The ABC — protecting big government from awkward questions

Not to state the bleeding obvious, but there is mammoth legislation on the table — you know the drill: it will change the landscape of the economy, affect every purchase, and eventually, affect our weather too — the whole enchilada. Since it’s so big, you’d be forgiven for thinking that our dedicated public funded broadcaster (the ABC) would leave no stone unturned to make sure that this nationally transformative legislation stacked up. After all, the Australian people pay for the ABC?

If, hypothetically, some major foreign financial houses were going to benefit from the proposed legislation, we could be sure that would set off the red alert at the ABC, they’d be searching high and low for potential conflicts of interest. If a Nobel Prize winning physicist, a professor of atmospheric chemistry, and our former head of Australia’s National Climate Center all held grave fears that the legislation was based on out-of-date, inaccurate science, then the ABC would ferret out these independent views, and make sure that the public at least heard their “take” on the situation. We could count on the ABC to find the whistle blowers who are trying to save the nation from wasting trillions of dollars on an exaggerated scam. Sure.

A free media is supposed to be Western Civilizations first line of defense against corruption. But what if our armed guards could be fooled by an enemy dressed in green floral brocades, waving a flag that said “Save The Spotted Quoll”. What if they mistakenly thought they were still working for Australia (albeit for the trees and not the taxpayers). They might end up accidentally defending large government institutes, unnecessary departments, irrelevant ministries and large financial trading houses.

John Styles in the Spectator Australia has exposed how one of the ABC’s leading commentators decided long ago that the Prize winning physicist and other eminent scientific experts were all wrong. Since when was it the role of journalists to decide our government policies?

Maurice Newman is dead right about the ABC

Almost two years ago, ABC1 presenter Tony Jones told Crikey publisher Eric Beecher and a Melbourne audience that between 2001 and 2008 the members of the Lateline team made up their minds about the science of climate change. The sceptics, they’d decided, were wrong.

Jones prefaced the admission by saying he was in favour of scepticism. But not, apparently, about climate change. On 6 April 2008, Jones said: ‘From around the year 2001 on Lateline, we began interviewing everybody we could about this subject; and we interviewed all the main scientific sceptics. And gradually, over a period of time, we resolved in our own minds that the sceptics had it wrong and the vast majority of scientists disagreed with their position, that there was a developing consensus and if we didn’t take it seriously we were in grave danger of moving to a position where [it] would simply be too late to do anything about it. And I’m still not sure right now whether we aren’t in that position as we speak.’

Jones’s claim that Lateline had interviewed all the main sceptical scientists was puzzling. Presumably, by the term ‘interview’ he was referring to those long, one-on-one conversations like the nine he has had with Gaia fan and true believer Tim Flannery.

But a dip into the Lateline transcript archive in search of one-on-one interviews with sceptical scientists conducted between 2001 and April 2008 returned just one — with Russian economic adviser Andrey Illarionov.

Sure, Lateline included a few sceptical climate scientists in some packaged reports. But in-depth, information-seeking chats of the Flannery kind have been scarce. Not so rare were interviews with climate change believers. A trawl through the archive netted more than 20 one-on-one interviews in the same period with experts on the true-believer side of the debate. It is a scandalous scorecard: believers 20+, heretics 1.

[Tim] Flannery’s nine appearances have made the true believer a Lateline regular. But why should Flannery, a mammalogist and palaeontologist, be preferred to an Australian palaeoclimatologist like James Cook University’s Bob Carter, who has never been a guest on Lateline? Could it be because Carter challenges the IPCC climate change orthodoxy?

Bear all this in mind when you recall Maurice Newman’s recent speech to the corporation’s senior staff. The public, the ABC chairman said, should not perceive any ‘ABC view’ on an issue. He pointed to the coverage of climate change as an example of ‘group-think’ that was intolerant of contrary views. ‘Should there be a view that the ABC was sheltering particular beliefs from scrutiny, or failing to question a consensus,’ Newman said, ‘I would consider it to be a dangerous perception that could lead to the public’s trust in us being undermined.’

