Background: Examples Of How The "Fact Based" News Media Distorts Public Perception Of Truth Because Of Unusually Bad And/Or Incompetent Journalism
Daily Show brings up a valid point: Why do news outlets bring on non-scientists to argue against science? It makes no sense. Could media be treating lies as a valid point to give equal weight to in a news show?
Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Notes:
As Oliver explains, the only way to make the "climate change debate" accurate (if media manipulation to the debate were removed - which nowadays is only Fox) is to use representative samples rather than the tradition of using one person = one view no matter who that person is or how many credentials they lack...
He gets the three people (to represent 3% of the population) that media (fox) amplifies to pull this con.
To illustrate the dichotomy one of the non-experts who has a weird view based on no science says his view (like a religious person might argue the earth is flat when Galileo was around)...
Then Oliver turns to the EXPERTS (the professionals with degrees, who spend their lives studying this phenomenon) and gets an almost unanimous agreement that the scientific evidence for human caused climate change is very real indeed...
Clearly, media is biased towards science/facts involving climate change IN THE SAME WAY as it has been for years!
Trump Contradicts His Own Administration’s Climate Change Report | The Daily Show
Despite the Trump administration’s most recent report on man-made climate change, the president continues to deny the science behind global warming; meanwhile, cable news outlets continue to bring on non-scientists to share their personal opinions on the situation.
Note: On a news show a lady tells us 'we just had two for the coldest years' (indicating no global warming, irrespective of facts... not covered on media anyways) and adds to that, "I'm not a scientist. I look at it as a citizen".
This isn't politics. This is science. Its like getting an English teachers opinion on an engineering problem. Its stupid. Its incompetent. Its not journalism.
Examples of how this sort of misinformation spreading is an ongoing problem (particularly with CNN);
Media Matters: CNN gives former GOP Rep. Tom DeLay a platform to spread lies about climate change DeLay on the new federal climate report: “It's flawed, it's ridiculous, and frankly, embarrassing”
Going Deeper:
Right wing media is , of course, the source of Climate science misinformation (for some reason "left wing" media doesn't challenge right wing media, just acts like its a valid point of view, even on science/fact issues);
Media Matters:Here's a textbook example of how climate misinformation spreads through right-wing media
This is the side whose views on climate science is considered to be on par WITH ACTUAL SCIENTISTS;
3 of the dumbest things right wingers have said;
Media Matters: The 10 most ridiculous things media figures said about climate change and the environment in 2017
Media Matters: CNN pro-Trump flak Stephen Moore claims scientists are lying about climate change to get “really, really, really rich”Moore: "We have created a climate change industrial complex in this country, with billions and billions and billions of dollars at stake"
Media Matters: CNN keeps letting guests and paid commentators lie about climate scientists It's not true that scientists do climate research to get rich, and CNN knows it
Daily Show brings up a valid point: Why do news outlets bring on non-scientists to argue against science? It makes no sense. Could media be treating lies as a valid point to give equal weight to in a news show?
Why do news outlets bring on non-scientists to argue against science? https://t.co/Pd6INmHlLu pic.twitter.com/aMVRNFVYHV— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) November 27, 2018
Many years ago (May 2014) Jon Oliver brought up this same point with a graphic analysis of the situation:
Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Notes:
As Oliver explains, the only way to make the "climate change debate" accurate (if media manipulation to the debate were removed - which nowadays is only Fox) is to use representative samples rather than the tradition of using one person = one view no matter who that person is or how many credentials they lack...
He gets the three people (to represent 3% of the population) that media (fox) amplifies to pull this con.
To illustrate the dichotomy one of the non-experts who has a weird view based on no science says his view (like a religious person might argue the earth is flat when Galileo was around)...
Then Oliver turns to the EXPERTS (the professionals with degrees, who spend their lives studying this phenomenon) and gets an almost unanimous agreement that the scientific evidence for human caused climate change is very real indeed...
Clearly, media is biased towards science/facts involving climate change IN THE SAME WAY as it has been for years!
Trump Contradicts His Own Administration’s Climate Change Report | The Daily Show
Despite the Trump administration’s most recent report on man-made climate change, the president continues to deny the science behind global warming; meanwhile, cable news outlets continue to bring on non-scientists to share their personal opinions on the situation.
Note: On a news show a lady tells us 'we just had two for the coldest years' (indicating no global warming, irrespective of facts... not covered on media anyways) and adds to that, "I'm not a scientist. I look at it as a citizen".
This isn't politics. This is science. Its like getting an English teachers opinion on an engineering problem. Its stupid. Its incompetent. Its not journalism.
Media Matters: CNN gives former GOP Rep. Tom DeLay a platform to spread lies about climate change DeLay on the new federal climate report: “It's flawed, it's ridiculous, and frankly, embarrassing”
CNN invited long-time climate denier Tom DeLay, former Republican House majority leader, to discuss the new National Climate Assessment report, and he used the opportunity to spread lies about climate change and climate scientists.
