mainstream media
gregladen | April 29, 2017From MMFA:
Broadcast networks are decreasing their climate coverage at a time when the case for reporting on the issue is become more and more compelling. By ignoring this serious matter, media are failing to inform audiences about pressing impacts on human migration patterns, women, and the economy.
In 2016, media had no shortage of compelling reasons to cover climate change -- from the revelation that it was the third consecutive hottest year on record to the United States’ election of a climate denier to its highest office. Yet broadcast news outlets’ coverage of climate change dropped a…
illconsidered | February 11, 2014Via un-climate-related readings, I came across this gem (from the victim article of the link):
My job is to assess not the rightness of each argument but to deal in the real world of campaign politics in which perception often (if not always) trumps reality. I deal in the world as voters believe it is, not as I (or anyone else) thinks it should be. And, I'm far from the only one.
This is from the mouth of one of the Washington Post's political mouthpieces, Chris Cillizza. Readers here will be more than familiar with the fundamental problems with this attitude. I just wanted to note that the…
illconsidered | January 10, 2014[Update: it seems clear that records were broken after all as has been pointed out in the comments. So we are only left with Fox's reaction and youtube fog-pee videos. And let's face it, Fox's reaction was pretty predictable...]
The recent cold snap was indeed remarkable and the media was buzzing about it for days. But it was not remarkable for the extreme cold, which in fact set no records, it was remarkable because it has become so unusual.
Unlike the recent heat waves in the US, Australia, Russia and Europe, this cold snap did not, repeat did not set any all time monthly or daily minimum…
illconsidered | November 12, 2013While reading an AP attributed article on Huffington post about Super Typhoon Haiyan (also known as Yolanda), I did a double take at this paragraph:
Weather officials said Haiyan had sustained winds of 235 kilometers per hour (147 miles per hour), with gusts of 275 kph (170 mph), when it made landfall. By those measurements, Haiyan would be comparable to a strong Category 4 hurricane in the U.S., and nearly in the top category, a 5. Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are the same thing. They are just called different names in different parts of the world.
It struck me because "nearly in the…
illconsidered | August 9, 2013(the featured image above is of the once aptly named Rio Grande, now referred to by locals as the "Rio Sand")
The LA Times has a very chilling piece on New Mexico's not so chilling climate change. Here are a few quotes to pique your interest:
"All of New Mexico is officially in a drought, and three-quarters of it is categorized as severe or exceptional."
"The last three years have been the driest and warmest since record-keeping began here in 1895."
"With water supplies at the breaking point and no relief in sight, a domino-effect water war has broken out, which might be a harbinger of the…
illconsidered | August 4, 2013Via MT at Planet3, we have a nice quote from FAIR:
This is what I like to describe as the difference between objectivity and "objectivity." Objectivity is the belief that there is a real world out there that's more or less knowable; the "objectivity" that journalists practice holds that it's impossible to know what's real, so all you can do is report the claims made by various (powerful) people.
The topic at hand is of course electoral politics and political reporting in general, but it has very clear relevance to climate science reporting and science reporting in general. While we are…
illconsidered | March 14, 2013While this is not strictly relevant to climate (nor a new story), it is a very compelling and interesting illustration of why corporate media in general, and Fox in particular, can not be trusted with news stories where science intersects with an industry's profitability.
As mentioned in the video, this is the incident which prompted Fox News to argue in court that they have no obligation to tell the truth, an argument they won. Also, keep in mind the small percentage of people who would actually choose to lose their jobs and careers rather than just go along and how many buried and…
illconsidered | February 19, 2013This is not directly climate related, but it does pertain to the media and its abject failure to take its responsibilities towards democracy more seriously. Via The Huffington Post, I read these strong words from an angry press towards a secretive Whitehouse Administration:
Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important…
illconsidered | September 19, 2012Deep Climate has a great run down of Richard Muller's recent public appearances and some details on his ties to the Koch brothers, it is well worth a careful read. And while we're talking about Richard Muller, check out NPR's shameful decision to "balance" Muller's converted-to-mainstream scientific views with the provision of a soap box to Anthony Watts, master of BS (aka Blog Science). Video interview is below, I have not decided if I want to expose myself to that or not....
