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16 Feb 10

Is the New York Times ignoring "Climategate"? | FP Passport

blog.foreignpolicy.com/...ork_times_ignoring_climategate - Preview

US politics reference climatechange media press journalism nyt UK globalwarmingskeptics statistics

He later goes on to say explicitly "I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second
question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that
most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity," which the Daily Mail conviently neglects to note.
I have worked with Mead and know him as a careful writer and steward of the facts. So I will assume he's not fully informed, and I hope that he'll change his mind after reading this. Because the real story here could just as easily be headlined, "Climate skeptics seize on editing errors, poor IPCC communications to manipulate willing British press and credulous blogosphere."
6 more annotations...
- He later goes on to say explicitly "I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second
  question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that
  most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity," which the Daily Mail conviently neglects to note.
- Dot Earth, and his colleague Elisabeth Rosenthal weighed in on allegations that Pachauri has a conflict of interest (although that story had deep flaws). Here's science writer John Tierney opining on the East Anglia emails back in November. Here's reporter John Broder alluding to the controversies in a story about the misleading use of weather as a political football. Here's another Broder story about how Penn State scientist Michael Mann -- famous for producing the "hockey stick" curve showing a dramatic uptick in global temperatures in recent years -- was cleared of wrongdoing over the hacked East Anglia emails.
- Jonathan Leake
- Take this section from Leake's recent story (run under the misleading headline, "World may not be warming, say scientists"):
  
  Such warnings are supported by a study of US weather stations co-written by
  Anthony Watts, an American meteorologist and climate change sceptic.
  
  His study, which has not been peer reviewed, is illustrated with photographs
  of weather stations in locations where their readings are distorted by
  heat-generating equipment.
  
  Some are next to air- conditioning units or are on waste treatment plants. One
  of the most infamous shows a weather station next to a waste incinerator.
  
  Watts has also found examples overseas, such as the weather station at Rome
  airport, which catches the hot exhaust fumes emitted by taxiing jets.
  
  In Britain, a weather station at Manchester airport was built when the
  surrounding land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by heat-generating
  buildings.
  
  Among numerous other problems with his story, Leake doesn't mention that NOAA -- in a peer-reviewed study (pdf) published in the Journal of Geophysical Research -- actually looked at Watts's findings and found a cooling bias among the weather stations. Whoops.
- I could go on and on and on.
- UPDATE: I should note that not all British papers are behaving badly. The Guardian has an exhaustive 12-part series on "climategate" that doesn't whitewash the failings of climate scientists, but puts the issue in its proper context. Good reading.

10 Feb 10

The NYTimes, the IPCC, and Perceived Conflict of Interest : Framing Science

scienceblogs.com/...ughts_on_todays_front_page.php - Preview

journalism climatechange US nyt politics ipcc

In my remarks as part of a panel at Harvard last week, I predicted that a new public accountability narrative about climate scientists had been locked in by the "ClimateGate" controversy and that each successive event such as the dispute over the Himalayan glacier data would be re-interpreted and amplified through this lens.
that the Bush administration "muzzled" NASA scientist James Hansen--a public accountability focus has frequently been the lede.
3 more annotations...
- Today's front page story at the New York Times by Elisabeth Rosenthal which examines allegations of conflict of interest on the part of IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri is another clear example. Critics on the left are alleging bias in the story, but if there is bias, it is simply journalists' orientation to pay attention to and report on possible wrong-doing by those in positions of influence and to follow perceived conflict.
- Looking back on coverage of the Clinton administration during the late 1990s, there is a strong argument to make that the leading news outlets spent too much time and attention chasing accusations of wrongdoing by the Clintons and not enough focus on substantive coverage of domestic and foreign policy.
- Rosenthal, in her story, quotes Roger Pielke Jr's apt observation:
  
  Dr. Pielke, the University of Colorado professor, said the United Nations panel, which has no explicit conflict policy, should do the same, adding, "You need to make sure that advice is advice and not stealth advocacy."

08 Dec 09

They could study this in journalism schools: NYT v WaPo on climate emails - James Fallows

jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/...they_could_study_this_in.php - Preview

US politics press media washingtonpost nyt climatechange climategate

I am trying to avoid gratuitous NYT/WaPo comparisons, because like all publications they are trying their best in difficult conditions
In Face of Skeptics, Experts Affirm Climate Peril
1 more annotations...
- Stolen files of 'Climate-gate' suggest some viewpoints on change are disregarded