The Media as Scapegoat
They’re a little late to the game, but the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media finally gets around to reviewing Matthew Nisbet’s Climate Shift report released in April, which triggered an unhinged response from a handful of popular climate bloggers . (I wrote about that here and here.)
The myth of the media as a bunch of incompetents is examined in the Yale Forum’s review:
Columbia Journalism Review science editor Curtis Brainard told The Yale Forum recently that he thinks the spirit of Nisbet’s report is basically right in Chapter 3, at least as it relates to “news reporters and news articles.” For Nisbet and Brainard both, broad accusations that public ignorance is the media’s “fault” are no longer well-founded.
“There is this conventional wisdom floating around out there that journalists are inept, rarely able to get their facts straight or explain or deliver an accurate account of events,” Brainard wrote in an e-mail. “They’re not. But it’s much easier for activists and other policy or program stakeholders to blame the media when things don’t go their way than to analyze the much more complicated interplay of multiple factors.”
(As an aside, Brainard notes that he wrote about precisely this dynamic in his recent article, “Tornadoes and Climate Change,” which pushes back against such charges leveled by environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben. Brainard says McKibben is too quick to condemn the media as a whole for not making connections between various extreme weather events.)
We’re past those earlier days, Brainard told The Yale Forum, when the basic questions about climate science are portrayed in most mainstream news media as being unsettled: “The coverage has become so much more sophisticated since then, delving into the specific consequences of climate change, from sea level rise, to changing precipitation and drought patterns, to consequences for flora and fauna. Many reporters struggle to accurately explain the highly uncertain and nuanced science underlying these phenomena, but the flaws in the coverage are quite different from the false balance that was on exhibit before, say, 2006. First of all, there is nowhere near as much scientific consensus about these finer points of climate science as there is about the fundamentals (i.e., the Earth is warming, and humans are most likely to blame), so today’s stories are really apples compared with yesterday’s oranges.”
Not that this will prevent the usual crowd from continuing to scapegoat the media.
From my “unhinged” post :
I was intrigued by some of the other numbers in Nisbet’s paper. He found that in theWashington Post in the 11 months before Copenhagen 93% of the articles reflected the scientific consensus, 5% were falsely balanced and just 2% dismissive of the consensus.
This suggests that “false balance” was all but absent from the Washington Post during that period, when in fact the Washington Post was indulging in a pathological version of false balance, deciding that George Will was entitled to his own facts. In the Washington Post a statement from the Polar Research Group can be balanced by a falsehood from George Will about what the Polar Research Group said.
I decided to look at the those articles myself. I selected the sample in the same way as Nisbet, except that I used Factiva rather than LexisNexis, and used all the articles rather than 1 in 4. I found that 110 (76%) reflected the consensus view, 28 (19%) were falsely balanced, and 7 (5%) were dismissive. Falsely balanced articles reporting on the science (like this one) were very rare. Instead, the falsely balanced articles were about politics, with the science being balanced by a statement from Inhofe that it was all a big hoax.
Tim,
No offense (and I’m sure none will be taken), but you’re not exactly an unbiased party.
For example, you make the obvious error of conflating George Will opinion columns with the overall Washington Post coverage of climate change.
Interestingly, in an interview at the Yale Forum that accompanies the review of his Climate Shift report, Nisbet observes:
“Advocates and bloggers also campaigned against The Washington Post in 2009 for running columns by George Will that were dismissive of climate change. Gawker for example asserted that the opinion page at the WPost had “gone completely off the rails” and was the “worst opinion section in America.” Yet this criticism and broad-brush critique of the Post focuses on a handful of columns by Will and op-eds by a few others, and overlooks the many other editorials, op-eds, columns, and letters-to-the-editor at the Post opinion pages that assert the consensus views on climate science.”
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/research-center-under-fire-for-adjusted-sea-level-data/
Is climate change raising sea levels, as Al Gore has argued — or are climate scientists doctoring the data?
The University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May to add 0.3 millimeters — or about the thickness of a fingernail — every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming.
“Gatekeepers of our sea level data are manufacturing a fictitious sea level rise that is not occurring,” said James M. Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues for the Heartland Institute.
[….]
Yeah, we are so much more nuanced today.
Tim,
So you’re saying giving Singer one paragraph out of sixteen (and rebutting him in the immediately following paragraph) constitutes “false balance”?
