- JoNova - https://joannenova.com.au -

Reuter-wash: a division of the IPCC PR machine?

INTERVIEW-Climate science untarnished by hacked emails-IPCC

The IPCC says ClimateGate doesn’t change anything. (Well Shock Me! Really?)

Source: Reuters

Imagine if a politician called “Jones” had been caught emailing a colleague saying “Delete all those files. Don’t tell anyone about that off-shore tax haven I have. Burn those receipts, ask Keith to burn his too and I’ll let Casper know. By the way, I’ve used that accounting trick Mike talked about to hide the money.”

Let Reuter-wash swing into gear and the “news” article would blandly say Jones’ emails were “seized upon by his opponents, showing he made snide comments, and talked about ways to present his accounts in the most favourable light”. In other words, Reuters wouldn’t mention that he’s  been caught red-handed and implicated as a colluding fraud who squandered funds and mislead the public. What’s really newsworthy is that he’s been exposed being not-very-nice, and glossing up his reports. Would we sack those journalists? We couldn’t. But we could cancel our subscriptions and just go searching blogs for the real news.

Here’s the actual Reuter-wash:

“The e-mails hacked from Britain’s University of East Anglia last week showed scientists made snide comments about climate sceptics, and revealed exchanges about how to present the data to make the global warming argument look convincing.”

Gerard Wynn, the Reuters “journalist” did mention the word “collude” but only as an accusation made by opponents about data that might have weakened an otherwise very strong, well backed, and over analysed case.

“Climate change sceptics have seized on a series of e-mails written by specialists in the field, accusing them of colluding to suppress data which might have undermined their arguments.”

The Reuter-wash words of choice are “accusing” and “might have”. These qualifiers can take the sting out of any sentence.

Reuters gives plenty of space for the IPCC’s view of how well researched their material is:

“The entire report writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as governments,” he added in a written statement to Reuters.

“There is, therefore, no possibility of exclusion of any contrarian views, if they have been published in established journals or other publications which are peer reviewed.” (My italics)

And of course, there’s no mention of how East Anglia scientists work hard to make sure that skeptics can’t pass that peer reviewed hurdle.

“This thoroughness and the duration of the process followed in every assessment ensure the elimination of any possibility of omissions or distortions, intentional or accidental.”

Below are the detailed questions from the open-minded and well informed journalist who searches for the possibility that the IPCC might not be the Global God of perfect committees:

Reuters IPCC Question-list
………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………………………………………….

That’s right. The investigation into the IPCC point of view can be described as “swallowed whole and repeated verbatim”. They accept without question the idea that there is “no possibility” any contrarian views would have been excluded, even though the emails show that IPCC leading scientists were trying and claiming privately to do exactly that. It’s clear the IPCC is going for the big ambit bluff here, and Reuters are just nodding. There is no admission that the IPCC could possibly have done anything even remotely better. The words “extensive”, “repeated”,”experts”, “thoroughness”, “every assessment”, “no possibility” and “ensure” is a lexicon of utter certainty. The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachuri, even claims there’s nothing “accidental”, which is possibly a Freudian slip. In this context of the leaked emails, he’s saying that the IPCC lauding and repetition from scientists with undenied criminal intent, was… no accident. OK. So maybe it wasn’t.

Observe here the special moment where Reuters  quote the Imaginary Global Spokesman for All Scientists.  Here he or she is, pronouncing the full summary of the meaning of the 160Mb of information that was leaked:

“The revelation of the e-mails was more embarrassing than serious fodder for doubts about the causes of, or basis for climate change, scientists responded this week.”

So, we don’t need to investigate all those other documents right? All that computer code, it’s not important?

Once again, it shows that “science” and “scientists” is a brand name any authoritative unit can wield and exploit. Why would Reuters, who used to pride themselves for their journalistic ability, advertise their bias so nakedly? They won’t interview the skeptical experts, or the skeptical politicians. They cover for fraudulent scientists, and the bureaucracies that use these scientists.

News of ClimateGate is running riot on the web. The word came into existence a week ago, and there are 5 million hits on the term today. Do the Reuters team think that no one will notice how much they risk their journalistic reputations on this?

Or could it be that since Reuters was taken over by Thompson Financial, a company that provides market news to financial corporations, that the conflict of interest that was feared has already arrived?

“Robert Peston, business editor at BBC News, stated that this has worried Reuters journalists, both because they are concerned that Reuters’ journalism business will be marginalized by the financial data provision business of the combined company, and because of the threat to Reuters’s reputation for unbiased journalism by the appearance of one majority shareholder.” Wikipedia.

Most of Thompson Financial’s largest clients must be the same companies who will profit wildly from carbon trading. Amazing coincidence, eh?

10 out of 10 based on 3 ratings