ABC chairman gives editorial independence a kick in the groin
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Editorial independence is little more than a noble concept sitting on a shelf until it is put to the test. Yesterday the chairman of the ABC, Australia’s most important independent media organisation, took the concept off the shelf, placed it on the floor and trampled all over it with muddy boots. In a speech that has become very public, Maurice Newman told senior ABC staff that the media — including the ABC — had displayed “group-think” on the subject of climate change, describing it as an example “where contrary views have not been tolerated, and where those who express them have been labelled and mocked”. Later in the day, in an interview with ABC Radio’s PM program, he elaborated his views in the personal context of being a climate sceptic:
Coming out of the mouth of the most senior person in the organisation, Newman’s comments are a direct and visceral attack on the professionalism of the ABC’s journalists. They are a direct attack on the elaborate notion of editorial independence at the ABC — which is laid out in hundreds of pages of documents and policies. And they are a grotesque distortion of the role of the chairman of an independent broadcaster. Newman — a former stockbroker and businessman with no professional experience as a journalist or broadcaster — has not only insulted the editorial judgement of his senior staff, he has used warped logic to do it. Given his argument that “I … will remain an agnostic until I’ve found compelling evidence on one side or the other that will move me”, imagine if instead of climate change he had used another topical subject — atheism — as his example of “media group-think”. Under the Newman doctrine, ABC journalists would now be systematically skewing their coverage of traditional religion “to bring voices that have authority and are relevant to the particular issue to the attention of our audiences so that they themselves can make decisions”. What kind of furore would that cause? With just one speech, the ABC’s chairman has returned the national broadcaster to the days of having a politically interventionist board running a culture wars agenda — and he has done it by trashing the editorial independence of some of this country’s finest journalists. |
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136 Comments
I wonder what Mr Newman would consider to be “compelling evidence on one side or the other”.
I had the same but angrier reaction about editorial independence and the undermining of the Managing Director.
So you are all for the ABC running a partisan agenda, as they have done on a number of previous occaisions? A number of ABC journalists and programs have been found to have distorted evidence to support a preconceived position. The same can be said of programs such as ACA, TT and 60 Minutes. In each case it was wrong and should be prevented.
Or was it that you support a balanced approach on most things, just not on climate change? If so you are basically saying that editorial partisanship is fine as long as it is for issues that you support.
Unbiased coverage of the news and politics is a goal all media organisations should strive for, too often however media organisations take a position and support it in the face of evidence.
Crikey enjoys taking a bat to the Australian for it’s right-wing slant, but you rarely hear criticism of media for a left-wing slant here on Crikey, as such a slant would seem to support Crikey’s own left-leaning editorial position on many things, particularly those dealing with the environment and politics.
The Chairman of the ABC states that the ABC should provide unbiased coverage of news and current events, citing a current controversial topic however you find that to be unwarranted interference in editorial independence?
The true pity is that the speech had to be given at all, most of all in an organisation that is owned and paid for by all Australian’s.
Newman claims to be “agnostic” and is waiting for authoritative evidence. How much evidence does the man need, when every Academy of Science in the world, along with the Royal Society, our own CSIRO and every other scientific organisation, has endorsed the mass of evidence in support of human-induced warming, and rejected the “sceptics’” arguments, with all the authority that those organisations carry?
Newman has been gulled by denialist propaganda. A man who is so easily duped by bogus science is not fit to chair the ABC.
Good on you Eric.
This is a dangerous development for quality journalism at the ABC and leads to absurd outcomes, as you point out.
Lets be honest about the Australian media’s climate change awareness.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I recollect that the first outlet to properly tackle climate change was Crikey, followed by Seven’s Sunrise programme.
The ABC, meanwhile, is yet to reinstate Earthbeat, its sole environmental radio programme, which it axed just as climate change was becoming a major global issue, in 2005.
Michael, your problem appears to be that you see every issue as being one of the “left” or “right”, with an equally valid opinion on either side. Environmentalism is clearly in your view a “left” issue
However in the case of reporting on climate science, the claims of those who dispute AGW are repeatedly demolished on scientific grounds, yet they are repeated over and over again in the public arena for the sake of “balance”.
All the while people who don’t believe AGW is happening keep baying for the science and insisting that they be shown enough evidence to convince them.
It seems that in the case of climate change, reality has a left-wing bias.
Since when did ABC staff take any notice of what their Chairperson says?
Telling the truth is not ‘being bias’.
Well said Eric.
It’s good to see that Newman’s speech is being spread around the net and is even getting a bit of coverage from the other MSM outlets.