How exactly would you define that term?
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1037110923001/is-grilling-contributing-to-global-warming
bluegrue,
If you want to talk about Fox news, which has an obvious political slant to its climate coverage, you have to include in the discussion the audience for Fox News. Again, from that Nisbet interview with the Yale Forum, he says here:
As I discuss in Chapter 3, the WSJ opinion page is consistent with conclusions from other studies that finds that News Corp.-owned properties including Fox News tend to dismiss consensus views of climate science in their coverage. In addition, the WSJ opinion page is important relative to Fox News in that it often sets the agenda of coverage and discussion at the cable news channel just as the NY Times, WPost, and Politico shape the agenda of coverage at CNN and MSNBC…
…As I discuss in the report, the audience for Fox News and political talk radio tend to be strongly self-selecting with consumption of these media tending to reinforce the views of those already doubtful or dismissive of climate change (approximately 25 percent of Americans). In my work with Ed Maibach [of George Mason University] and Tony Leiserowitz [of Yale University], using their Six Americas audience segmentation scheme, we have argued that it is extremely difficult to engage these audience segments already “˜Doubtful’ or “˜Dismissive’ of climate change.
KK claims: “you make the obvious error of conflating George Will opinion columns with the overall Washington Post coverage of climate change.”
Err, those George Will columns are part of the WaPo’s overall coverage of climate change, and they formed a larger percentage of the coverage than Nisbet’s numbers say. During those 11 months there were 7 Will columns dismissive of the science. That’s more than 2% without even counting anything from Lomborg.
As for your first point, Nisbet isn’t exactly unbiased either. Maybe you could try reading some of the George Will articles and seeing if they are dismissive?
Tim,
Let me clarify: conflating an opinion column with news coverage.
As for credibility, I give more to a scholar with an excellent track record (who spent months on this report) than a partisan climate blogger who did his own quick back of the envelope analysis.
Is George Will a journalist?
Is Fox a legitimate media outlet?
I think that a great deal of the contentiousness on this subject arises from different groups wanting to have the answer to those questions both ways.
If one asserts that Fox is not a legitimate media outlet, that George Will is not a journalist, and that “opinion” writing should be treated as propaganda rather than journalism, then I can see how the “balance as bias” issue might be considered to be nearly resolved.
However, holding such opinions puts one in conflict with how the media defines its own, as well as with the public.
If Fox is considered a legitimate media outlet, and George Will, et al. are journalists, then there’s plenty of work to be done.
Arguments against Nisbet’s 93% finding for consensus news will be very hard to counter–witness above which amounts to ‘But George Will!’
But anybody with access to Google News could find prima facie evidence supporting the claims in a few minutes, as I have here on occasion when this has come up.
False balance is not a real issue in discussions of climate change. It’s just clear that some are vehemently opposed to any publication at all of opposing beliefs or science.
I think that the important measure for this evaluation would be public perceptions. After picking up a copy of their newspaper, what information have they absorbed, what sources do they think they absorbed it from, and do they see those sources as opinion or facts based journalism?
We should also recognize that media is not just newspapers or online articles by journos. Boykoff’s criticism of his own analysis is important:
“still isn’t equipped to gauge how one particular carefully/prominently/well- or ill-timed article or commentary could have a much greater influence on public perceptions and views than consistently inaccurate treatment. In other words, the sometimes haphazard nature of media consumption “” from skimming articles to just hearing/watching portions of a segment “” isn’t accounted for through this approach. At the end of the day, these studies “¦ struggle to account for ‘selective listening’ or ‘selective reading’ that we actually engage in during our daily lives.”
Also, Charlie Petit’s seems to begrudge the media’s role, as does Seth Borenstein. After I looked at it and talked to a few people the problem has a lot to do with the target audience and the institutional ways in which we deal with “news”. What is it? Who should talk about it? Whose job is it?
I think the problem is that now is the time to really be sending the message, everyone is convinced that no one is listening. That may be the case, I’m not sure. Sexy controversy ie Greenpeace/Lynas will get all sorts of coverage because it is new, but the fact that we are creating a possibly horrific problem whose effects aren’t realized for decades is old news. C’est la vie. New and contrarian will win the cycle.
re #6
“If you want to talk about Fox news, which has an obvious political slant to its climate coverage, you have to include in the discussion the audience for Fox News.”
