March 01, 2007
Gore Assails Media "Balance" on Climate Coverageby Jonathan R. at 10:14 AM
The ease with which Al Gore and his sycophantic Cassandra following ignore all scientific evidence that contrary to their global warming religion is astonishing. Even more astonishing is the former VP's contention, and lamentation, that the MSM is too balanced in its climate coverage. Read this
"I believe that is one of the principal reasons why political leaders around the world have not yet taken action," Gore said. "There are many reasons, but one of the principal reasons in my view is more than half of the mainstream media have rejected the scientific consensus implicitly — and I say 'rejected,' perhaps it's the wrong word. They have failed to report that it is the consensus and instead have chosen … balance as bias.First of all, it is ridiculous to say that climate coverage is balanced. Even more absurd, however, is to say that the MSM should not be balanced. I don't know about you, but I hate it when politicians let their religious views get in the way of science."I don't think that any of the editors or reporters responsible for one of these stories saying, 'It may be real, it may not be real,' is unethical. But I think they made the wrong choice, and I think the consequences are severe.
"I think if it is important to look at the pressures that made it more likely than not that mainstream journalists in the United States would convey a wholly inaccurate conclusion about the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced."
Comments
Newspapers fog public view of climate change
The US public's perception of global warming is skewed by something more pervasive than the occasional Hollywood movie, says a study released late last month. Its authors argue that people have been misled by newspaper reports that tend to give equal weight to both sides of the climate-change debate.
In the study, Maxwell Boykoff, a graduate student in environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his brother Jules, a visiting assistant professor of politics at Whitman College, Washington, looked at more than 600 randomly chosen articles about climate change from four major newspapers written between 1988 and 2002.
They found that 52.7% of the articles gave "roughly equal attention" to views that humans contribute to global warming and that climate change is just a result of natural fluctuations. Only 35.3% of the articles emphasized the role of humans while presenting both sides of the debate (M. T. Boykoff and J. M. Boykoff Global Environ. Change 14, 125–136; 2004).
Although it is standard journalistic practice to give both sides of a story, the Boykoffs say that this has warped public perception of an issue in which there is a strong scientific consensus. "In effect, the press has provided 'balanced' coverage of a very unbalanced issue," says Maxwell Boykoff.
Nicola Jones
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7004/box/431004a_bx1.html
Posted by: neologizer ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.gopbloggers.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 4, 2007 04:21 AM
meanwhile....
Joint statements by National academy of sciences of
USA
France
Brazil
Canada
Germany
Italy
Japan
Russia
UK
India
China
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
name another representatives from all those countries agree on????
Posted by: neologizer at March 4, 2007 04:30 AM
Post a comment