A few weeks ago, in an interview with resources and energy minister Martin Ferguson, Jones reached for the matches (metaphorically speaking, of course). In a chilling moment, the ABC’s high inquisitor, the corporation’s Torquemada of climate change, fixed on the minister and asked: ‘Do you personally believe in the science that says that human-induced greenhouse gases are the cause of dangerous global warming and climate change? Do you personally believe that?’

You could almost hear the fire crackling. Who had reported Ferguson, one wondered? But the minister was well prepared.

Read the whole article.

James Allen also in the Spectator does a fitting column discussing the pitfalls of people who only listen to those they are likely to “enjoy” listening too. “There is no left-wing conspiracy at Aunty, just a liberal groupthink”

Other posts I’ve written about the ABC

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

40 comments to The ABC — protecting big government from awkward questions

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    … the ABC’s leading commentators decided long ago that the … eminent scientific experts were all wrong.

    As an American friend of mine is fond of saying, “You can always tell an Australian journalist – but not much”.

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    MadJak

    thinking that our dedicated public funded broadcaster (the ABC) would leave no stone unturned to make sure that this nationally transformative legislation stacked up

    I’m sorry Jo, but no, I really don’t think our publicly funded AGW propaganda machine – the ABC – was going to anything that even vaguely resembles journalism. In my mind the ABC is right up there with North Koreas state television. I am sure the ABC would be drooling out the mouth to have the sort of control that the North Korean media has.

    The fact that this Bias has been so deep and continued for so long is a sure indication of utterly incompetent and lazy leadership within the ABC.

    It doesn’t really matter now anyway. Anyone with more than a few brain cells that I know of have decided like myself to do our own filtering on the net rather than take the lazy approach of allowing MSM editors to do it for us.

    I’ve said this a few times now – it is their ABC, not your ABC or our ABC – it is THEIR ABC. They can have it and bask in their ignorance.

    Of course, Our nanny state wants to filter the net as well and is basically saying trust us – yeah sure, let’s have some unbiased journalism like the ABC – it would be funny if the joke wasn’t so serious.

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    janama

    I can’t stand Tony (thank you for being there) Jones, or Robyn Williams for that matter. They are both exceedingly pompous and arrogant. The Q&A episode with Tony Abbott was embarrassing. The program calls itself the program where you get to ask the questions but it actually involved a member of the public asking one questions followed by Tony Jones asking another 4. Even when Abbott finally protested at the continuous questions regarding his religious views and asking why he didn’t ask Kristina Keneally similar questions because she is also a Catholic Jones kept pounding them out.

    I posted a reply to a question on Joanne’s Unleashed story 3 times without them appearing – I finally alerted the moderator asking why and it was eventually posted. Even Unleashed is biased!

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    Brett_McS

    The left have created their own bubble, and it shows whenever they accidentally find themselves debating someone from outside. They’re pathetic and very quickly, if not immediately, resort to name calling. On the other hand, we are constantly exposed to the other side’s ideas, in films, newspapers and schools, and can compare and contrast. That’s why we are happy to have fair debates. We know they’ve got nothing.

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    Off-topic, but I’ve just started reading Humberto Fontonova’s book about Che Guevara and it’s teaching me a great deal about how left-leaning media* are quite willing to ignore the facts and paint any issue as they please.
    Amazing how consistent they have been in supporting people and causes that would destroy our shared civilisation – or, in Guevara’s case, cheerfully arrange for a bullet to be put through their heads.

    *pretty much all the media, true, but there are notable exceptions.

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  • #
    Ike

    Journalists are prone to such manipulation, because it allows them to feel as though they are a part of a solution, when their own knowledge and training wouldn’t ordinarily qualify them.

    It’s not just that they were “fooled by an enemy dressed in green floral brocades,” they wanted to be seen wearing the green themselves.

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  • #
    J.Hansford

    In my opinion, journalist leave University with less capacity for critical thinking, then when they first entered these now malignant establishments…. There is probably very little that could be called higher learning in them.

    It seems the students are merely shaped to support a growing political class… blindly and obediently.

    Which makes our problem in Australia quite serious, because these forged young minds gravitate towards our bureaucracy, which is the only area of growth for jobs they can compete in, and they entrench themselves within our State funded media organization…. From there, great harm is being done to our democratic society.

    They are in effect, validating an elitist class who live off the wealth of everyone else while manipulating the distribution of the resources of the country.