This was also discussed on P3.
illconsidered | September 5, 2012His attitude might more resemble this below (very funny)!
(seen at P3)
I always say that living well is about choosing when to laugh and when to cry...
illconsidered | November 7, 2011Paul Krugman has some optimistic economic commentary on solar energy in the NYT today, titled "Here comes solar energy".
It can not be emphasized enough, his points about indirect subsidies to dirty energy sources in the form of shifting the indirect social costs (health and environmental damage) of coal and fracking onto the public. The playing field is not level and tipped in precisely the wrong direction if we are serious about a better future for ourselves and the planet.
illconsidered | October 30, 2011The fallout from the BEST project results continues, with the denialosphere frantically trying to disown and defame Richard Muller. Marc Morano is at his shrillest pitch ever, and believe me that is as shrill as shrill gets! I guess it works at some level, because he did make me look at his website. That high pitched squeaking broke down all my intellectual safeguards and I followed a link from his almost daily inbox spamming.
Today's (approving) hysteria was about an article in the DailyMail which gives you the general flavour of the treatment Muller is receiving. Given his own rather…
illconsidered | July 22, 2011Did you ever wonder just how it can be possible that the same, thousand times debunked, climate "skepticisms" keep re-emerging, month after month, year after year? Obviously, there are those individuals (like Singer and Soon), organizations (like HeartlessLand), and media outlets (like Faux News) who deliberately lie and misinform with no concern for scientific or journalistic ethics whatsoever, but how is it they are so successful?
Well, it seems simple human nature, of the sort the most earnest and conscientious of us all possess, lends itself to being deceived by whomever yells loudest,…
illconsidered | November 5, 2010This Youtube is long, but it is very well done, and frankly hilarious. Many of our favorite denier memes would fit in very comfortably as well.
Of course, after the laughing stops, the congressional hearings will begin.
grrlscientist | July 12, 2010tags: Orientation Day in the MSM, journalism, mainstream media, humor, streaming video
This video is a rather .. interesting ... look at the challenges of working as a journalist in the mainstream media in these technologically challenging days.
illconsidered | July 7, 2010Via the amusing and insightful musings and insights of Marc Roberts:
(click for slightly larger and more legible image)
I think this is rather apropos given the recent retraction of one of Jonathon Leake's um, let's be kind, "dodgy" bits of journalism from the recent spate of IPCC "gates".
(Cartoon seen at In It For the Gold who uses it for the recent UVA report that again finds no academic misconduct by Mike Mann)
grrlscientist | July 3, 2010tags: Federal Officials Suspend First Amendment Rights for Coverage of Gulf of Mexico Disaster, First Amendment Rights, Gulf of Mexico, BP, oil spill, oil spill clean-up efforts, relief efforts, disaster relief, US Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, mainstream media, streaming video
What. The. FUCK. As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, mainstream news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials -- working with BP -- who are blocking access to the sites where…
sastyk | June 7, 2010You learn pretty quickly to adjust for what any mainstream media says about peak oil and anyone who does any kind of preparation. Consider the case of my friend Kathie Breault who has appeared in various newspaper and television accounts. Kathie is grandmother, a midwife and a permaculturist, and about the least "survivalist" person you can imagine. She knits stuff for her grandkids and teaches them to garden, rides her bike everywhere and is starting up a homebirth midwifery practice, helping women with little access to good health care give birth safely. And yet in an ABC Nightline…
illconsidered | May 22, 2010Roy Spencer, darling of the climate skeptic community, says he is not very organized, as Phil Jones said of himself, and that
"if you asked me to find original data from 20 years ago I'd have great difficulty too. We just didn't realise in those days how important and controversial this would all become - now it would just all be stored on computer."
This is quoted in a BBC article on the recent Heartland climate conference in New York.
Spencer goes on to say:
"Phil Jones has been looking at climate records for a very long time. Frankly our data set agrees with his, so unless we are all…