OK.
If you want to talk about ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, BBC, CBC (etc.) news, which have an obvious political slant to its climate coverage, you have to include in the discussion the audience for Fox News.
All media outlets are now propaganda parrots. The reason Fox stands out is that it is the only major one that spouts different propaganda on the AGW story.
Keith
Did you happen to read this paper by Nisbet linked in the Climate Shift Chicago article? I checked the archives but may have missed it.
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/Climate_Change_Education_Nisbet_Workshop_paper.pdf
You are often suggesting a new strategy on communicating CC and while I disagree with the structure that Nisbet proposes I admit it would be very effective. Since it proposes a government supported regional media utilizing academics, scientist, and local opinion leaders as a way to complement and enhance CC education and communication charges of bias in the media should be minimal. The paper also address some of the issues raised by Gaythia wrt “preference gap”, knowledge gap and the ideological barriers inherent in how the media shapes public perceptions.
EdG,
I don’t see the equivalency that you make. Watch this debate between Jon Stewart and Chris Wallace (of Fox News), where Stewart argues (convincingly, in my mind) that Fox has an obvious political/ideological slant while the networks you mentioned (with the exception of MSNBC) do not. Rather, the problem with these networks (with the exception of PBS), he argues, is that their news coverage skews towards scandal and conflict.
#15 Keith Kloor
Other networks do not have a political slant?
What planet are you on?
PBS is as biased as Fox News.
16. Keith. Saw that interview before. Stewart doesn’t realize that he is biased so it was no surprise that he was blind to the bias of that which fits his bias.
NBC, for one example, is totally in the tank for Obama. As far as I can see every network I mentioned is. And in terms of the AGW story, the bias is even more obvious – as most evident when they all went silent on Climategate until they had whitewashes to report.
Fox is obviously biased but, again, people who share the prevailing bias of the rest of the mainstream media cannot see the bias they agree with so they can only see Fox’s.
Funny. I remember the days when we used to laugh at how Pravda worked in the USSR. Now we have Pravdas uber alles is the USA, UK, and Canada.
Fortunately we now have the huge spectrum of sources on the net – while it lasts. Tick, tock, tick, tock… with every story of a hacker – which seem to be very ‘popular’ these days – we are getting closer to more net censorship… in the name of national security and all that.
Keith@8 I included news and opinions in my analysis because that’s what Nisbet did. His figure of just 2% dismissive should have included all the George Will climate columns that appeared in that period. Did you bother to even read past the summary of Nisbet’s report?
As for my “back of the envelope” analysis — I read the articles and classified them. Nisbet had grad students read articles and classify them. There isn’t some super complicated methodology here. Instead of your knee jerk attacks on Nisbet’s critics you could take the time to read some of the articles yourself and see what the problem is.
Tim,
Don’t be shrill. What I did was challenge the very obvious knee jerk reaction to Nisbet’s analysis (and I wasn’t the one one that noticed it), which was hardly an attack. It always amuses me how those who who make the harshest critiques are fond of characterizing any critique of themselves as an “attack.”
Look, I know criticism of the media is your thing, and Nisbet’s analysis is a direct challenge to your framework. But just like those who petition for climate reality, I suggest you take a closer look at the reality that Nisbet and Brainard speak of.
So now I’m “shrill” as well as “unhinged” and a “knuckle dragger”. Is your abuse a deliberate tactic or are you unable to control yourself?
The reality of whether false balance was present or absent in the WaPo in 2009, strikes me as best examined by looking at the articles that were published there in 2009. That’s something I’ve done and you refuse to do. Please explain why you think I need to “take a closer look at the reality” and you don’t.
Tim,
I don’t expect you to take a closer look at the larger media reality any more than Romm or Mooney. All I can do is repeat what Brainard said, which is quoted in the post:
“it’s much easier for activists and other policy or program stakeholders to blame the media when things don’t go their way than to analyze the much more complicated interplay of multiple factors.”
To “The Media as Scapegoat” we should rightly add “The Media as Judas Goat”? It is indeed a very ‘complicated interplay of multiple factors’. More than anything, I believe, these complications and multiple factors are the basis for the charges that it’s all less about the science than the politics of the matter.
People are a hell of a lot more ‘political’ than ‘scientific’. It’s their natural medium. Give them a change, and like water, they will always seek out the lowest level. Is the media the scapegoat or the judas goat? It all depends on which side you’re on AND if you think you’re winning or not. Life’s a beach!