    We also now have this Vanguard of ideologues that know what is right and revolutionary for us all and what is not…… Tony Jones for instance “knew” that AGW is true and the skeptics were wrong….. Just like Lenin, Trotsky and Mao “knew” what was “right” for “their” people too.

    Tony Jones is an obscenity to journalism. The ABC is an obscenity to free speech.

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  • #

    J Hansford, I recall a comment at either Bolt or Blair from an insider at RMIT. According to this source all applicants for journalism courses are interviewed carefully to determine their political views. Those that don’t ‘fit’ are thus weeded out at the very start.

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  • #
    Baa Humbug

    Hi all

    None of us are surprised by this revelation are we? However it is confirmation from the horses mouth Jones himself, that Lateline has actively kept sceptical views and evidence from it’s viewers.

    But a big big hat tip to Chris Uhlmann, also from the ABC, who was quoted by the ABC chairman Newman….

    In his speech, Newman quoted from an October 2009 opinion piece by Chris Uhlmann, political editor of ABC1’s 7.30 Report: ‘Climate science, we are endlessly told, is “settled”. But to make the, perfectly reasonable, point that science is never settled risks being branded a “sceptic” or worse a “denier”.’ As if anticipating the reaction his heresy might provoke, Uhlmann added defiantly: ‘If to question a science which relies so heavily on computer-generated modelling is to be a denier or a sceptic, then stack me up with the heretics and go find the matches.’ Uhlmann’s refreshing journalistic detachment and scepticism provide a sharp contrast with the heart-on-sleeve climate coverage of Lateline’s true believers.

    Not just “defiantly”, I’d say courageously.

    Not all is lost at OUR ABC

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  • #
    JCrabb

    Who is the Nobel Prize winning physicist?

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  • #

    I have forwarded John Styles article to ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs for investigation and comment. Will post the outcome as usual on the ABC NEWS WATCH Blog.
    In the meantime here’s a Ground breaking Documentary: Examining GROUPTHINK at ABC

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    janama

    According to this source all applicants for journalism courses are interviewed carefully to determine their political views. Those that don’t ‘fit’ are thus weeded out at the very start.

    Gregory – I don’t believe that for one moment. I ran a department at a University and I do know that students are interviewed at many Universities because there are more students applying than there are places and interviewing allows the staff to select the keenest and also to give the opportunity to the odd student from some disadvantaged outback town or station who normally wouldn’t make the grade.

    Personally I blame my own generation, the baby boomers. We were the generation that turned everyone to the left via Whitlam, our music, diet fads, hippy farms etc and educated our children to be pure green. Fortunately the grandchildren are proving to be more stable and balanced. Just look at the way they treated Rudd on Q&A over climate change.

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    The television appearance where Tony Jones and Monbiot ambushed Ian Plimer was just so appalling. It had “plausible deniability” written all over it.

    I am absolutely flummoxed how these guys get things done. I don’t understand the dynamics of it, but there is some feature of human nature wherein people tend to act like they were willing players in a giant conspiracy even if there is not much of a conspiracy in place in reality, and even if its really just some group dynamic.

    But what happened is Monbiot and Jones set Plimer up on the grounds of some idiocy to do with Volcanic emissions. They had a brand-name ….. that is to say the “US Geological Survey”. Well some suspected Gramscian liar or whore or anti-CO2 religious nut had managed to hijack the organisation for the purposes of this one issue. What they had done is made a claim to do with Volcanic CO2 release. Someone had made a ludicrous claim on the US Geological Survey website. No doubt some hard-core CO2-bedwetter or worse.

    And the claim was based on the utterly moronic idea that volcanoes under the sea, release more or less about the same amount of CO2, as the LANDED volcanoes.

    In order to make this case they had to go back many years. I’m not going to look up the study that they hid behind. But it was utter idiocy, and the people involved would have known they were lying. For starters, undersea volcanoes are two orders of magnitude more prevalent then the landed stuff, and all indications are that they are massively more consistent as to their output.

    So anyway Monbiot and Jones have this webpage. They have some account of some journalist ringing someone up in this organisation. And they set up Ian Plimer to make him look like a liar. But it was the two of them that were lying.

