The ABC is so afraid that the public might read comments from global warming skeptics that they frequently censor or delay reasonable comments, while allowing defamatory, unprofessional, and unsubstantiated ones through. (Guess which way the editors of The Drum vote?)
Marc Hendrickx describes how hard it is to get rid of a single baseless defamatory comment on the ABC taxpayer-funded-site:
The following anonymous comment was posted to [Sara] Phillips’s blog shortly afterwards:
Annie : 03 Dec 2010 7:07:53pm
The denialist clowns return again . . . climateaudit.org . . . run by Stephen McIntyre a known climate denialist and extremist right-wing provocateur . . . you are a joke as are your answers . . . laughing hysterically.
Marc Hendrix suggested it be removed as defamatory. The ABC editors protested, and here’s the weird thing, it would have taken them less time to just say “yes” — after all, it’s only a comment. But in the sum total editorial-calculation-of-the-day there was apparently some net benefit in fighting to keep an unsubstantiated insult visible among hundreds of other comments? (Go figure.) According to the ABC editors: “He [MacIntyre] could reasonably be described as ‘right wing’ as a speaking member of the George C Marshall Institute, which is known for its right-leaning politically conservative views. ‘Provocateur’ is a name given to describe those whose thinking goes against that of the status quo, another label that could reasonably be given to Mr McIntyre. As such, the comments from Annie are not unfounded and therefore not defamatory.””
Hendrickx then passed on the ABC editorial point of view to Steven McIntyre, and he replied:
I am not a “member of the George Marshall Institute”. This allegation on your part is untrue. I once spoke at a briefing session sponsored by George Marshall Institute, but that does not make me a “member” or imply any endorsement on my part of their views. I would have been delighted to make the same presentation at a session sponsored by the Pew Centre.
Nor is there any basis for characterising my political views as “extremist right wing”. I have seldom expressed political opinions, though I once said that, in American terms, I would have been a Bill Clinton supporter. My only recent political contributions have been to a left-wing municipal politician in Toronto, Pam McConnell. I challenge you to provide any evidence that I hold “extremist right wing” political views. The comments by Annie are totally unfounded and defamatory. Yours truly, Stephen McIntyre
And only 6 days after McIntyre’s reply and three weeks after the initial comment was posted, the ABC managed to take the ten seconds needed to “delete” the offensive comment, long after the thread would have run cold.
Hendrickx asks:
Why did it take so much effort to remove the offensive comment? How did Phillips obtain permission to run such a biased and unbalanced opinion page at the taxpayers’ expense?
In an era where there are a multitude of opportunities for ABC staff to express their opinions by setting up their own blogs or personal web pages, how does Mark Scott justify the use of taxpayer funds to foot this bill?
Mark Hendrickx runs the blog ABCNewswatch.
Des Moore also writes this week on the ABC way of smothering complaints (read it at Quadrant).
Wes George captures it in comment #3 on the thread about spambots and black propaganda:
Here in the Lucky Country we don’t need no stinkin’ botware conspiracy to manage opinion. We do it the fair dinkum way:
We taxpayers fund a state-owned and operated Ministry of Information which is the de facto propaganda arm of the Green/Labor coalition. It’s called the ABC. It’s totally legit, operates with impunity day and night, 365 days a year… The ABC even has its own websites and edits all comments to perfectly reflect the latest groupthink.
And the Left is worried that software bots are comin’ to git ‘em?
ABC-Rejects
Please copy and log the comments you post to the ABC site (if you can be bothered wading in). I want to host an “ABC-Rejects” thread to show the kind of comments they allow, and the kind they don’t. (At least one reader has an interesting theory on the pattern of what gets through, that I’ll share soon). I could use a few more samples.
UPDATE: As Marc Hendrickx so rightly points out the real problem is the absence of stories.
It wasn’t so much the comment that offended. That comment is typical of the level of debate on the ABC – ignorant innuendo based on uninformed web gossip. It was that it received the support of a senior ABC journalist and the support of the supposedly “independent” ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs. This proves bias in regard to climate change reporting, thus explaining the absence of any significant coverage of Steve McIntyre’s work including his brilliant take down of the Hockey Stick graph and more recently his work with Chris O’Donnell, Nic Lewis and Jeff Condon refuting Eric Steig’s botched analysis of Antarctic temps. ABC have missed many more important journal articles that refute the iPCC consensus, and it’s clear now why this is the case.