Keith, I did take a closer a look, looking at many more articles from the 2009 WaPo than Nisbet’s students. Please tell me what else you think I should look at besides 2009 WaPo articles to determine if false balance was present in 2009 WaPo articles. And why won’t you look at the evidence yourself? Why?
Keith and Tim, In my opinion, while there is much knowledge to be gained from Matt Nisbet’s analysis of the media outlets he chose, the problem arises in that the report was packaged such that it was picked up and discussed as an analysis of national media. I think this arises from an academic and Washington DC bias. I believe that these “national” media outlets actually have a fairly limited penetration outside of Washington DC or New York City. Well, actually I haven’t the vaguest idea what real public penetration they have in those cities either.
Why split hairs over the exact distribution between George Will and the rest of the coverage in the Washington Post? George Will’s column is carried nationwide, in all sorts of small town papers. and he frequently appears as a commentator on television.
If articles from sources such as WaPo, NYT, WSJ are carried at all, they are likely to be edited for length and run under headlines of the local newspaper’s own choosing. But, in fact, local papers are much more likely to run attention grabbing snippets than lengthy analyses of anything. For science, this “reporting” frequently is of the format “scientists say” followed by maybe 3 or 4 sentences of press release information.
In my opinion, Fox excels at emotional hooks that are couched to resonate with local attitudes. Thus, they have made global climate change, which might not of been of great immediate interest, into something politically charged that seems, to many, to attack their entire way of life.
What matters with messaging is media penetration. Fox news and George Will talking points aren’t just in their original outlets, they are repeated in local newspapers, on TV and on talk radio, for example, where they are heard while commuting to work, while working some jobs, and while operating a tractor. This messaging becomes part of a cocoon of “everybody knows” knowledge.
Thus, I can have perfectly reasonable conversations with area farmers and gardeners, who actually know more than almost anybody about climate and growing season changes over the years. But switch from discussions about length of growing seasons or first and last frost dates, to mentioning global climate change, and suddenly psychological barriers go up. Mention Al Gore’s name and it might be safest to abandon the conversation entirely. And yet, these are the very people who actually know, first hand and very personally, about local climate patterns. But the concept that linkages could be made between such groups as these world wide has been thwarted.
I received a number of e-mail requests from environmental groups that I distribute Al Gore’s Rolling Stone article link to friends. I find this to be a ridiculous ignorant request. Nobody who is not already simpatico with Al Gore’s views is going to do more than see the Al Gore name and go !#$!!*!
Science is not about consensus, it is about truth. For a more balanced view of the climate please visit http://wattsupwiththat.com/ With more than 83,024,832 views it is the most viewed website.
@25 Your announcement reminds me of a Marlboro cigarette advertisement that I analyzed for an econ class way back in high school. It ran with two simultaneous threads: Be independent! Follow the crowd! Page views are not the same as expertise. Page views don’t even necessarily represent separate people.
It can be clever marketing however, as the Marlboro man knew.
Keith, I am not at all clear as to what you think is being reported regarding climate change and weather patterns in the media. And by media, do you mean journalists or publishers?
This is as close as we’ve come out here lately:
For the past 10 days, we’ve had a series of thunderstorm showers of the sort that local meteorologists have taken to reporting as “monsoon season”. Yesterday’s storms contained a severe cell that caused plane damaging hail to airlines at Denver’s airport.
Today’s Loveland Reporter Herald ran a front page AP article that quotes Roger Pielke Sr. as follows:
http://www.reporterherald.com/ci_18489358?IADID=Search-www.reporterherald.com-www.reporterherald.com
“However, the monsoonal pattern should continue in a weakened fashion, at least for now, said former state climatologist Roger A. Pielke Sr., a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado. …
“You think you`ve seen it all and something else comes along,” Pielke quipped. “It makes it very difficult to predict. There are a lot of surprises remaining in the climate system.”
So local residents should conclude that perhaps scientists think that the climate system might someday be running out of surprises?
@26 Of course it does to a TRUE BELIEVER in global warming, oops, AGW, oops, CAGW, oops, CLIMATE CHANGE. The above comment is for those who may have become even a little bit skeptical of CONSENSUS, especially after THE HOCKEY STICK failure, CLIMATEGATE, PAL REVIEWS, IPCC retractions, along with the HIDE THE TRICK obfuscations, etc.