    Then the next thing is that after the interview Monbiot made a bunch of statements that looked like he was locking in the dreaded and fabled plausible-deniability. This is where he really screwed up. Because thats when I saw what these two goons had done.

    So I emailed Monbiot many times, in the most angry language I could muster, to tell him he had been busted.

    Well like I said, people act like they are in a conspiracy even if they are not. Because in a very short time the outdated studies that the US Geological Survey GRAMSCIAN ……. had been hiding behind, could no longer be found on the internet. At least not by me. Then in a very short space of time people stopped talking about The US Geological Survey, and started talking about their British counterparts. Who themselves were quoting the same sort of idiocy, based on another obscure and outdated study.

    Bear in mind I was sending abusive emails to Monbiot a few times a day. It seems it threw these people into a panic. Or maybe not. Who knows? I don’t get to see behind clothes doors and I don’t stooge myself insofar as what I do and don’t know.

    But if anyone looks back to that TV interview and examines the before and the after, I’m sure a smart person will see the stench of “plausible-deniability.”

    I’m sure an intelligent person will smell the carrioan stench of plausible-deniability, pretty much everywhere.

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    janama

    Graeme – Plimer has a whole chapter in his book on submarine volcanoes, fully referenced. That’s why during the interview he kept holding up his book and asking them if they’d read it while Jones shouted him down. The study you refer to was Gerlach 1990 where he claimed that humans put out 100x more CO2 than volcanoes and claimed submarine volcanoes were included. Yet only recently scientist claimed (on the ABC science show would you believe!!)to have found active submarine volcanoes in an area in the pacific which are kilometres high and “estimated” there must be over 50,000 of them!

    I’m still waiting for Jones, Monbiot and William’s apology to Plimer but as you well know – Pig’s arse!

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  • #
    Louis Hissink

    Janama

    Gerlach 1990 is also hard to source on the net – the USGS link refers to itself, so I suspect Plimer’s postion is correct. Actually more CO2 and CH4 seeps out of the crust than most scientists realise – and that is another story.

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  • #
    janama

    Yes Louis – it does self refer – I hunted for days to get hold of Gerlach 1990 but couldn’t find it, only the reference to it. I assume the earth’s crust is very much thinner at the bottom of the sea than on a mountain range on land.

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  • #

    Janama, I think this is the reference:

    Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Present-day CO2 emissions from volcanoes: Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Vol. 72, No. 23, June 4, 1991, pp. 249, and 254-255.

    EOS is the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)-not sure about the level of peer review on this particular item. http://www.agu.org/pubs/eos-news/

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  • #
    janama

    Thanks Marc seems you have to be a member. Anyway a 1991 reference is hardly a paper to throw at a 2009 book on the subject is it.

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    Graeme Bird

    Well you see I was sending the message to Monbiot that I was untouched by his prevarications, and that he was all sort of unspeakable levels of low-life and so forth.

    And then after I got done abusing him relentlessly I went looking for the Gerlach summary I had and it just wasn’t there. Suddenly Gerlach bould barely be found at all.

    I really hate these people you know. You guys might think you hate them as much as I do but you don’t. Really you don’t. You could not contain that level of hate.

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    “I’m still waiting for Jones, Monbiot and William’s apology to Plimer but as you well know – Pig’s arse!”

    Well it looks like I may have to talk to Tony myself.

    We believe in repentance. But its got to be genuine.

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  • #
    cranium

    ah, more lies and misrepresentations from the lunatic fringes’ spokesperson Graeme Bird. The usual unsubstantiated, rambling and discordant claims with no evidence. http://graemebird.wordpress.com/

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  • #
    Louis Hissink

    Well the Iceland volcanic eruption seems to have put a spanner into the airplane flights – a few more of these ‘inconvenient’ eruptions and the AGW, let’s get real, communists, will have another setback to whinge about.

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Janama: Graeme Bird: # subthread

    I happen to be married to a Geologist/Mining Engineer/Volcanologist. Apparently, the subduction zones where one tectonic plate moves under another is, in reality, just one long volcano that is constantly spewing out CO2, CH4, and other mineral-based gasses.