OT I know but the Virginia AG Cuccinelli is going about this the right way and he’s not one to back off either. He went after Obama and the EPA so watch out Mickey Mann, because this guy is a Rottweiler.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20110223_A_climate_skeptic_in_Virginia_finds_an_ear_in_congress.html
He’s relatively young but I’ve high hopes for him politically.
Pointman
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Hi Jo,
its good to actually read a climate related area that hits my own area of expertise.
I recently started my Doctorate, which is focused on censorship and propaganda online, and in particular on the role of bots.
I had a site in development to enable people to report when they have been censored – with censoring of climate sceptics particularly in mind – to act as both a clearing house to show the amount of censorship by topic and by media outlet. Since having had the amazing fortune to secure funding for my PhD in October, the site has been put on the backburner, but it will see action soon: http://www.censoring.me
I’m also working on specialised bots to automate seeking out censorship and also potentially identifying other bots that may be posting.
I must say, as someone familiar with this area, that the continuing claims of bot astroturfing by climate alarmists (c.f. George Monbiot) are utterly ignorant, not to mention worryingly paranoid and self-important. There are some pretty sophisticated algorithms out there, but their users wouldn’t even think to waste their precious resources on a few climate-related threads; all the action takes place in ‘black-hat’ Search Engine Optimisation techniques; though if the incredibly insecure carbon trading industry continues I can see Black Hat SEO bots deployed to take advantage for phishing scams.
If you or your users would be interested in taking part, or using the tools as I develop them, let me know.
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Looks like some interesting moves over at Channel 10. Maybe Australia will start to get some balance in the MSM
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Jo,
Is there a bullseye on my back?
I have no doubt governments don’t like me. I keep getting e-mails of the governments position of backing the IPCC report. Even from the Australian government, Canadian government, the U.S. government and the British government.
When theories are our best science, we are in deep trouble!
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It wasn’t so much the comment that offended. That comment is typical of the level of debate on the ABC – ignorant innuendo based on uninformed web gossip. It was that it received the support of a senior ABC journalist and the support of the supposedly “independent” ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs. This proves bias in regard to climate change reporting, thus explaining the absence of any significant coverage of Steve McIntyre’s work including his brilliant take down of the Hockey Stick graph and more recently his work with Chris O’Donnell, Nic Lewis and Jeff Condon refuting Eric Steig’s botched analysis of Antarctic temps. ABC have missed many more important journal articles that refute the iPCC consensus, and it’s clear now why this is the case.
10
I stopped reading anything on the ABC site long ago. The plethora of vicious, one sided comments left me completely cold. To think that this cesspit is paid for by the public makes me sick.
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The ABC’s use of the smear “denialist” in referring to those who express scepticism about the AGW hypothesis is in violation of the ABC Code of Practice (See page 3.)
The ABC, as a taxpayer funded agency, is aware that the use of the bigoted term “denialist” is a thinly veiled reference to Neo-Nazi apologists who “deny” that the Jewish Holocaust ever occurred. To link sceptical scientists and citizens in a nationally important socio-economic, political and scientific debate to Neo-Nazi hate speech is invidious slander of the highest order. To do so as a taxpayer funded news and content delivery organization whose core value is
is contemptible and outrageously prejudicial behavior.
We should call upon the ABC not only to cease and desist from employing bigoted language in its news reports but to announce a general ban of the term “denialist” in its opinion pieces as well, just as the ABC would never allow thinly veiled racist, sexist or religious smears or hate speech to appear in its opinion columns.
Furthermore, the ABC should post online a formal apology for the thousands of instances where it has employed the bigoted terms “denialist” and “climate denier.”
The ABC must admit its role in calumniating every Australian citizen who is sceptical of the AGW hypothesis and take measures towards reconciliation.
This reconciliation can only begin when the ABC management and staff are made aware of their own institutional and cultural bias that is blinding them to the biggest story of the decade— To be skeptical of the AGW hypothesis isn’t the equivalent of any kind of denialism, but is, in fact, evidence-based and is one of several rational positions that can be arrived at by reasonable inquiry into the rapidly evolving science related to the climate debate.