For those who would like a more balanced view of climate science take a look at http://judithcurry.com/.
For those sheeple who cannot stand both sides of a discussion, this is the appropriate place.
Gaythia,
Your analysis of the cascading effect for Fox and George Will, has some merit. But it is more than matched by the impact of the NY Times and Washington Post setting the agenda/slant for the mainstream media.
Keith,
It is obvious to conservatives and libertarians , and even some “moderates” that the mainstram media has an “elite”, socially liberal bias. Heck, I am from Boston and a Harvard grad and it is plain to me. I share some of these biases, know some of the players in government and education, but I admit they are biases. If liberals persist in denying this shared worlview of the elite media, then there will be no end to liberals and conservatives talking past each other.
Conservatives have their own blind spots, but thinking that all the alphabet soup networks, AP, etc. do not draw their editors and writers from a certain stratum of society will not progress the discussion.
#29, what you say makes a good point, but you should also bear in mind that those from the part of society that you loosely characterize as a liberal elite also get quite a bit of training on looking at both sides of the issue. I’ll admit they haven’t done a good job on this particular issue, but there’s a far cry from the unconscious bias inherent in reporters for the NYT and the very conscious and conscientious hucksterizing at Fox.
Is hucksterizing a word? It should be…
#24 Gaythia writes: “Mention Al Gore’s name and it might be safest to abandon the conversation entirely.”
Indeed! I can’t believe the AGW Team hasn’t sent him to silent exile. Instead we have his 24 hours of ‘reality’ debacle coming up which will just be another credibility buster.
Seems that this irrational clinging to this emporer with no clothes reveals that for some this is a religious issue and they are just blindly just following this or any available Messiah.
@29 I think that your east coast bias is showing.
I’ll grant WaPo influence credit for it’s DC location. The NYT is good, I read it myself online (at least until the paywall goes up)
But I think that in terms of setting the agenda for what the nation sees as news, the large aggregates are highly influential. MediaNews Group of Denver owns the Denver Post, the Boulder Camera, the San Jose CA Mercury, the Santa Cruz Sentinal, Contra Costa Times and numerous others. I think Gannet is the largest, and it also prints the national USA Today. McClatchy is another. The combined LA Times/Chicago Tribune are also not only local but have articles picked up by other syndicates.
Then there are the TV news overlaps. In Denver, KUSA 9News is owned by Gannet and has the NBC afflilation, KMGH 7 is McGraw Hill with ABC. KCNC 4 is actually, imagine that! owned by CBS. KDVR 31 is some convoluted CBS/Warner Bros arrangement and carries FOX news.
All of the above is not an argument for the existence of a totally free and open press, but it doesn’t, in my opinion, support the idea that they are dictated to by the New York Times either.
I think that the main issue is that largely, these news outlets tend to lean towards news lite. Thus, many of my acquaintances who think that they follow the news closely, mean by that that they are up on all of the latest details regarding Casey Anthony.
All journalism graduates are elites and also liberal? Or just the ones that are employed? Except for the ones at FOX? They graduated someplace else?
Heck, my degrees are all from western, public, state funded universities and I just don’t see it.
@31 This is getting old. We’ve been there before, I said this:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2011/07/05/can-environmentalism-reinvent-itself/#comments
#6 Gaythia
In my opinion, Al Gore is the victim of very clever, very deliberate character assassination. Al Gores personality is what it is. On an objective basis, I see no reason that it is a more defective personal style than say, George W. Bush. But things are at the point where merely mentioning his name among those that are not already convinced of the wisdom of his views creates an incredibly negative response.
I think it is true that he is the victim of what amounts to very sophisticated adult bullying. The swift-boating of John Kerry was similar. I don’t know if there are public relations techniques that can over come this after the fact or not. At the very least, we ought to figure out ways to combat this before it gets to the point where there is brain freeze when a public figure’s name is mentioned.