    We don’t discuss climate change because she says the whole debate is pointless …

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  • #
    barry woods

    What about the big Green AGW ‘alarmist’ machinary?
    I wonder if Jo Nova is on their ‘Alerts’ list:

    Ever wondered why ‘AGW alarmists’ activists suddenly appear –
    in newspaper comments sections? – ie telegraph – Booker, Delingpole blog, etc

    Campaign Against Climate Change (George Monbiot: honourary president)
    http://www.campaigncc.org/node/384

    members: George Monbiot, Michael Meacher (lab MP), Norman Baker (lib dem MP), Caroline Lucas (green leader, MEP), Jean Lambert (Green MEP),
    ————————————————————–

    “Are you fed up with sceptics and pseudo-scientists dominating blogs and news articles with their denialist propaganda?
    Well, fight back!

    We need you to politely explain in the comments section why global warming is actually happening and why it’s not a big conspiracy.

    You can contribute to as little or as many articles as you like, just dive in

    We are trying to create an online army of online volunteers to try and tip the balance back in the favour of scientific fact, not scientific fiction.”

    ————————————————————–

    Not just some small raggedy ‘green’ activist group……. (well funded)

    Liberal democrat, Labour, Green party MP’s, MEP’s and journalists are part of this group:

    http://www.campaigncc.org/whoweare

    George Monbiot, Michael Meacher (lab MP), Norman Baker (lib dem MP), Caroline Lucas (green leader, MEP), Jean Lambert (Green MEP),

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Louis Hissink: # 23

    Apparently, the last time that this particular volcano erupted, it did so for over a year.

    Given the prevailing westerly winds in the Atlantic, perhaps now is the time to start worrying about airfreight-based trade between Europe and the rest of the world?

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Graeme,

    It looks as though you have your very own pet troll … well done.

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  • #
    Lawrie

    Media bias is very widespread and applies equally to one of my favourite monthlies. The National Geographic was I believed a reputable journal however it too has become a mouthpiece for climate scaremongering. The current issue is about water and in particular the scarcity of it for human consumption. The article which grabbed my attention concerned the melting of the Himalayan glaciers and the forecast loss of water to two billion people. Forty percent of glaciers could disappear by 2050. Sound familiar? The writer uses no references so it’s impossible to find his source material.

    A description of one retreating glacier ” these glaciers are not simply retreating, they’re losing mass from the surface down” and “it’s a deathly shade of black” imply, to me at least, that soot may be a cause for the melting. To own up to that would beg for the soot to be reduced and that in turn would see increased costs or plant shut-downs, neither an acceptable solution. AGW is far better and cheaper.

    It seems the NGM is captive to the AGW agenda as well. Pity. It was once a great magazine.

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  • #
    Loco

    Re: janama:
    April 17th, 2010 at 8:20 am
    I also posted a couple of items on the unleashed article and 1 was not published. (BTW congrats Jo… last time I checked there were over 1300 comments! At least it got people interacting.) My comment concerned the fact that with so many comments about the article, it was obvious that the science, or the belief in AGW, is no where near settled. Obviously this is far too radical a thought to be printed.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Rereke Whaakaro,

    You could say this about most any American journalist also.

    “You can always tell an Australian journalist – but not much”.

    Even Fox News is guilty of not digging into things deep enough.

    Publications like Time Magazine (been around as long as I have if not longer) has now publically admitted that they see their role as advocacy. Everything I read is onboard with global warming. The public gets it everywhere.

    Are you scared yet?

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    janama

    Bishop Hill has posted a wonderful overheard conversation – it goes like this:

    Readers may be interested in this conversation, which was overheard recently in the Reform Club in London. The speaker appeared to be a senior civil servant..

    “You know, Bernard, for one so new to the vice-chancellor’s position, Edward has shown commendable facility in the arrangements for the outcome of these inquiries. Watch and learn, Bernard; watch and learn. If you can handle yourself half as well as Edward has then you have a bright future ahead of you.

    Picking the right team is the sine qua non. A panel of sound people, leavened with a handful of neutrals (purely for effect, you understand) will produce the required result every time. Edward’s appointments to the emails panel were a case in point. True believers are not going to let you down, Bernard. Of course, old hands might criticise Edward for making his choices slightly too obvious, and there was some unfortunate public criticism, but the public really shouldn’t be concerning themselves with minutiae like the membership of panels of inquiry. How could they possibly understand? And the important thing is that Edward will get the right result, and it’s the result that counts, eh Bernard?

