about your substance.
Global warming is all about “style” over substance. We care about the environment – “you” (whatever that might be) don’t.
This entire fracas is driven by the Left’s entrapment by psychotic tropes like projection (eg, the denailists are BIGGER funded than those of us who want to save Mother Earth from mankind, or development, or Capitalism, or the US interests, or all the foregoing).
IF anyone is not so entrapped or else in need of escaping, the dominant Left rhetorical tropes were diagnosed by the recently retired University of Michigan clinical psychiatrist Pat Santy, MD – who blogged for many years as “drsanity” – just google.
By contrast, the political Right is largely governed neurotic tropes – like depressive reaction to loss, (eg, conservatism is in decline – Sam Tannenhaus says so) after Obama’s election to President. Or else, Republican’s meekly arse-kissing up for “MSM” respectability, eg, Majority Leader John Boehner on the budget.
Which is why Tea Party types are enboldened by Ayn Rand’s rhetoric of self-esteem and individual liberation, having a right to exist for one’s own sake to produce and keep it on thoroughly moral grounds, etc. Because Rand blows by these institutionalized “mental ward” political linguistic categories. She didn’t stand for it – nor to skeptical, intelligent free people.
Bottom line: This thread is a testament to Pat Santy’s many years of analysis of disable thinking in political culture (really an exhaustive blog on theat other shrink turned pundit, Charles Krauthammer’s “Bush Derangement Syndrome” diagnosis). The Left cannot imagine their moral superiority without victimization – the facts be damned! Projection, denial, and violence.
Envrionmental politics is not about facts, science, or the Truth. It is about flag waving, intransigent morally-correct superiority. Which is why so many from Schnlenhuber (sp?) to Krugman to T. Friedman envy fascist China as the superior system because force is needed to “save the planet” and democracy cannot. Anyone reading Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” is utterly unsurprised by the train-wreck the left has made of environmental correctness today – and inability of the Left to sanely handle any falsification of their sacred cows.
(I live in Boulder, CO – where all these camps and their delusions are well represented.)
NYJ said: “This whole thread is about Keith trying to torpedo dissent. […] Keith is simply dismissing these critiques without a shred of substance.”
NYJ, the post is about Joe Romm breaking the media embargo. He does this, presumably, so that his critique will be the first one out there and he can undermine a report he disagrees with before it is released.
Mosh is a pretty smart guy. If you were willing to engage with him on substance, you could have a very interesting conversation. But you have to pass a test first. The test is very easy: “What’s the title of Keith’s post?” and “Is the breaking of the embargo a separate issue from the critique of the report?” (Hint: the answer to #2 is yes.)
Once you are able to pass the test, then you will see how your complaint above is not relevant to the discussion Keith initiated. When this happens, you should probably state that, too, so we can check your work. Good luck!
[…] week ago, Romm broke a media embargo sought by Nisbet (it never had much chance of holding up) and began a string of salvos attacking […]
[…] at them to get a fuller picture of the back-and-forth. And other voices””like Roger Pielke Jr., Keith Kloor and Randy Olson among others””took to the Internet to defend Nisbet's work. I'll get into some […]