Gaythia
Just like choosing headlines local papers and TV choose which stories to include as their content. Local outlets content are strongly influenced by their local consumers. By consumers I mean those who pay for the news either by subscription or by targeted advertising segment. You highlight RH herald with a daily circulation on 15K but did you look at the Coloradoan with a daily circulation of 28k and see what they have reported regarding CC or weather. Using “Climate Change” as the search word I counted 4 stories in the last 10 days. The AP story written by a Denver AP staffer was not one of them. Is Media News Group anti Science and Gannett pro science or could it be that the two papers in your area are appealing to two different audiences with the Herald targeting more local and news lite stories. If you compared the Daily Camera and the Coloradoan which have similar circulation you would find very similar types of coverage on bigger issues. The Camera has 3 articles on CC in last 10 days.
Bottom line is this, local TV and newspaper content is driven by the locals. The framing of National news stories is completely different. They are framed by a more select few, AP, Reuters, NYT WaPO and the WSJ. Local outlets do have a choice on editing for length but not much wrt content if they want to run the story.
Jeff @34 But local is what reaches locals. I don’t disagree with your points, except in that I don’t think that there is some overarching national source that is truly reaching the public in some comprehensive fashion. Rather, people are more likely to be gathering snippets from a variety of sources. Some of those snippets are collected and edited from the national sources you mention, but only in a very limited and highly selective way. By and large, local papers or TV outlets don’t run the stories. But if they do, they can choose the headlines, or the TV lead ins, and edit to restrict depth. And many people don’t get beyond the headline anyway.
So I think that what you are saying re-enforces what I am saying. If you are familiar with Colorado, you know that Boulder (Daily Camera) tends to be an island unto itself, and Fort Collins (Coloradan) is a smaller version of this. The two university towns. Neither city”s newspaper has all that much reach beyond city limits. So both of these papers are fairly inconsequential to this argument in that they are both largely preaching to the converted.
Where the messaging is needed is everyplace else. In my opinion, “everyplace else” is mostly disconnected from the sources you list, AP, Reuters, NYT WaPO and the WSJ (in any substantial way); but still highly connected to FOX via multiple media outlets including TV and radio.
33# – how about this for bullying – Al Gore after a BBC environment correspondent/analyst had asked some inconvenient questions about ‘an Incovenient Truth’
remberingthe BBC is very much on the pro side of the AGW debate
Roger Harrabin: “And after the interview he [gore] and his assistant stood over me shouting that my questions had been scurrilous, and implying that I was some sort of climate-sceptic traitor.
It is miserable when such a vastly important debate is reduced to this.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7040370.stm
Gaythia(35)
O’Rielly draws about 2.5 million nightly viewers versus 3rd place network news CBS at 5.5 million. NBC is no 1 at 7.8. Keith has linked to studies that shows a majority of Americans still get their news from the networks and the ratings seem to bare this out. Now if you look at the Cable news Fox is clearly dominate but still in a distant 4th compared to the Networks. Looking at your local TV news market KUSA dominates followed by KCNC then KMGH with the Fox affiliate in a distant fourth. Hell I just read they have finally hired an actual news director there.
Based on viewership I don’t know how you can say that Fox has some large influence on the American public. I would agree that people who are “news junkies” and that are probably more involved and vocal watch Fox. Read another study (pew?) that Fox News has a hire Dem viewership that most of the other Cable News, almost 33% of viewers identify as dems.
Again Local TV news content is driven by the local consumers. News Corp does provide access to some content just like the Networks but it is up to the local news director to make the decision. Gaythia you seem pretty vocal, have you spoke with any of your local affiliates wrt content that you would like to see? Truth be told the squeaky will gets the grease but you also have to remember that advertising revenue pays the bills.
To add a little more info on viewership. Jon Stewart in May avg 2.3 million viewers, Maddow 1.06 and Anderson Cooper had 1.02 mill. So maybe the lack of info is partially Stewarts fault. 🙂
33. Gaythia writes:
Re Gore “The swift-boating of John Kerry was similar.”
More like the ‘swift-boating’ of Jimmy Swaggart. Gore has done this to himself, through his gross hypocrisy, self-serving agenda (with his Goldman Sachs partners), and hysterical wolf-crying.
Now, as you say, he is very polarizing figure, but since he’s also a symbol of everything dubious about AGW, he does his cause far more harm than good. If you keep making excuses for him, he might linger longer – much to the delight of everyone who find him to be a very handy target.
I happen to think he is a world class phoney, with or without AGW.
The Nisbet analysis is flawed in fatal ways in measuring skepticism in media, as has been discussed ad naseum.