Through misinformation and omission of information about the climate debate the ABC has failed spectacularly in its duty to inform the public on an issue of great national significance, missing story after story, while misdirecting the public’s attention away from the salient issues. How much better could our democracy function if the ABC could rise above its petty prejudices and delivery the balanced information we as Australian citizens need in order to rationally execute our duty as an electorate?
Should the ABC decide to continue the employ the term denialist, we should demand that the taxpayer-funded agency issue a statement in defense of its use of unwarranted and inflammatorily bigoted language in what should otherwise be reasonable socio-economic, scientific and political contexts.
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The ABC has repeated violated it own code of practice when reporting on the climate debate:
http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/200806_codeofpractice-revised_2008.pdf
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The ABC is regularly publishes (and omits) content in breech of its core values and mandatory requirements, which apparently include: four fundamentals: honesty, fairness, independence and respect.
http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/edpols.htm
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The local ABC is wonderful; the Qld wide radio during the day is balanced and entertaining; national radio news, TV, current affairs, and on line is a problem- the only reason I watch is because there’s little alternative.
A bit like BOM’s structure really.
Ken
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The ABC regularly violates its mandatory editorial policy on the “Labelling of groups and individuals” in its online news and opinion content by allowing the usage of the invidiously bigoted label “climate denialism” to stereotype those skeptical of the AGW hypothesis.
http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/EdPols07_updateFeb09_FIN%20tools.pdf
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In early January the Drum was shutting down comments about climate topics very quickly. On one posting they allowed just 12 comments. Not surprisingly the pro AGW bias was being slammed by sceptics.
The ABC bias is more evident in the sheer volume of pro AGW articles published. Everyone is given a post, nearly every day as long as they’re from the right side. The funniest was the Science show’s Robyn Williams supporting Flannery’s prediction of impending Gaia.
Environment reporter Margot ONeil was sent to Oxford to learn about the demise of climate journalism. Whilst there she learnt about the impact of Climategate. Is the ABC a sheltered workshop from the outside world?
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2010/11/03/3056199.htm
I’m sure I read somewhere that ABC environment reporters said in a forum, that they regarded everything from the IPCC as fact.
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Wes George,
The ABC does have the best guidelines of all Australian media. That’s true. Unfortunately they just don’t apply them. It seems a common problem for those of the left,”do as I say, not do as I do”. As Andrew Bolt often states; The left are more often about seeming rather than doing.
The situation will never change whilstever Labor are in power or trying to get there. So the best action is to continue sniping. Heave enough lead and you have to hit something.
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Apologies for the O/T but ther’s a ripper of a thread at Judith Curry’s site at the moment.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/
Over a thousand posts now. The usual pretentious and bombastic examples of semantic gymnastics from the “hockey team”. Gavin Schmidt especially having a bad time when realising that he’s not in the moderator’s seat.
Well worth a visit.
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ABC now has this:
24 Feb: ABC: Annabel Crabb: Government gains confidence, Opposition loses its nerve
Of the short, difficult prime ministerial career Julia Gillard has so far experienced, trepidation has been a constant.
The election was booby-trapped with issues that popular wisdom suggested she leave well alone.
You can almost hear the briefing now.
“Don’t say too much about climate change, because it kind of killed Kevin, and there’s definite traces of Gillard DNA on the trigger…
Things have changed lately, though…
And the confidence has leached into other areas.
Gillard, Combet and Swan are prosecuting their climate change plans with vigour…
Annabel Crabb is ABC Online’s chief political writer.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/24/3147277.htm
i’ve posted the following, and will check back later to see if it has gone up:
why do u keep saying “climate change” when u mean anthropogenic global warming caused by increasing human emissions of carbon dioxide, requiring govt action such as a carbon tax or ETS?
every human being knows the climate has changed, is changing and will change. when u use the false term “climate change”, u just sound silly.
also, how on earth did u come to the conclusion that kevin rudd was “kind of killed” by “climate change”? what precisely does that mean?
personally, i thought it was malcolm turnbull who was “killed” because of his support of an ETS, which was not popular with the public.
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how quick was this concensus built!!!!!!!
24 Feb: ABC: Gillard to lay out carbon price policy
In the aftermath of last year’s election, Ms Gillard established a multi-party climate change committee to build consensus on what form a carbon price should take.
The ABC understands the committee has now come to an agreement and Ms Gillard will reveal more details at 11:30am AEDT…
The Government abandoned its previous emissions trading scheme last year after it failed to get it through the Senate.