    Of course it’s important to have the right chairman too. I though Edward’s played a delightful varation on his earlier theme here. Instead of picking someone who was an obvious follower of the cause, he chose Ronnie, whose financial interests in the outcome of the inquiry all but ensured the correct result was delivered. Marvellous! Watch and learn, Bernard. Watch and learn.

    It’s important not to overdo things though. You don’t want to have everyone on side, at least not obviously so. Be subtle. You can get to where you want to go simply by ensuring that the majority of one’s travelling companions are like-minded. The others simply have to be discrete. Of course, it goes without saying that the panel should not have anyone from “the other side” on board. It wouldn’t do to risk any indiscretions, would it Bernard?

    Make life easier for the panel by setting terms of reference that help them reach the answer you want them to. Think of this as a map for your travelling companions, ensuring that everyone arrives at the same destination. So much more harmonious that way, don’t you think? For one so new to this kind of thing, Edward has been masterful in this area. By splitting the inquiry across two separate panels, he has made it simplicity itself for them to let important questions “slip between the gaps” and very difficult for anyone to see where this has happened until it is too late. It was a stroke of genius to avoid publishing the terms of reference for Ronnie’s scientific panel at all.

    Edward potentially had a tricky issue here, with one of those awful colonials saying that parts of one of the official reports were fabricated. Do you see how wonderful Edward’s sleight of hand was? His “division of labour” trick allows the emails panel to say that they are not qualified to assess the problem. Meanwhile, the scientific panel will miss it because they are looking only at the scientific papers and not the official reports. Do you see, Bernard? Genius!

    Witnesses can be a problem. It is always possible that one or two of them might have minds of their own. Some might even know what they are talking about as well. Never, ever take evidence from people like this, Bernard, and particularly make sure that nothing is heard from those who combine both of these irritating qualities (unless you are quite sure that they will do as they are told).

    Edward’s two panels, on the other hand, took the “no platform” approach and refused to hear anything from “the other side”. While this was a trifle obvious, it is certainly very safe and all manner of difficulties can be carefully overlooked. It wouldn’t do to have someone point these out in public, would it Bernard?

    At some point it will become necessary to examine the evidence. Or at least to appear to examine the evidence. Edward has again showed some neat footwork here. In the case of the scientific panel, telling the panel which papers to look at was a neat and tidy way to avoid any hiccups. Where the allegation is one of “cherrypicking” data series, the panel only looks at papers where no cherrypicking has taken place. Where the allegation is one of “bodging” results, cross that paper off the list too. It’s easy when you know how. You should also see why it was important for the panel not to speak to “the other side”. We wouldn’t want oversights like this to be pointed out, would we?

    The emails panel has come up with another splendid wheeze in this area. Where important allegations are made, they have simply declared that these are potentially actionable in a libel court. The immediate effect is that they can refuse to publish the evidence. This of course means that when the “not guilty” verdict is reached, the actual accusations made remain unseen. But more wonderful still is that they can then simply ignore the accusation, because to find in favour of it would be actionable too. Tricky questions put where they should be, Bernard: under the carpet.

    With the ground so effectively prepared, the result is a foregone conclusion and a clean bill of health can be delivered. The icing on the cake is been the setting up of a scapegoat. By reporting that the IPCC are to blame for misrepresenting the the scientists’ work Ronnie neatly diverts attention away from the civil service and onto someone else. This was a good idea, but risky nevertheless. It was probably inevitable that someone would notice that the authors who misrepresented CRU scientists’ work were those selfsame CRU scientists. It will probably turn out right in the end because these things are a little subtle for the press corps, but it was a risk all the same.

    Still, it was a good day’s work by Ronnie and his team.

    What’s that you say? Two days work? Ronnie is thorough isn’t he?

    Another biscuit, Bernard?”

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/17/overheard.html

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  • #

    barry woods:
    April 17th, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    What about the big Green AGW ‘alarmist’ machinary?
    I wonder if Jo Nova is on their ‘Alerts’ list:

    ——-

    I’ve often wondered about that. I think this effort by the alarmists is just the latest one, not the first.