The propagandist Patrick Michaels has a regular column in Forbes, which gets web traffic similar to WaPost, with this week’s columm entitled “why hasn’t the earth warmed in 15 years”. Of course, Nisbet might have categorized that column as pro-consensus for all we know, or ignored it because it’s just an “opinion” piece.
#40
“why hasn’t the earth warmed in 15 years”.
LOL…thank you…even though I know this is not an interesting question for you.
Bias in the media? No!!…I am shocked!!..shocked I say.
Dr. David Deming
University of Oklahoma
College of Earth and Energy
Climate Change and the Media
2/6/2006: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Hearing Statements
“I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.”
Ed (#41),
Michaels’ question is the logical equivalent of “when did you stop beating your wife?”
And on #42, I doubt someone like David Deming, who has written articles entitled “Inhofe Correct on Global Warming” and “the bias against men in my profession is so profound, that it is now a universally accepted cultural norm in professional and academic communities” can be trusted to give an accurate account on anything, including interactions with the media.
#43 – NewYorkJ claims that “Michaels’ question is the logical equivalent of “when did you stop beating your wife?”
Nice try. The only logical analogy is that some know-it-all kept insisting that someone would not only keep beating their wife, but that it would keep getting worse, but then it stopped.
Apparently, the Chinese aerosols calmed him down, otherwise the know-it-all would of course insist that he was still correct… in fact that is exactly what these reality-challenged charlatans are saying.
LOL.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1996/trend
Michaels is certainly a reality-challenged charlatan, otherwise known as a denier.
Going down memory lane for NYJ’s hero 🙂
.
Dr. David Deming
U.S. Senate as above
“..I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He [Jay Overpeck ? *] said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.” ..”
*David did not say who, but…
[Climategate] In an email on Jul 18, 2005 (551. 1121721126.txt), Briffa wrote Overpeck, Jansen and Crowley, expressing concern about a figure that Crowley had proposed observing: “..there are intonations in some of Peck’s previous messages that he wishes to “nail” the MWP-i.e. this could be interpreted as trying to say there was no such thing..”
EdG;
Recent news indicate that it was volcanic aerosols the exerted the calming effect.
In case you haven’t seen it, here’s an interesting article by David Whitehouse at GWPF:
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/3334-more-science-journalists-fewer-science-supporters.html
“One should get the science right but it is not journalism if you reflect only one side of an argument, no matter how strong, or how much of a consensus there may be. It might be unpopular to say, and may be alien to some scientists, but journalism in a democracy in a free society is more precious than science.”
Following Whitehouse’s argument to its logical conclusion…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories
Shame on the fascist undemocratic media for not covering this side of the argument sufficiently. It doesn’t matter if the claims are poorly-supported. In a free society, they should get equal coverage as the Moonists who claim we went to the Moon, and the media shouldn’t favor one over the other.
Whitehouse of the politial group GWPF wants the media to cover demonstrably silly arguments, such as his claim:
2010 will be remembered for just two warm months [March and June], attributable to the El Nino effect, with the rest of the year being nothing but average, or less than average temperature.
Regarding similarly silly claims from Pat Michaels in #40, Peter Gleick put it best:
Patrick Michaels’ essay is like trying to prove why the sun goes around the Earth. Or why gravity doesn’t work. Or how the U.S. faked the moon landing. It doesn’t matter what his arguments are: his initial premise is wrong.
I personally think the media should have higher standards, but unfortunately, false balance reigns on the issue of climate change.
False balance again. The non-existent problem, resurrected as an act of despair. If no message is working, no political action is succeeding, why it must be false balance!
50. Tom Fuller
In terms of the mainstream media there is no false balance. Other than Fox in the US, all other networks are AGW parrots.
So all we have is a false claim of a false balance and despite the
overwhelming bias of the MSM, backed up by nonstop fearmongering, they still can’t sell it. Seems to be something wrong with the product.
edG,
There is certainly fear-mongering in mainstream press of the variety proclaiming great economic destruction if we dare to gradually decarbonize, which works to some extent among those inclined to such alarmism. You’re right to say that not all media outlets engage in false balance. Fox News is utterly denialist.
Usual banal response from Tom Fuller.
It’s been discussed repeatedly on this weblog and Boykoff has been cited and re-cited, but it makes no difference.
We must solve this problem.
Show us evidence that the problem exists.
You’re a denier. We must solve this problem.
The endless loop of the defeated.