During an interview with CNN Right Now host Brianna Keilar, DeLay lambasted the climate report, calling it “an alarmist political document” that is “nothing more than a rehash of age-old 10- to 20-year assumptions made by scientists that get paid to further the politics of global warming.” Fellow climate denier Rick Santorum was roundly mocked on social media on Sunday for making a similar point on CNN when he argued, "A lot of these scientists are driven by the money."
DeLay said, “Climate change is caused by man -- that's not proven. There is plenty of scientists that say otherwise.” This statement falls flat in the face of the virtually unanimous established scientific consensus on climate change: 97 percent of climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that humans are causing global warming.
DeLay also spouted falsehoods regarding the level of destruction caused by Hurricane Harvey last year, which broke records by dumping more than 60 inches of rain on the Houston area. He claimed that “the only reason we had the huge flood we had was the government-run dams that failed outside of Houston.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, however, concluded that the dams did not fail. DeLay also disputed the notion that climate change was a factor in increasing the amount of rain that the hurricane dumped on Houston. But two scientific studies last year concluded that rainfall from Harvey was “significantly heavier than it would have been before the era of human-caused global warming,” as the Washington Post reported, while a third study published in May of this year reached a similar conclusion. NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory also notes that hurricane rainfall rates “will likely increase in the future due to anthropogenic warming.”
DeLay also dismissed the idea that climate change played a role in the recent California wildfires. Again, he is wrong -- numerous scientific experts agree that climate change was a factor in worsening those fires.
From the November 26 episode of CNN Right Now:
Previously:
Sunday shows finally talk about climate change (but that doesn’t mean the coverage was good)
CNN bemoans a lack of civility after spending years hiring pro-Trump commentators
How broadcast TV networks covered climate change in 2017
Going Deeper:
Right wing media is , of course, the source of Climate science misinformation (for some reason "left wing" media doesn't challenge right wing media, just acts like its a valid point of view, even on science/fact issues);
Media Matters:Here's a textbook example of how climate misinformation spreads through right-wing media
In February of this year, the conservative British tabloid newspaper The Mail on Sunday ran a mistake-laden article that attacked climate scientists who published a paper refuting the idea of a global warming "pause." Written by reporter David Rose, the article ran under a sensationalized headline -- "Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data" -- and alleged misconduct by scientists and leaders at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Media Matters, among other outlets, swiftly debunked the story.
Now the Mail article has been more formally discredited. The Independent Press Standards Organization (IPSO), an independent media regulator in the U.K., ruled that "the newspaper had failed to take care over the accuracy of the article ... and had then failed to correct ... significantly misleading statements." The Mail was required to publish IPSO's reprimand, which it did a little more than a week ago.
This episode tells us a lot about how climate denial and misinformation spread through the right-wing media ecosystem, as environmental scientist and writer Dana Nuccitelli explained in a good piece in The Guardian:
The [Mail's] attack was based on an interview with former Noaa scientist John Bates.[…]Essentially, Bates had expressed displeasure in the way the data from a Noaa paper had been archived at the organization. Rose and the Mail blew this minor complaint into the sensationalist claim that “world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data.” It would be hard to find a better example of fake news than this one.[...]Rose’s story seemed to have all the climate denial components that biased conservative media outlets crave. A lone wolf scientist whistleblowing his former colleagues with accusations of data manipulation for political purposes? Despite the glaring errors in the story that were immediately called out by climate scientists and reputable science journalists, this narrative proved irresistible to the conservative media: Breitbart, Fox News, Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, The Daily Caller, The Washington Times, and more ran with Rose’s story. Meanwhile, legitimate news outlets like The Guardian, The Washington Post, Carbon Brief, E&E News, Ars Technica, Science Insider, RealClimate, and numerous other science blogs quickly debunked Rose’s falsehoods.
Climate denier Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) further amplified the right-wing media misinformation. The House science committee, which Smith chairs, put out a press release that drew from the Mail article and provided a quote of Smith praising Bates. Smith also played up the faux scandal at a committee hearing a few days later, even though the article had been debunked by then, and soon thereafter sent a letter to NOAA's acting administrator that cited the Mail article and requested documents related to the disputed study. More from the September 25 Guardian piece:
That Smith still tried to exploit the story, that it reverberated throughout the right-wing media echo chamber, and that the Mail published it in the first place tells us a lot about the narrative this group wants to push.[...]Usually they get away with it. This time the Mail on Sunday’s “significantly misleading statements” were so bad that they were censured, though not before they had misinformed millions of people. However, the Ipso ruling tells us which media outlets are reliable sources on the subject of climate change. Those that blindly echoed David Rose’s misinformation are not; those that debunked the Mail on Sunday’s distortions are.
It's reassuring that IPSO did its job in this case. Unfortunately, the United States doesn't have an equivalent organization, so a number of inaccurate articles published by American outlets about Bates and the NOAA study still stand uncorrected.