This backdown is widely believed to have led to former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s slide in the polls, and his eventual sacking.
The Government has foreshadowed a system that would start with a fixed price on carbon, followed by a move to a market-based system in several years.
With the Opposition set to vote against any market-based scheme, the Government will need the support of the Greens and the independents to get the legislation through Parliament…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/24/3147523.htm?section=justin
once again, ABC says Rudd’s sacking was due to his failure to get an ETS up. do any of you know anyone who thinks this is true, cos i don’t.
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Thanks Wes – some great research there mate. It will come in handy in my soon-to-be-moderated post at:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44406.html
Where Mulga Mumblebrain (a CAGW regular who is almost as feral as the worst of The Drum/Unleashed crowd … not quite as bad as Zebe…washis/hername) posted a predeictable rant:
So in response I borrowed some of your references Wes:
Let’s see if this one gets up… where to next vs the ABC? I am all ears for petitions etc.
10
start an organization named “Enemies of the ABC”?
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PS> One of these days I am going to pull my finger out and spell check my posts before hitting “submit.”
PPS> Today is not that day…
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guess the “months” were squeezed into six days
18 Feb: ABC: Carbon price deal is months away
The Government’s multi-party climate change committee, which is chaired by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and includes the Greens and independent MPs, held its fourth meeting in Canberra this morning.
Ms Gillard and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet were widely expected to unveil their preferred model after the meeting.
But the committee says no final decisions have been taken on how to price carbon or what assistance will be offered to industry and taxpayers.
It says the final design of the carbon price will only be decided when all the elements of the policy can be considered together, and that should happen in the coming months.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/18/3142797.htm?section=justin
10
given the Opposition were not on the Committee, why hasn’t ABC or The Australian carried a response from them in this piece?
24 Feb: ABC: Gillard unveils carbon price details
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/24/3147523.htm?section=justin
24 Feb: Australian: Australia to have carbon price from July 1, 2012, Julia Gillard announces
Ben Packham and James Massola
Julia Gillard has unveiled the key principles of the government’s climate policy today, saying a fixed price would be placed on carbon pollution from July 1 next year.
She said a “smooth transition” would follow, within three to five years, to a cap-and-trade system…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/gillard-to-reveal-climate-policy-today/story-e6frg6n6-1226011223441
some reports do not even point out that the Opposition was not even on the “multi-party” committee.
10
Thanks for posting the carbon tax announcement there… here’s my volley:
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For anyone interested SMH has a poll going:
Do you think Australia should introduce a price on carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
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Bulldust @ 14
Good work, mate. Knowledge is power.
I would encourage everyone to arm themselves with a thorough knowledge of ABC’s editorial policy then take direct action by contacting the ABC and registering a complaint…
The ABC is our national broadcaster, not a privately own media corporation, as such it has no right to any editorial policy other than impartiality. The ABC should serve ALL the people of Australia, not behave as a mouthpiece for a privileged political clique.
The ABC, as a corporate culture, seems to willfully blind to the totally unethical and unprofessional standard of journalism it practices daily. Yet, clearly it has a whole swag of proper mandatory codes of journalistic conduct, which the ABC reporters and editors simply ignore.
—An ABC “guidance note” on differentiating analysis, editorial policy
The hypocrisy is stunning. How do, we the people, hold our national broadcaster accountable to its own standards and mandatory rules?
If the ABC can not manage the professionalism necessary to provide impartial journalism for Australian people rather than just the facade of impartiality, then perhaps it’s time to close the public purse and sell the news branch of the corporation. As a private media corporation the ABC would then be fully within its right to favor any sort of politics and bias it chooses.
* * *
Here’s an ABC treasure trove of documents well worth downloading…
http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/edpols.htm
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From HerRanganus Fabiana 24/02/11
Does anybody know if the Dutch were savvy enough to tax tulips?
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Bruce @ 23,
I am in California, have never been in Australia, and they let me vote NO.
Friends of Australia everywhere, you can vote NO too! The AGW thugs have cooked the books for over 20 years, we can return the favor by cooking the vote. Might not accomplish anything but making a few AGW thugs a little less sure of themselves. That just might be enough to turn the tide.
Vote early and often in favor of freedom and an absolute minimum of government in all of it’s forms.