It will be interesting to see if Rudd and Conroy’s “softly softly” approach to appointing new blood to the board will continue in an election year.
It’s hard to imagine that they would suddenly turn around and start blatantly wielding the sword like JWH.
But a bit of movement on speeding up the process to appoint the next wave of board members wouldn’t go astray.
BTW
I can’t recall what the Govt’s position is on having a staff member on the board.
(It’s been so long since Conroy’s even mentioned it.)
But right about now might be a good time do it.
Michael James, the notion of balance pertains to politics. Evidence of human impacts on climate is a scientific matter which is investigated by experts in the field and has no political dimension, in the everyday sense. There are differences of expert opinion, which relate to data and its interpretation, but you need to be very careful who expresses these opinions. It is very easy for non-experts to make serious errors in this arena (and they do, loudly).
However, policy responses to the science are certainly political in nature and deserving of vigorous pubic debate.
You, along with millions of others, don’t seem to get this important distinction. It’s classic baby out with the bathwater thinking.
Where the debate is about the evidence for AGW, then ‘balance’ is most definitely not achieved by giving equal air time to non-experts with an axe to grind. That is distortion. Legitimate scientific debate is fine, but the public generally doesn’t want to sit through it. Much easier for non-expert opportunists (from both extremes and running various agendas) to try to substitute for experts and grab public attention.
In terms of the policy responses, well that’s open slather I guess, but again knowledge of science, technology, economics as well as politics is critical to informed and sensible policy.
Eric, I think you’re laying it on a bit thick. To claim the ABC Chairman’s comment on this issue is a direct attack on our freedom and the integrity of ABC journalists seems just a trifle shrill. I suspect the outrage was less related to the ABC’s governance than it was to the content of the intervention. I seem to recall ABC Chairs making lots of comment on various issues over the last 30 years.
I’m also perturbed that someone who describes himself as agnostic on the issue of climate change is so readily condemned because he encourages ABC journalists not to accept information from interests on both sides of the debate at face value. And here’s me thinking journalists were paid to be sceptical. But that’s the new insult now, isn’t it, Eric?
And another thing, I object to the notion that criticism of employees of media organisations can be disregarded simply because, as you say, the critic has “no professional experience as a journalist or broadcaster” This is nonsense and you really shouldn’t need me to tell you why.
Clive’s contribution doesn’t help either. His “off-with-his-head” pronouncement smacks a little of a climate politics reign of terror.
Let’s keep it country, boys.
I could understand the call for ‘equal time’ if the world’s scientific community was split more or less down the middle on the issue of climate change, but it’s not. In fact, the overwhelming majority is convinced that we are faced with a real and serious problem.
Of course, minority views must be heard and given due consideration, but to accord them the same weight as the mainstream can only cause bewilderment in the minds of the general public.
The climate change debate is at least backed up by science but religion offers no such ‘proof’ that God exists or that ‘his’ son miraculously rose from the dead three days after being crucified.
So in regard to Eric’s comment: Under the Newman doctrine, ABC journalists would now be systematically skewing their coverage of traditional religion “to bring voices that have authority and are relevant to the particular issue to the attention of our audiences so that they themselves can make decisions”:
I say bring it on (including the agnostics!).
I heard the interview on ABC PM last evening, and the thought occurred to me while he was speaking, that if politicians waited for all the evidence, or always had an indefinite time to wait for consensus, they’d never pass Legislation over anything. eg. look at paid maternity leave? How long have we waited now? Wait another 10 yrs and opinion will still be divided? I thought he was trying to dumb down the ABC to be honest. Let’s face it, with some on the Board, it’s ‘dumbed’ down enough! If the scientists are correct, we don’t have yrs left to keep on debating. When does he think it’s a good time for action - on anything?
It’s not as though we have a radical left wing person at the helm is it? I get sick of the reporting on foreign affairs for example - straight from the White House, or the Aust. PM or Israel etc - not too much independent journalism! I watch/ read/listen to many other news outlets, outside Australia for different aspects of these important issues?
“Newman’s comments are a direct and visceral attack on the professionalism of the ABC’s journalists.”
This frothing hyperbole tells us more about Crikey’s ruling orthodoxy than ABC journalism.
Journalists are no more immune from dominant paradigms than any other group.