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    Donald from Paradise

    As I was reading a flood of posts on the “Missing Heat”in the ocean* (or somewhere!)*, ABC News Radio came on with a report about salinity evidence from ocean float measurements. It was clear evidence they said, that AGW was occurring, and at even faster rates than models predicted!

    THERE WAS NO MENTION OF TEMPERATURE OR HEAT MEASUREMENTS!

    The ABC have sure got a superb news filter!

    *http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/16/ncars-missing-heat-they-could-not-find-it-any-where/

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    […] L’article a été publié sur le site d’ABC, ce qui montre la volonté de la chaîne de couvrir (désormais) le sujet avec une approche moins partisane, tel qu’annoncé récemment par son président, Maurice Newman. Ce dernier prétend que la chaîne a été moins partisane que les autres jusqu’ici, mais on peut toutefois en douter… […]

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  • #
    Tel

    Are you scared yet?

    Not really. The newspapers were getting bad before the Internet became popular and we saw in places like the USSR how this can happen but regular folks keep up their communication anyhow (albeit in an inefficient and furtive manner).

    Now that we do have Internet communication, it is acting as a siphon, pulling out the most intelligent and switched-on readers away from traditional media. When that happens, the traditional media adapt to what remains of their audience by dumbing everything down, thus causing more people to abandon ship and move to Internet media.

    Worse still, traditional media is expensive to produce, blogs are cheap. Thus the traditional media model requires a large readership to maintain viability. As they run out of readers, they lose advertisers and subscription dollars… then they can’t produce quality content any more and round it goes again losing even more readers.

    What you see on TV, and read in newspapers and magazines is a simple reflection of that process. Only scary if you own shares in publishing enterprise. In the case of the ABC, clearly they need to maintain the stream of government money in order to survive so they deliver the government message and offer a mutually beneficial deal. Pretty soon everyone understands this deal and so they still watch ABC now and then when they want to know the official party line on some particular topic.

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    Re JCrabb #11

    The Nobel Prize Winning Physicist is Ivar Giaever.

    “I am a skeptic… Global warming has become a new religion.” – Nobel Prize Winner for
    Physics, Ivar Giaever.

    The list with over 600 names of eminent scientists is here:

    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9

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    Roy Hogue

    Are you scared yet?

    I didn’t intend it to be taken literally that you should be scared about what you read in a newspaper or magazine. On the other hand, what government is doing that doesn’t get reported accurately is going to cause a whole lot of harm and that does scare me.

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    Donald #33, see ABC NEWS WATCH complaint regarding the Ocean Salinity story.

    http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/04/sensationalist-headline-for-csiro-study.html

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    Roy Hogue

    Donald #33, see ABC NEWS WATCH complaint regarding the Ocean Salinity story.

    The dishonesty is bad enough. But I note with great interest that almost anything happening is treated as if:

    1. It just happened for the first time. Which probably is not true!

    2. Is attributed to global warming without establishing any linkage whatsoever between any warming trend and what was observed. In fact it’s, attributed to global warming without any warming at all.

    Once you swallow the poisoned bait you become a global warming zombie I guess.

    Oh to be so sure that I knew immediately what everything means. Life’s decisions would be so much easier.

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    Mark D.

    Roy, I am scared. In the last 24 hours my mother and my mother in law have both suggested that the tea party groups are racist. I know first hand that they are not but the propaganda machine is in overdrive. For my right wing mother to suggest that, means the crap is sticking…..

    It will be time soon to return fire.

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    Roy Hogue

    Mark,

    It unfortunately only takes one fool who can’t resist taking his own personal prejudice along to one of these events and that’s what gets remembered. You might invite your mother and mother in law to the next tea party rally and let them see for themselves.

    When we get attacked it means we’re a threat to them. No one attacks someone considered harmless. My Sunday paper had a lengthy article about state Democrats in a snit over the push to repeal the healthcare overhaul. From what I can see a lot of people are looking over their shoulder to see how close the Republican wolf is getting. They attack Sarah Palin for the same reason. She threatens them.

    It is scary. But now is the time to keep up the fight. Get the truth in front of anyone we can any way we can. So yes, return fire!

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