Did you get the memo?
Which journalists are “just following orders”?
All groupthink-minded, obedient journalists have been advised to find a climate crisis to report on in Sept 16th which is the week before the next UN climate summit on Sept 23. How many will obey, conveniently serving the UN, big government activists with “free advertising”?
Kip Hansen on WattsUp spotted the National Narrative for media on Climate Change a couple of months ago.
The best things skeptics can do is expose how artificially crafted and politically timed this “reporting” is. Spread the word that it’s coming to help neutralize the effect.
Let’s ask our favourite ABC/BBC/Guardian/NY Times journalists in advance if they plan to obey this directive. Perhaps we could score each journalist with a Climate Patsy mark as the week unfolds and they hit their prescribed targets? They score extra points for saying “12 years to go”, “all scientists agree” and using the terms “climate crisis”, and “climate emergency”. Triple points go to photos of weather porn: Eg melting asphalt, “rain bombs”, freak clouds, and 20 year old photos of the Amazon burning.
The Email to Journalists
Greetings.
We’re writing from Covering Climate Now, a new project of the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation aimed at dramatically improving journalism’s coverage of climate change. We invite you to join us.
The science is beyond clear: humanity faces an emergency situation. Rising sea levels and record heat waves, wildfires, and floods are unleashing devastation worldwide, and much more is in the pipeline. We have 12 years to radically change course, UN scientists warned last October, or face catastrophe.
As journalists, we have a professional responsibility to report on the urgency of this moment. Despite good coverage by some news outlets, climate silence still reigns in much of the media. For example, only 27 percent of Americans knew in election year 2016 that virtually all scientists agreed that climate change is human-caused, happening now and very dangerous.
The good news is that 63% of the public recognized that the statement “virtually all scientists” agree is a PR and advertising line. No one has surveyed “all scientists”. And the few fields that have been polled show that climate scientists are failing to convince all the professional fields of scientists around them. Surveys show 50% of meteorologists don’t believe the doctrine (Maibach et al 2017), 66% of engineers and geologists are skeptical (Lefsrud et al 2012). Even most certified climate scientists don’t agree with the full 95% certainty that the IPCC claims (Strengers et al 2015).
The Columbia Journalism Review could be sued for false advertising — pretending to be journalists, pretending to be concerned about “facts” and then promoting fake facts.
Previous reasons for underplaying the climate story—fears of alienating audiences, losing money, or appearing partisan—no longer hold. Most people under age 40 care intensely about climate change, irrespective of their political outlook—even Republicans and independents want action, while Democrats call it their number one concern. That may help explain why The Guardian, our first partner at Covering Climate Now, has found that its extensive climate and environment coverage is making, not losing, money.
Instead of most people under 40 “caring intensely” — most people rank climate change as one of their lowest environmental concerns. Here are just a few surveys. Young people universally score higher in belief, but they grow out of it as they grow up.
- Only 3% of US people think climate is most important issue
- 50% of Americans don’t want to spend *even one more dollar* on renewables
- Nearly one third in US say “climate change is a total hoax”
- 54% of Australians are still skeptics of man-made climate catastrophe
- 80% don’t donate to environment or vote for it
- 80% of Australian don’t want the government to put renewables ahead of costs, health, housing, jobs etc
- 48% of Australians happy to pull out of Paris
- 62% of Australians don’t want to pay even $10 a month for renewables
Just another million dollars of advertising?
We describe our plans for Covering Climate Now in this FAQ, which links to the April 30 conference at the Columbia Journalism School that launched this project and where iconic TV newsman Bill Moyers announced a $1 million pledge from the Schumann Media Center to fund the first year of our work.
Because all good journalists should time their articles to help the UN political agenda?
Our ask of you is simple: commit to a week of focused climate coverage this September. We are organizing news outlets across the US and abroad—online and print, TV and audio, large and small—to run seven days of climate stories from September 16 through the climate summit UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hosts in New York September 23. The stories you run are up to you, though we can offer ideas and background information and connect outlets looking for content with content providers looking for outlets.
We’d be happy to schedule a phone call to discuss this further. Thanks for considering, and we look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
Want more information?
Please contact:
- Mark Hertsgaard, the environment correspondent for The Nationand the author of Earth Odyssey, has covered climate change in the US and around the world since 1989. He’s reachable at [email protected] or 415-923-8983.
- Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of Columbia Journalism Review. He’s reachable at [email protected] or 212-854-7004.
RELATED: The media are complacent while the world burns
h/t Terry Dunleavy
REFERENCES
Lefsrud and Meyer (2012) Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change, Organization Studies, vol. 33, 11: pp. 1477-1506. , First Published November 19, 2012.
Maibach, E., Perkins, D., Timm, K., Myers, T., Woods Placky, B., et al. (2017). A 2017 National Survey of Broadcast Meteorologists: Initial Findings. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA: Center for Climate Change Communication
Bart Strengers, Bart Verheggen and Kees Vringer (2015) Climate Science Survey, Questions and Responses, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, pp 1 – 39