Until the ignominious collapse of Copenhagen, neither the BBC, ABC or any mainstream media gave the slightest credence or coverage to AGW scepticism, except in some schizoid Murdoch ratholes. Now the entire cult is disintegrating without warning. Do I have to enumerate the reasons? Not clandestine conspiracies of fossil fuel magnates or half-mad English viscounts…the cult is collapsing because “the science” isn’t science, it’s computer modelling; because the provincial computer modellers played very dirty indeed to preserve control over their instant empire in order to shore up tottering tiers of hypotheses; and most of all because no important country is prepared to do anything significant to reduce CO2 emissions, including Australia.
And what did Crikey do through all this? Gave daily space to AGW cultists like Keane and Hamilton. Did Crikey notice the big shift in its own comment opinion between December 2009 and now? Well bugger me, the legion of AGW trolls went quiet, replaced by busloads of Denialist trolls and agnostics. Even in outer Crikeria, the penny dropped. But not at the top.
Crikey should have given space from the start to both sides. Isn’t that what we expect of ‘irreverent”, “feisty” little Crikey? On this big issue, Crikey instead looks like just another self-perpetuating, self-referential clique. Not unlike the climate modellers.
Clive Hamilton and Perry Gretton are dead right.
The ABC of late appear to have been captured by that silly version of ‘balance’ which makes ‘equivalent’ a loony-tune minority opinion based on little more than witchcraft and a scientific conclusion held by a massive majority of qualified practitioners.
I notice the MD’s commitment to ‘balance’ doesn’t prevent the 7.30 Report now starting each night against graphics that prominently display multiple images of the Leader of the Opposition and NONE of the Prime Minister.
On the ABC Science Show earlier this year there was an interesting piece on the solar system and its place in the Milky Way. I presume that Newman will henceforth be requiring equal time for articles featuring the Earth as the centre of the universe.
You know. For balance.
I fully support Mr Newman in his remarks. Mr Beecher assumes that all journalists are above professional reproach and are immune from any criticism in respect of the views they express in their publications – not so. Journalists have two primary functions, to report news as it is and to write unbiased comments on news and events.
In the issue under examination, the ABC is becoming notorious for the unrelenting bias of its journalists in the Climate Science debate. An example is the recent rejection by ABC journalists of Professor Bob Carter, of the Southern Cross University, Townsville and a world renowned expert in marine science, as a participant in a climate debate.
The charter of the ABC dictates that its function is to present a non-partisan, unbiased view of world event and news and in its commentary, with fair time given to all sides of any debate. If journalists and editors abuse this principle, it is understandable that they should be hauled over the coals.
Maurice Newman is 100% correct. The ABC is definitely biased. Whenever it broadcasts programmes on astronomy it never gets an opinion or evidence from the flat earth society. The earth is definitely flat. Both Maurice and I can see that when we look out of our windows. And it is blatantly obvious that the sun goes around the earth. Both Maurice and I see it starting in the east and rotating over our heads every day (except of course when it is cloudy then we have no idea where it goes). The earth is obviously not moving. I can’t feel it moving, but I can see the sun moving. There is absolutely no incontrovertible evidence that the earth orbits the sun. You can’t believe all the junk NASA puts out. Look at all the mistakes they make. They even set fire to some of their rockets on the launch pad with astronauts inside. How can we possibly believe all the other nonsense they publish? The ABC never interviews anyone who can give the other side of these debates. Maurice and I demand some balance here.
I think all mainstream media including the ABC are establishment shills and I don’t bother with them. (Establishment being tweedle dee and tweedle dum politics and the interests that fund them). If you want the truth you won’t find it with any of those yo yo’s. They play charades with politicians and blab on about some irrelevant celebrity scandal. I gave up on them years ago. I can’t understand that you can still be drawn into this farce!
The ABC is deliberately pro Labor and under the prevailing Neocon philosophy that owns Australian politics at the moment, that means defending neo conservative policies most of the time; the same policies they derided the Liberal neocons for three years ago. They talk about Afghanistan as if it is a given, that Iraq is some sort of Western requirement and that getting enmeshed in other people’s business in the name of what, democracy, is our right! What a laugh! They defend the Labor party’s crumby handout to working mothers and act as if somehow the Liberal Neocons are fiscally irresponsible for offering a fairer deal. This is cr@p folks. Wake up! Stop reading and listening to these mind controlled morons and find out what is really happening. Don’t fall for the dialectic yet again and again.
MICHAEL JAMES: As usual you slide past the truth as you sail into your usual right-wing hyperbolic oratorio.
LET ME SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU. It was your idol, John Howard, who saw to it that most of the board of the ABC were his personal pals.
So when you rush to condemn people who remark how the ABC has become so ‘evenly balanced (?)’