10
The carbon
ETStaxprice debate is hotting up in Parliament now as Tony pushed to censure Joolya for her broken election promise of no carbon tax:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/peoples-revolt-looms-on-carbon-tax-abbott/story-fn59niix-1226011399307
I suppose he is dog whistling in relation to the unrest in the Arab world when he says she can expect a peoples’ revolt if a carbon
taxprice is introduced.Meanwhile the lamestream media is pushing the need for carbon pricing … quelle surprise:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-cuts-lack-urgency-20110224-1b6iu.html
But as mentioned above, make your voice heard (for what it’s worth on the lamestream poll) here:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-tax-plan-a-betrayal-abbott-20110224-1b6hl.html#poll
So far the “nays” have it 🙂
10
TVNZ is also mindlessly supporting the government’s stance regarding ETS and AGW.
The TVNZ Charter also states that
“TVNZ will provide independent, comprehensive, impartial, and in-depth coverage and analysis of news and current affairs in New Zealand and throughout the world and of the activities of public and private institutions”.
They probably think that they can bamboozle the New Zealand public because the Charter also states that:
“Play a leading role in New Zealand television by setting standards of program quality encouraging creative risk-taking and experiment”…
Is that also in the Australian Charter?
10
Until the Opposition gets serious and attacks the “science” of AGW and exposes it for the fraud that it is, then they are always going to be on the back foot.
Just banging on about Labor’s Big New Tax isn’t going to do it. If it is shown that a new tax is based on fraud, well that’s a different matter. So, the question is: Why do they hang back? Methinks Abbott has his own band of “believers” to contend with.
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jo,
just reporting that my comment regarding annabel crabb’s article above was not posted, but dozens of later comments were, mostly of the julia’s great or no she’s not variety.
just voted on SMH and it was 51% no to 46% yes, tho i doubt if that is even an honest result.
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Pat (15) raises a point:
It’s important, I think, in all these exchanges never to succumb to the alarmists’ deceptive nomenclature like “global warming”, “climate change”, “climate disruption etc.
First of all it’s about warming; I don’t know of any mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 enrichment directly causes cyclones, floods, droughts etc.
A CO2 enriched atmosphere alone is a benefit.
The climate changes, always has, and the globe has warmed since the LIA; the question is, of course, is the alleged warming since c. 1945 due overwhelmingly to human GHGs and is it likely to be catastrophic?
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Amazingly my comment from 17 made it past the ABC mod squad.
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I’ve been doing alot of research into legal strategies to rectify this censorship situation. It’s important to understand that the legal foundations of ABC’s new media enterprises are a tangled mess of caveats and deflection of responsibility. The ABC, like any corporation is shrouded in layers on legal ‘butt-coverings’ that need to be peeled back like and onion. Each document is qualified by other documents and breeches of those policy documents requires the public to follow resolution through a process chain. Big bureaucratic win for them.
In addition to the documentation supplied by wes, documentation I have found to be relevant is section 4 of the Conditions of Use for the website itself:
And section 4.1 and 4.2 of the Editorial Policies 2007:
My plan is to go through their process which I fully expect to fail with. But, hopefully build up enough documentary evidence of managerial malfeasance to present to the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
In the meantime, these are a good guide to the potential traps which are laid out for the unsuspecting poster at an ABC Online Forum. Avoid these, and you can establish good cause for redress.
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ABC News Watch……..
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/
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ABC smothers complaints
by Des Moore
February 23, 2011
When will the ABC become “Balanced”?
On 9 February the ABC’s Lateline ran an interview with three scientists, described as leading climate experts, on what was described as “the weather conditions that may be behind the recent natural disasters”. In his introduction Presenter Tony Jones set the scene from his perspective by claiming that “climate scientists admit they’re not certain how much global warming is influencing such disasters”. This of course provided a pre-judgement on the issue…
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/02/abc-smothers-complaints
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My experience with Aunty has been that most of my comments get posted but some don’t. I suspect that rejection is somewhat arbitrary as I’ve found if I send the same comment the next day it’ll get a run. Two possibilities: 1. it depends on the political greenness of the particular ABC “censor” that first vets your proposed post. The same post with a different censor and you get a different outcome; 2. any delay is deliberate so that non-favoured views are swamped in a flood of others after the caravan has moved on.
10
ABC will play “Colonel Gadaffi” and cut off the Internet blog if they have to.
I’ll bet there is a lot of fantasy out there about “internet censorship” and “denialists”
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