This is the side whose views on climate science is considered to be on par WITH ACTUAL SCIENTISTS;
3 of the dumbest things right wingers have said;
Media Matters: The 10 most ridiculous things media figures said about climate change and the environment in 2017
8. Rush Limbaugh argued that the historic BP oil spill caused no environmental damage.
Limbaugh cited an article in the right-wing Daily Caller headlined “Bacteria Are Eating Most Of The 2010 BP Oil Spill” and concluded, “The BP spill didn’t do any environmental [damage].” The Deepwater Horizon spill, which leaked oil for 87 days, was the largest accidental spill of oil into marine waters in world history. Researchers have documented a wide array of negative environmental impacts from the disaster. For example, a 2016 study found that the BP spill may have caused irreversible damage to one of the Gulf shore’s most important ecosystems. The spill is believed to have killed tens of thousands animals in 2010, and for years afterward, dolphins and other animals in the area continued to die at higher-than-normal rates.
9. Fox News’ Jesse Watters claimed, “No one is dying from climate change.”
During a discussion about Al Gore’s warnings on climate change, Watters, a co-host of Fox News’ The Five, declared, “People are dying from terrorism. No one is dying from climate change.” Rush Limbaugh also made the same assertion this year. But an independent report commissioned by 20 governments in 2012 concluded that climate change already kills more people than terrorism, with an estimated 400,000 deaths linked to climate change each year.
10. Radio host Alex Jones said it was "suspicious" that Hurricane Irma came along shortly before the release of a climate disaster movie.
Jones briefly speculated about the possibility that Hurricane Irma was “geoengineered” or created by humans before stating, “Meanwhile, though, right on time with these superstorms, we have the new film Geoengineering (sic) 2017, coming soon on October 20. Oh, just a little bit more than a month or so after Irma is set to hit. Isn’t that just perfect timing? Like all these race war films they’ve been putting out. This is starting to get suspicious. Here it is, Geostorm.” The action movie Geostorm featured satellites that controlled the global climate. Jones' speculation about the film is just one of the countless conspiracy theories he has promoted over the years.
Media Matters: CNN pro-Trump flak Stephen Moore claims scientists are lying about climate change to get “really, really, really rich”Moore: "We have created a climate change industrial complex in this country, with billions and billions and billions of dollars at stake"
STEPHEN MOORE: These aren't his advisers who are putting out this report.ERIN BURNETT (HOST): These are people who work for him --MOORE: This is a -- no --BURNETT: They work for him. It's the CIA, it's 13 agencies, it's all --MOORE: Erin, we are -- what we've created -- Erin, we have created a climate change industrial complex in this country, with billions and billions and billions of dollars at stake. A lot of people are getting really, really, really rich off the climate change issue.
CNN has let at least three commentators argue this week that scientists are warning the public about climate change because they're getting rich by doing so -- a ridiculous and patently false claim. CNN knows it's ridiculous and false because the network ran a fact-checking segment debunking the claim and interviewed a climate scientist who explained why it's wrong. But even that didn't stop the network from continuing to spread the lie.
To make matters worse, the three people who made this lie on CNN -- former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), and Trump-boosting economist Stephen Moore -- have themselves been the beneficiaries of fossil fuel money, but CNN failed to disclose that information.
CNN lets liars lie
Following the release of the National Climate Assessment, a major government report about the dangers that climate change poses to the U.S., CNN contributor Santorum came on State of the Union on Sunday morning to discuss it. Among other idiotic things, he said:
I think the point that Donald Trump makes is true, which is -- look, if there was no climate change, we'd have a lot of scientists looking for work. The reality is that a lot of these scientists are driven by the money that they receive, and of course they don't receive money from corporations and Exxon and the like. Why? Because they're not allowed to because it's tainted. But they can receive it from people who support their agenda, and that, I believe, is what's really going on here.
Santorum's comments about climate scientists doing it for the money were widely mocked on Twitter. But that didn't stop other conservative commentators from repeating the bogus claim during CNN appearances.
DeLay, who resigned as House majority leader in 2005 after being convicted of money laundering and conspiracy, made similar comments on CNN Right Now on Monday:
The report is nothing more than a rehash of age-old 10- to 20-year assumptions made by scientists that get paid to further the politics of global warming.
Moore, a right-wing economist with a record of being wrong, echoed those points later on Monday on Erin Burnett Outfront:
We have created a climate change industrial complex in this country, with billions and billions and billions of dollars at stake. A lot of people are getting really, really, really rich off the climate change issue.
CNN does fact-checking, confirms that the lie is a lie
On Tuesday morning, CNN's John Avlon played clips of what Santorum and DeLay said and then proceeded to debunk their claims in a "Reality Check" segment:
JOHN AVLON (POLITICAL ANALYST): Now that talking point you're hearing is a classic bit of distraction and deflection designed to muddy the waters just enough to confuse the clear consensus. In fact, one of the scientists who worked on the climate change report, Katharine Hayhoe, confirms that she and her colleagues were paid, quote, “zero dollars” for their work and could easily make ten times their salaries by working for something like Big Oil. So it turns out that this idea that climate change scientists are rolling in the dough Scrooge McDuck-style is so pervasive that it had to have its own Yale study debunking it.
The Yale study that he referred to is a guide by the Yale Climate Communications group that lists arguments refuting the "persistent myth" that scientists are in it for the money.
CNN then hosted the climate scientist Avlon cited, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, who laughed at the claim that she and her colleagues are paid to advance an agenda and explained why it's incorrect:
