{"id":21163,"date":"2014-08-17T20:05:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-17T10:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=21163"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:56:34","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:56:34","slug":"murdochmafia-climate-change-denial-ekidna1-and-drrimmer-on-countering-rupertmurdoch-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/murdochmafia-climate-change-denial-ekidna1-and-drrimmer-on-countering-rupertmurdoch-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"#murdochmafia climate change denial: @ekidna1 and @DrRimmer on countering @rupertmurdoch propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"[clear]\n
\"Paul

Paul Kelly from The Australian interviewing Executive Chairman of News Corp Rupert Murdoch.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Australia, there has been a fierce debate over media reporting of climate change, particularly by the Murdoch media empire.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview in 2014 with Sky News<\/em>, Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive officer of News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, maintained: \u2018We should approach climate change with great scepticism.\u2019 He commented:<\/p>\n

Climate change has been going on as long as the planet is here. And there will always be a little bit of it. At the moment the North Pole is melting, but the South Pole is getting bigger. If the sea level rises six inches, that\u2019s a big deal in the world; the Maldives might disappear or something, but OK, we can\u2019t mitigate that, we can\u2019t stop it, we just got to stop building vast houses on seashores. The world has been changing for thousands and thousands of years, and it\u2019s just a lot more complicated today because we\u2019re so much more advanced.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He maintained that, at worst, there would be a 3-degree-Celsius rise in temperature over 100 years, and \u2018at the very most one of those [degrees] would be man-made.\u2019<\/p>\n

There has been significant criticism of the views of Rupert Murdoch and his media organisations about climate science. \u00a0In Robert Manne\u2019s 2011\u00a0Quarterly Essay,<\/em>\u00a0\u2018Bad News: Rupert Murdoch\u2019s Australian<\/em>\u00a0and the Shaping of a Nation\u2019,\u00a0he took aim at News Ltd\u2019s reporting on global warming<\/a>stating<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In the real world, scientists accepting the climate consensus view outnumber denialists by more than 99 to one. In the Alice in Wonderland world of [The]\u00a0Australian,\u00a0their contributions were outnumbered 10 to one.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In\u00a0a critique<\/a>, Dana Nuccitelli commented: \u2018Many of Murdoch\u2019s news outlets are also\u00a0among the worst when it comes to getting climate science wrong<\/a>\u00a0and disseminating climate myths and misinformation.\u2019 He observed: \u2018Inaccurate media coverage is in turn the primary reason why\u00a0the public is so misinformed<\/a>\u00a0about global warming.\u2019 He maintained: \u2018As long as Murdoch and his media empire rely on biased non-expert sources that misrepresent our understanding of climate change and the threats it poses, those media outlets should not be considered credible sources of information about global warming.\u2019 The ABC\u2019s Fact Check labelled Murdoch\u2019s statements about the polar regions \u2018misleading\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism has engaged in close analysis of how News Corporation and News Limited have addressed climate change in Australia. The Australian Press Council has handed down a significant ruling on The Australian\u2019s reporting of climate science and the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There has been further discussion about the need to tackle false balance in the media on the topic of climate change and climate action to tackle fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his biography, The Fights of My Life<\/em>, Greg Combet discussed the role of the Murdoch Press in the Australian political debate over carbon pricing and climate change:<\/p>\n

While the policy was being developed, a political firestorm was playing out every day in parliament and the media. Every prophecy of doom by every interest group was afforded prominent and often uncritical media coverage, the fourth estate acting as a megaphone for commercial interests rather than as a guardian of the public interest. Murdoch-owned newspapers like The Australian and The Daily Telegraph carried appallingly biased coverage (256).<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Combet reflected: \u2018The Daily Telegraph<\/em> went feral at every opportunity, often with unsubstantiated and absurd assertions about the impact of carbon pricing.\u2019 He lamented: \u2018Even with all the resources of government, this was impossible to counteract.\u2019 Combet observed: \u2018In fact I was quite surprised that as a Cabinet Minister I had fewer resources available to me to conduct a campaign in the media than I\u2019d had at my disposal when I was at the ACTU.\u2019 Combet observed that the Murdoch press were messengers of the scare campaign by Tony Abbott on carbon pricing in the election: \u2018The Murdoch press amplified his claims as part of a campaign for a change of government\u2019 (263).<\/p>\n

Such concerns have been supported by research on the topic. The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism undertook two studies on media coverage of climate change in Australia.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0first piece of research\u200a\u2014\u200apublished in 2011\u200a\u2014\u200a focused upon climate change policy<\/a>. The Centre found: \u2018Overall, negative coverage of the Gillard government\u2019s carbon policy across ten newspapers outweighed positive coverage across ten Australian newspapers by 73% to 27%. (Note: After neutral items were discounted).\u2019 The Centre observed: \u2018The highest level of neutral articles was found in\u00a0The Age\u00a0<\/em>and The Mercury<\/em>, the lowest level was found in the\u00a0NT News\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Daily Telegraph.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>The Centre observed:<\/p>\n

The Australian gave far more space to the coverage of climate change than any other newspaper. Its articles were coded 47% negative, 44% neutral and 9% positive. When neutrals were discounted, there were 84% negative articles compared to 17% positive.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Centre observed that this finding \u2018indicates a very strong stance against the carbon policy adopted by the company that controls most Australian metropolitan newspapers, and the only general national daily.\u2019 The Centre commented: \u2018By comparison, Fairfax was far more balanced in its coverage of the policy than News Ltd publications with 57% positive articles outweighing 43% negative articles.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Centre concluded: \u2018Evidence in this report suggests that many Australians did not receive fair, accurate and impartial reporting in the public interest in relation to the carbon policy in 2011.\u2019 The Centre was disturbed by the concentration of media ownership: \u2018This suggests that rather than an open and competitive market that can be trusted to deliver quality media, we may have a case of market failure.\u2019<\/p>\n

The\u00a0second piece of research\u200a\u2014\u200apublished in 2013\u200a\u2014\u200alooked at climate science in Australian newspapers<\/a>. This study highlighted the importance of this issue:<\/p>\n

The role of media in a democracy is to truthfully report contemporary events and issues to the public. This includes scientific evidence about the crucial issue of climate change. If people are confused or ignorant about potential threats, they cannot be expected to support action to confront them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report noted: \u2018The most significant finding is that nearly a third of all articles referencing climate science published by ten Australian newspapers during three months in 2011 and 2012 did not accept the consensus scientific evidence that human beings are the main contributors to global warming\u2019. The study observed: \u2018Given the extremely strong consensus about this evidence, this finding presents a major challenge for media accountability in Australia.\u2019<\/p>\n

The report noted that there had been efforts from independent and alternative media organisations to challenge climate scepticism and climate denial in the media:<\/p>\n

Journalists also play an important role in investigating climate skepticism. Media Watch, Crikey media,\u00a0readfearn.com<\/a>\u00a0and The Conversation have all played a valuable role in critiquing and holding News Corp accountable. The new online outlet The Global Mail and the arrival of The Guardian and Al Jazeera in Australia have strengthened the reporting of climate change in Australia.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report concluded: \u2018The resolution of that problem will have to address the concentration of media ownership in this country, a concentration that is largely responsible for the active production of ignorance and confusion on one of the most important issues confronting Australia.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Australian Press Council<\/strong><\/p>\n

There has been much debate about the role of media regulators and press councils with respect to media reporting and opinion about climate science.<\/p>\n

There have been a number of complaints about the coverage of climate change issues to the Australian Press Council over the years.<\/p>\n

In 2011, there was a complaint about an opinion article by Tim Blair in The Daily Telegraph entitled, \u2018Simple Way to Spit on Dummies<\/a>.\u2019 Andrew Robertson was concerned that the article \u2018implied climate scientists deserved the abuse and death threats they were allegedly receiving by email and, by excusing those emails, incited violent action against the scientists.\u2019 In his view, the article was \u2018unfair, offensive and failed to respect the privacy of climate scientists\u2019. The Australian Press Council was of the view that the text was unclear, and could not hold up the complaint: \u2018The Press Council considers that the words \u201cQuite so\u201d were capable of being interpreted in the way suggested by the newspaper but were also capable of being seen as condoning threats against climate scientists.\u2019 Nonetheless, the Council reiterated \u2018that journalists and editors have a heavy responsibility to avoid language which exacerbates the risk of violence or serious threats of violence.\u2019<\/p>\n

In July 2012, there was a complaint over a Piers Akerman opinion piece in The Daily Telegraph<\/a> entitled \u2018Greens and their Crazy Cronies are Holding a Gun to our Head.\u2019 Akerman alleged that the \u2018UN’s global warming bogeyman was created by members of environmental activist groups working within the International Panel on Climate Change\u2019. The Press Council did not uphold the complaint \u2013 but noted \u2018the Council emphasises that this outcome is due largely to the assertions in question being insufficiently specific for their accuracy or falsity to be established.\u2019 The Press Council stressed: \u2018The outcome does not imply acceptance or rejection of the assertions by either the columnist or the complainant in relation to the IPCC.\u2019<\/p>\n

In December 2012, the Australian Press Council considered several complaints about Andrew Bolt\u2019s column in The Herald Sun<\/a>, \u2018Time that climate alarmists fessed up\u2019. In a somewhat tentative ruling, the Australian Press Council \u2018concluded that Mr Bolt was clearly entitled to express his own opinion about the Met Office data but in doing so he needed to avoid conveying a misleading interpretation of the Met Office\u2019s own views on its data\u2019. In another disclaimer, the Australian Press Council commented that \u2018this adjudication neither endorses nor rejects any particular theories or predictions about global warming and related issues\u2019. The Australian Press Council observed that \u2018on issues of such major importance the community is best served by frank disclosure and discussion rather than, for example, failure to acknowledge significant shorter or longer-term trends in relevant data.\u2019<\/p>\n

In July 2014, the Australian Press Council handed down a ruling upon The Australian\u2019s <\/em>reporting of the\u00a0Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and climate science in 2013<\/a>. This ruling was very critical. The Australian Press Council \u2018concluded that the erroneous claim about the revised warming rate was very serious, given the importance of the issue and of the need for accuracy (both of which were emphasised in the editorial that repeated the claim without qualification)\u2019. The Australian Press Council noted: \u2018Although based on another publication\u2019s report, the claim was unequivocally asserted in The Australian<\/em> headline, “We got it wrong on warming, says IPCC”, which also implied the IPCC had acknowledged the alleged error.\u2019 \u00a0The Australian Press Council observed that \u2018rigorous steps should have been taken before giving such forceful and prominent credence to The Mail on Sunday\u2019s<\/em> claim\u2019. The Australian Press Council found: \u2018Accordingly, the complaint on that ground is upheld.\u2019<\/p>\n

In addition, the Australian Press Council observed that the problems were compounded by a further editorial and the treatment of a letter from a climate scientist, Professor David Karoly<\/a> from the University of Melbourne:<\/p>\n

Given Professor Karoly\u2019s expertise and the importance of the issue, his letter should have triggered a prompt and thorough investigation by the publication. Instead, the error was repeated in an editorial on the page opposite his letter. Moreover, his letter was published below other letters which assumed the original article was true and under a collective heading which reflected their views, rather than his correction. The Council considers the gravity of the erroneous claim, and its repetition without qualification in the editorial, required a correction which was more substantial, and much more prominent than a single paragraph in the lower half of page 2. The heading should also have given a brief indication of the subject matter in order to help attract the attention of readers of the original article (and editorial), and thereby meet the Council\u2019s long-standing requirement that a correction \u201chas the effect, as far as possible, of neutralising any damage arising from\u201d the original article.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Australian Press Council noted: \u2018Accordingly, the complaints about the correction are upheld.\u2019 The Council welcomed \u2018the acknowledgements of error and expressions of regret which the publication eventually made to it\u2019 but said that \u2018they should have been made very much earlier, and made directly to the publication\u2019s readers in a frank and specific manner.\u2019<\/p>\n

Paul Barry from Media Watch\u00a0<\/a>commented: \u2018That\u2019s about as strong as the Press Council can get.\u2019<\/p>\n

This mixture of decisions by the Australian Press Council show a variety of outcomes in adjudications dealing with the topic of climate change. There has been much debate as to whether the Council is adequate in reviewing controversies over the media, generally, and climate change, more specifically. There has been a debate in Australian politics as to whether there should be stronger regulation of the media, particularly in respect of news.<\/p>\n

In the context of the debate over the Australian Press Council, it is worth remembering that News Corp. led a campaign against media law reforms recommended in the Ricketson report and the Finkelstein report, and promoted, albeit weakly, by the Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy\u200a\u2014\u200aStephen Conroy. In August 2014, The Australian has launched an attack upon the Press Council and its Chairman<\/a>. An editorial observed: \u2018We cannot speak for our stablemates but this newspaper has lost confidence in Australian Press Council chairman Julian Disney and deplores the direction in which he has taken the council.\u2019 The editorial complained: \u2018The Australian Press Council has become erratic in its rulings, unmoored from its foundations, ponderous and serpentine in its procedures, side-tracked by its chairman\u2019s peculiar tastes and political predilections and ineffective as a body that promotes good practice.\u2019 It is difficult to ascertain whether The Australian<\/em> and other members of the Murdoch Media have been particularly upset about its recent rebuke on climate change reporting by the Australian Press Council.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Policies about false balance<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 2010 classic work,\u00a0Merchants of Doubt<\/em>, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway discuss the complicity of the mass media with Merchants of Doubt – such as the fossil fuel industry. The pair noted: \u2018Journalists were constantly pressured to grant the professional deniers equal status\u200a\u2014\u200aand equal time and newsprint space\u200a\u2014\u200aand they did\u2019 (214). Oreskes and Conway were concerned that such coverage resulted in an information bias\u200a\u2014\u200ain which the ideal of balance leads journalists to give minority views more credence than they deserve\u2019 (215). Oreskes and Conway concluded: \u2018This divergence between the state of the science and how it was presented in the major media helped make it easy for our government to do nothing about global warming\u2019 (215).<\/p>\n

In their book\u00a0Climate Change Denial<\/em>, Haydn Washington and John Cook discuss false balance in media discussions of climate change issues:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It seems today that any factually wrong and one-sided article can be published by papers in the name of \u2018freedom of speech\u2019 and putting forward all sides of an issue. However, journalists are not meant to be proponents of just one side of a debate, they are meant to put both sides and to also check their sources\u00a0(94).<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In an attempt to look editorially \u2018balanced\u2019 media outlets have been creating this \u2018false balance\u2019. This involves pitting the climate scientist again the climate science denier, then letting a debate run, in the name of giving balance and equal news time to these opposing sides. With an almost consensus view of 97% of climate scientists that human induced climate change is real and happening now, this so called balanced view of reporting becomes a falsity giving time to a viewpoint that is rejected by the scientific community.<\/p>\n

In October 2013, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0<\/em>announced a new policy on letters from climate change deniers.\u00a0Paul Thornton noted<\/a>\u00a0that the newspaper received plenty of letters from those who deny global warming: \u2018Many say climate change is a hoax, a scheme by liberals to curtail personal freedom.\u2019 He emphasized that the newspaper would decline to publish pieces espousing climate denial on the grounds of factual inaccuracy.<\/p>\n

And those scientists have provided ample evidence that human activity is indeed linked to climate change. Just last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u200a\u2014\u200aa body made up of the world\u2019s top climate scientists\u200a\u2014\u200asaid it was 95% certain that we fossil-fuel-burning humans are driving global warming. The debate right now isn\u2019t whether this evidence exists (clearly, it does) but what this evidence means for us. Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying \u201cthere\u2019s no sign humans have caused climate change\u201d is not stating an opinion, it\u2019s asserting a factual inaccuracy.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There have been a number of other newspapers, which have followed the lead of the\u00a0Los Angeles Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

To address false balance news outlets such as BBC News are putting in place\u00a0measures<\/a>\u00a0to curb the time given to people with anti-science viewpoints, including those who deny existence of climate change. The BBC Trust Review follow-up about impartiality and accuracy of the BBC\u2019s coverage of science said:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There should be no attempt to give equal weight to opinion and to evidence\u201d and that a \u2018false balance\u2019 between well-established fact and opinion must be avoided.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those who have no scientific credentials are often given media time and quoted as \u2018experts\u2019. The man tasked with evaluating the BBC\u2019s science reporting,\u00a0biologist Steve Jones, said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This goes to the heart of science reporting\u200a\u2014\u200ayou wouldn\u2019t have a homeopath speaking alongside a brain surgeon for balance, as that would be absurd. It\u2019s just as absurd to have a climate sceptic for balance against the work of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is also a need to deal with the problem of astroturfing \u2013 in which fossil fuel companies rely upon consultants, think-tanks and fake \u2018grass-roots\u2019 movements to advance their policy agendas in the mass media, turning public opinion into some type of commodity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is clearly a lack of balanced and factual reporting about climate change being espoused by the Murdoch media. There is a need to develop an independent and free press in Australia \u2013 which has respect for science and scientists. Journalists need to be free to write honestly and openly about the inconvenient truths of climate change and global warming. There is a need to ensure that the reporting on climate change in the Australian media is factual, accurate, and not misleading. There should be prompt corrections and remedial action if published material is inaccurate or misleading. Instead presenting a \u2018false balance\u2019 about climate change, there is a need to seek out expert opinion from climate scientists. The Fourth Estate must not tolerate greenwashing, astroturfing<\/a>, and climate denial. There is a need to combat conflicts of interest, particularly in respect of the debate over climate change. A free and diverse media will be essential to any Australian politician trying to implement climate policy and action on climate change for the benefit for present and future generations.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Kylee Carpenter
\n<\/strong>Kylee Carpenter is an environmental communications specialist, recently trained as a Climate Reality Leader with Al Gore and undertaking postgraduate studies in social media and public engagement at the University of Canberra. She currently works in media, communications and public relations with a research centre. Her previous roles have included environmental management and sustainability strategy in a variety of sectors including environmental NGO\u2019s, universities, utilities, local government and health care.<\/p>\n

Dr Matthew Rimmer
\n<\/strong>\u00a0Dr Matthew Rimmer is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, working on Intellectual Property and Climate Change. He is an associate professor at the ANU College of Law, and an associate director of the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture (ACIPA). He holds a BA (Hons) and a University Medal in literature, and a LLB (Hons) from the Australian National University. He is a member of the ANU Climate Change Institute. Dr Rimmer is the author of\u00a0Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands off my iPod<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Intellectual Property and Biotechnology: Biological Inventions<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Intellectual Property and Climate Change: Inventing Clean Technologies<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>He is an editor of\u00a0Patent Law and Biological Inventions<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Incentives for Global Public Health: Patent Law and Access to Essential Medicines<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies: The New Biology<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>Rimmer has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, clean technologies, and traditional knowledge. His work is archived at\u00a0SSRN Abstracts<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Bepress Selected Works<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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[clear] In Australia, there has been a fierce debate over media reporting of climate change, particularly by the Murdoch media empire. In a recent interview in 2014 with Sky News, Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive officer of News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, maintained: \u2018We should approach climate change with great scepticism.\u2019 He commented: Climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,651,1469,585,32,35],"tags":[1958,2588,168,169,176,532,238,245,251,2561,275,2566,343,2574,1381,703,412,419,431,679,465,466,896],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/au_australian.750-1.jpg?fit=800%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-5vl","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}