Boykoff found signfiicant false balance in select newspaper articles 1998-2003, less so in 2006 (just before the big U.S. political shift and denier frenzy). Boykoff fails to cover more than just select newspapers, opinion pieces not included. All has been dissected ad naseum here.
Denialist loop:
1. “Show us evidence the problem exists.”
2. Evidence shown
3. Repeat step 1.
Basic trolling really.
Yawn. From Inkstain (just to spread the wealth around):
“In 2006, according to an analysis by Max Boykoff, now at the University of Colorado, (summarized in a piece on Nature’s web site), 96.7 percent of the news stories in a broad sampling of the mainstream press accurately described the anthropogenic causes of climate change, while only 3.3 percent offered some “balancing” comment questioning greenhouse-caused climate change.”
I prefer the abstract:
Analysis of the practice of this norm in United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) newspaper coverage of climate science between 2003 and 2006 shows a significant divergence from scientific consensus in the US in 2003″“4, followed by a decline in 2005″“6
Also, significant false balance 1988-2002, according to Boykoff. 2007-2011 not addressed.
And of course Tom doesn’t address limitiations of selecting a few newspapers, excluding TV media, or excluding opinion pieces from the analysis, or the fatal flaws in the Nisbet approach:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/04/theres_no_fooling_bryan_walsh.php
More on the Nisbet piece…
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201104180022
Back to the denialist loop for Tom.
Yeah, gotta stamp that 3% of opposing opinions out! From one match a mighty conflagration can spring.
#52. NewYorkJ says:
“There is certainly fear-mongering in mainstream press of the variety proclaiming great economic destruction if we dare to gradually decarbonize…”
Sorry but just saying so doesn’t count. Please provide examples from the media outlets which you believe are objective.
In the meantime there has been endless fearmongering, for almost two decades now, proclaiming environmental destruction if we don’t pay up. Extortion, on a ‘biblical’ scale, complete with the floods, plagues and locusts. Reminds me of the Middle Ages.
“Fox News is utterly denialist.”
Your use of the ‘d’ word here reveals so much that there is no need to comment.
Please provide examples from the media outlets which you believe are objective.
If a media outlet was promoting economic alarmism, why would they be considered objective? Most aren’t very objective, or at least not consistently. CBS, for example, blasted this inaccurate headline:
“Obama Admin: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year”
This claim didn’t actually come from the Obama Administration, but from Heritage, which make a calculation based on dividing expected revenues by households, completely ignoring the fact that revenues are largely returned to consumers via allowances and rebates.
Your use of the “˜d’ word here reveals so much that there is no need to comment.
Would you prefer the ‘a’ word?
NewYorkJ
You are right the Obama Administration redacted the conclusion in the internal report so CEI and CBS had to do the math themselves. Did you read the reporters rebuttal to CAP’s criticism?
Cap And Trade Redux: $1,761 Annually Per Family? Or Not?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504383_162-5316600-504383.html?tag=contentMain%3bcontentBody
Also, do you consider all Headlines as a good indicator for bias or just the ones that gore your OX?
Jeff Norris,
Thanks for providing a second example to support my point. The reporter dances around the core criticism, that the pseudo-analysis only considers gross revenues, and not allowances/rebates that offset the costs, going off on various tangents, including complaints of CEI being characterized as “right-wing”.
And no, the Obama Administration never concluded what Heritage did. In fact, it’s plainly clear that Heritage lied, and reporters merely parroted their lie.
The non-partisan CBO did conclude net costs of about $175 per household on average, with low-income households coming out ahead. Your alarmists at CBS/Heritage/etc. are off by an order of magnitude.
Keith,
I’m not sure how this fits into your blog, but this study:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/07/11/3265013.htm
should be of some purport if one of your interests is studying the psychology of climate change belief and risk management.
[“If you believe in something strongly and it’s really important to you as a person [your worldview] you will cling to that no matter what,” Ecker remarks.
He says one example of this is climate change.
“People who believe strongly in the free market, those opposed to any kind of regulations “¦ will be much more likely to continue to believe humans are not causing climate change even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that humans are causing climate change.”]
And another new study, restricted to the BBC. The results surprised me, considering that the BBC is known to get significant ire from the “skeptics” for not being balanced enough. I don’t really watch the BBC, so I have no idea.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/20/bbc-climate-change-science-coverage