Express is in denial again

Unbelievably the Express continues to promote the art of climate change denial.

On its front page this morning,it reports,under the headline,the New Climate change scandal that

The International Panel on Climate Change was forced to admit its key claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was lifted from a 1999 magazine article. The report was based on an interview with a little-known Indian scientist who has since said his views were “speculation” and not backed up by research.

and that its chair

is a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics and no formal climate science qualifications.

Express Watch-as it once again denies climate change

Couldn't agree more with Martin Belam

As they say headlines like this and they still say it's the world's greatest newspaper.

Stop global warming-Don't buy the Express

It is about time that I ranted about the Express.This week has been a particularly good example of agenda attempting headlines with climate change denial top of its list.

Both Monday and today's paper have carried front page headlines as the Copenhagen conference is smeared.

Today sees the story that

UK climatologists “probably tampered with Russian-climate data” to produce a report submitted to world leaders at this week’s Copenhagen summit, it is claimed.
The Met Office’s study, which says the first decade of this century has been the warmest on record for 160 years, is being used to trumpet claims that man is causing global warming.

Whereas on Monday we had the news that

CAMPAIGNERS yesterday attempted to pour scorn on “tenuous” global warming theories by issuing a dossier detailing 100 reasons why climate change is natural and not man-made.

along with its printing of the complete 100 reasons

In between the news that

THE scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”.
Professor Ian Plimer condemned the climate change lobby as “climate comrades” keeping the “gravy train” going.

Now here's a thought-let's save the trees by not buying the Express-oops I forgot its sales are already crumbling

Local papers still can do good journalism

One of the worries as the media industry contracts at a alarming rate is that its coverage of what I would term issues essential for the general public to be made aware.

One of these is climate change and it was thus heartening to read over at CJR of the
exploits of Tom Henry, environment reporter for the Toledo Blade in Ohio.

Tom was sent by his paper to Greenland to produce a a four-part series on global warming.

Critics often complain that such ambitious (and expensive) reporting is only doable at major publications like The New York Times, and perhaps that’s largely true—but these climate series are a reminder that all is not lost in our troubled industry.

writes the review

You can read all of Tom's articles HERE

The trip obviously had a profound effect on the reporter

Changes occurring to Greenland should be a wake-up call for the rest of the world. Or, to put it simply… It’s about you and me and our ethics. That’s right. Our ethics.”

he writes

The Global Warming Swindle to be censured

The front page of this morning's Guardian says that channel 4's controversial climate change documentary will be censured by Ofcom next week.

In a long-awaited judgment following a 15-month inquiry, Ofcom is expected to censure the network over its treatment of some scientists in the programme, The Great Global Warming Swindle, which sparked outcry from environmentalists.

says the paper

The documentary,entitled the Great global warming swindle was roundly critised for misrepresenting the evidence and many scientists that took part complained that their contribution was out of context.

Express shock horror as Southern Britain will soon turn to the Sahara

Rather a strange front page from the Express this morning.Perhaps shamed by the Mail's stance on plastic bags,it devotes its lead story to the news that

MILLIONS face water rationing and soaring bills as experts warned that Britain is heading for a drought crisis.
A growing population and increasing demand for water means that the country is as much at risk as the Sahara Desert.

Typical Express as the inhabitants of Middle England ae told

Overcrowded South-east England is already suffering “severe water stress”, putting it in the same bracket as Saudi Arabia, North Africa, India and eastern Australia. But analysts fear that within 20 years a “parched zone” will spread across the country from the Bristol Channel to the Norfolk coast and north of the Midlands

And watch out

standpipes would become common across large swathes of the nation and shock horror and

The wealthy will be able to insulate themselves to some extent. It will be ordinary families who will be hardest hit

Where do they get their stories from?

What the media commentators are saying

Not suprisingly the Harry affair dominates.In the Independent Steven Glover reflects on the episode

A surprising number of people, not all of them diehard republicans, think the media were wrong not to report Prince Harry's front-line role in Afghanistan. They point out that there was no issue of national security at stake.

But he thinks that the blackout was justified

After Prince Harry was prevented from fighting in Iraq last year, it was clear that he could only avoid unacceptable risks in Afghanistan if his presence there was not publicised..... It is difficult to see how anyone, apart from the Taliban, has suffered."

Peter Wilby in the Guardian though is less complementary and perhaps a touch cynical

Kings and princes used to go into battle at the head of their soldiers, standards flying. Nobody thought it right to hide Henry V or Richard III while they were doing battle with the enemy. But the modern military wants the symbolic benefits of royal leadership without undue risk to the royal personage. In the case of Prince Harry, the Ministry of Defence had its cake and was allowed by the media to eat it as well.

Staying with the Guardian Emily Bell asks

What happens when anyone can publish anything, about anyone, anywhere at any time? It is an interesting philosophical and legal minefield which we pick our way through on a daily basis, tin hats awry. One thing in a world of uncertainty is certain - the old levers of control are inadequate - and this is becoming apparent to the most obtuse controller.

Refering to

Nick Robinson's online comments on the row about House of Commons speaker

she says the furore surrounding it was

an intense overreaction to a new type of journalism - Robinson, after all, was summing up the issues around the case on an open blog rather than presenting them as a bulletin item.

Matthew Norman at the Independent looks back to the Mail's campaign on bin bags and asks

Has there ever been a more spectacular smash-and-grab raid on any issue than the Daily Mail's thunderous campaign against the plastic carrier bag? Suppressing a wry grin at the chutzpah isn't easy. Papers such as this one bang on about green matters day after day, year after year, while the Mail prefers the insights of such revered global warming sceptics as Richard Littlejohn, Mad Mel Phillips and Professor Tom Utley, FRS, the climatological autodidact who slew false fears about melting ice caps with the observation (regarded in the scientific community as the most important of its kind since Archimedes took his bath) that when the ice in his G&T melts, the liquid doesn't flood over the side of the glass

FinallyMaggie Brown at the Guardian gives some useful tips to Peter Fincham on what to do with ITV,

Fincham will need more than good luck - that is no secret. But what exactly lies in store? And what do senior figures in the television industry see as the greatest challenges facing him?

Impartiality or viewing figures?

So the Beeb have dropped plans to have a day of saving the planet in the face of critisism of impartiality.

But is that really the case or could it be more to do with the awful viewing figures that Live Earth had?

Update Peter Preston writes in Media Guardian

Of course viewers - 81% of them when the BBC asked - want impartiality, just like motherhood, apple pie and a Euro-vote they'd probably be too busy to cast on the day. But the reality of viewing or voting figures is quite different. A million souls watch Newsnight as it fails to save the planet; about 59.5 million others are asleep, glued to Sky or working. The restraints on coverage, nodding heads from "our Westminster studio", automatically limit the scope of such coverage. Equal time doesn't mean equal interest.

Climate of fear

The BBC has taken a lot of flak this weekend from Edinburgh.Firstly Jeremy Paxman,in the equivilent of a verbal machine gunning thinks the corporation could find it difficult to justify its continued license fee funding.Anna Ford then makes a broadshot at the bows saying that there is a climate of fear at the BBC.


Now two of its senior people question its support and promotion of climate change


"Surely it is not the job of the BBC to save the planet?" asks Newsnight's editor Peter Barron,and Head of news Peter Horrocks says

I absolutely don't think we should do that because it's not impartial. It's not our job to lead people and proselytise about it."

The Mail is running a story this morning from the Newsnight editor

According to the paper

The editor of Newsnight hit out yesterday at the BBC's stance on climate change.

Peter Barron said it was "not the corporation's job to save the planet".
He said the BBC was going beyond its remit by planning an entire day of programmes dedicated to highlighting environmental worries.
In remarks that will embarrass his bosses, Mr Barron said: "If the BBC is thinking about campaigning on climate change, then that is wrong and not our job.
"People are understandably interested in this, but it is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet. There are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped."

A necessary evil?

A case of double standards in newspaper journalism and ethics or is it necessary evil.

George Monbiot writing in this morning's Guardian claims "Newspaper exhortations on climate change sit uncomfortably alongside promotions for budget flights and oil companies"

He gives some examples

"Yesterday, the Telegraph urged people to share their car journeys as "a simple way to lessen your carbon footprint". Beside this exhortation, and at six times the size, was an ad by Ryanair for £10 flights to France. Johann Hari in the Independent urged people to join the climate campers at Heathrow, then that newspaper pressed its readers to take advantage of its own special offers - to fly to Spain, Kenya or California. The Guardian led on its story about the government's renewables policy, then ran an ad for renewable energy by E.ON, which (in view of its plans to build new coal-burning power stations) looks to me like greenwash. The paper also carried a reader offer of a cruise around Scotland, which begins by "flying from a range of UK airports."

It is an interesting question and a very dificult one I'm sure for the newspapers to answer.Without advertising revenue the newspapers will not exist,but where is the line drawn.After all nearly all advertising will in some way contribute to use of resources

Where do you stand on the Heathrow climate protest camp.

Perhaps depending on which paper you read and they have divided across their political lines this morning.

The Telegraph claims inside information having

learned that protesters are smuggling smart clothes into the "climate camp" in an attempt to sidestep police and security staff and get into the terminals and office buildings.

Its leader claiming that they are off target

Air travel has proved a popular whipping boy for the climate change industry, yet its contribution to global warming is small. To counter-balance that, air travel has proved both a wonderful personal liberator and a crucial engine of economic growth. While BAA's responsibility for the shambles of Heathrow deserves criticism, holding it responsible for climate change is fatuous.
If the protesters want a punch bag, they should try the Government.

The Mail leaves us in no doubt either to the threat to Middle England

Policing the Heathrow protest camp could cost taxpayers more than £7 million.
At peak times, up to 1,800 officers from four forces will oversee the activists' rally.
In all, monitoring the week-long Camp for Climate Action is expected to require 15,000 officer shifts.
This is half as many again as the Notting Hill Carnival, London's most costly organised event at £5 million.

Both the Independent and the Guardian have reported widely on what they consider infringemnts on civil liberties as BAA have tried to prevent the protests and this morning the Indy concentrates on the police harrassment of the protest pointing out that

The Heathrow camp is organised along stringently democratic lines - somewhere between Gerrard Winstanley's Diggers and the Zapatistas. There may be wi-fi, a cinema and solar panels but the emphasis remains steadfastly on the impact of the airport next door. Campaigners, the same group behind a highly publicised protest at Drax power station in Yorkshire last summer, enjoyed the support of local people in their fight against growth at the airport.

I think that it will be good to keep an eye on this story

The Independent Soothsayer

The Independent,that champion of global warming devotes its front page and comment to the news from Australia that changing climate patterns amy be having a major impact on that continents way of life.Under the headline:

Australia's epic drought: The situation is grim

"Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation.
The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.

I cant help but feel that the paper has perhaps a smug smile of satisfaction when it reminds us that

Until a few months ago, Mr Howard and his ministers pooh-poohed the climate-change doomsayers. The Prime Minister refused to meet Al Gore when he visited Australia to promote his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He was lukewarm about the landmark report by the British economist Sir Nicholas Stern, which warned that large swaths of Australia's farming land would become unproductive if global temperatures rose by an average of four degrees.

And in its leading article the paper says

Moreover, this is a taste of things to come - not just for Australia, but the world. As the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear, the runaway warming of the earth will bring severe drought in its wake. And the economic consequences will be disastrous. Sir Nicholas Stern's report for the Treasury outlined last year how climate change could be as economically traumatic as the Great Depression or the world wars of the 20th century.

A journalist's carbon footprint

An interesting piece in yesterday's Media Guardian by Claire Dodd where she debates whether journalists should reduce their carbon emissions.

She asks the question whether journalism will suffer if journalists can't actually report live form the scene.Tim Gopsill editor of the NUJ magazine argues that "too much journalism is being produced using office based research."

Travel is justified by the cost being offset by the money that an article(s) will bring in especially for freelancers.

Maybe though the example of a plane load of journalists being flown to Majorca and back to report on the new seating layout of the plane is going a little bit too far.

Travel journalism is also an area where perhaps we need to re examine the issue.The emissions of writing the article are one aspect but also the potential carbon footprint that it will create as people go in search of travel dream

The Truth about climate change

I got around to watching the Channel 4 programme on the "The Great Climate Change Swindle" after avoiding listening and reading the debate about the programme which has dominated over the past few days.

The main body of the argument, as the title suggests ,is that we the public has been duped into believing that the human race is responsible for the increasing temperatures,rising sea levels and increasingly ferocious weather that we are to be subjected to.

The argument rejects the link between carbon emissions and warming,pointing to evidence that changes in climate are a natural force of nature which has happened over many millions of years without any interference from humans and is related to solar activity.

It appears that the media is partly responsible having been duped by the strong environmental lobby into reporting the link between carbon emissions and warming and have repeatedly exaggerated stories that show how our weather will change.

According to the programme one of the beneficiaries has been the environmental reporter who now occupies one of the more important jobs in the news room

The on sided nature of the programme has been roundly criticized in recent days as has its manipulation of data,notably the graph showing the link between atmospheric c02 and temperature.Some scientists that appeared in the programme claim their comments have been taken out of context and misrepresented.

It is not the first time that Director Martin Durkin has been so accused.In 1998,a similar programme was criticized by the ITC who said:

he had "misled" his interviewees about "the content and purpose of the programmes". Their views had been "distorted through selective editing".

Channel 4 has reportedly distanced itself from the programme.

There is no doubt that weather stories are dominating the press at the moment and not only in its traditional areas such as the Express and the Mail.The Independent has become the champion of the environmental lobby and newsprint has been filled with stories of our mild winter and early spring.They have all been linked to global warming.