I congratulate you Michael for one of history’s most inane statements. In your effort to slam the critics of the ABC you make the astonishing counter-accusation that the people reading Crikey don’t criticise this news sheet for being a tad left wing. Doh!
Crikey’s commentariat SUBSCRIBE to Crikey Michael. We subscribe!!! Whereas the ABC is funded by the taxpayer. And guess what Michael??? The taxpayer is entitled to be thought of as all the component parts of the political rainbow. Not just right-wing Catholics like you.
The ABC is a overtly biased partisan organisation. It does not present fair and balanced coverage of the news for example. It is leftist in its agenda and indeed fairly radically leftist.
The coverage of the AGW ‘debate’ for example was extraordinarily biased.
This article is nothing more than one leftist shill pretending counter arguments to the very telling criticisms of the MSM’s coverage and bias in this important debate.
It is even more telling that this criticism comes from the Chairman of ‘Their’ ABC.
The ABC don’t even pretend to be reasonable anymore. For the last 12 months I have sent them documents proving that there are no frigging people smugglers forcing refugees to come here, they ignore it completely and the next day prattle on and on about people smugglers.
When our courts say it is not people smuggling but send innocent people to jail because we have been forced to live up to our legal obligations this should be a scandal but the media totally ignore it.
Including bloody Crikey.
Maybe it’s time the ‘doctors for smoking’ were given a chance to put their views again too? I mean, let’s have some ‘balance’, eh?
Newman’s argument is astonishingly ignorant about what science is and what journalists do.
On which point it’s worth noting that the Aristotelian universe although proposed by the noted racist bigot and philosopher (as opposed to astronomer)was accepted for political reasons and demonstrably wrong.
It formed one of the bulwarks of religious persecution of scientists and even though a keen eye, careful measurements and logic had shown it was wrong (as early as 230BC) it persisted until the 1600s. We don’t have that long.
SHG’s point
I believe Newman’s comments were also predicated by many of the ABC’s editorial staff to blanket refusal to cover significant events such as Climategate. I know many of the ABC staff and let me tell you there is an in-house culture of climate change alarmism at Ultimo. They have every right to their personal opinion, but when that personal opinion is pushed as the offical editorial line then there is definitely a problem.
Martin and Christopher Dunne:
Anyone can demolish their own straw man!
Poor form guys!
(from Michael R. James, scientist, Brisbane)
Again, the Michael James 1:38 pm above is not me and is expressing opinions contrary to mine, which he is entitled to do. What is not right is that it can be confused with me (a working scientist and writer). Crikey assured me we would have clearly differentiated identities by today….
Last week’s deluge, on every day, of denialism from mostly IPA flunkies paid by the biggest carbon polluters in Australia, not one of whom is a scientist, was pretty awful. The one self-proclaimed scientist was Joanne Nova (a pseudonym) who actually has never worked as a scientist and whose self-described “book” that has 200,000 copies around the world in 11 languages is actually a 16 page pamphlet that was distributed for free at the Heartland Institute sceptics conference last year.
As Bernard Keane said last week, this was not providing “balance”, and as Eric Beecher describes today, I am appalled that the chairman of Our ABC is not only a denialist — not just a sceptic because this involves denial of all the evidence and argument of thousands of climate scientists — but is obviously actively promoting anti-scientific practices at the ABC.
I was wondering how long it would take this comment thread to degenerate into that tedious old polarised worldview of everything being “left” or “right”, as if people come pre-programmed with one of just two pre-packaged sets of beliefs, each unchanged since some time last century.
Answer: about 15 nanoseconds.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Both “ABC left-wing bias” and climate change in the one head mix? Yum! And someone’s dragged religion in as well. Ah, this will run and run!
The whole left wing right wing thing was invented during the French Revolution. Isn’t it time for something a little more up to date?
“Balance” isn’t about giving equal time to every opinion, whatever its level of validity. Balance is about fairness and honesty.
A journalist’s job isn’t just repeating whatever everyone wants to say on an issue in equal measure. When I was taught the craft of radio in the early ’80s, “he said she said” reportage was derided as “tape recorder journalism”. OK for beginners, perhaps, but not for a serious practitioner.
A journalist’s job is to uncover the truth and inform us. And if, after analysing the facts and applying reason, a journalist finds that what someone’s saying is just plain wrong, or looks dubious, they should have the independence to say so, not live in fear of being called “biased”.
Not all opinions are equal. If I need medical advice, I might seek a second opinion from another doctor, maybe a specialist. But I don’t seek out the views of a diesel mechanic, a hairdresser and an architect. For “balance”.
For an excellent piece pointing out the difference between “balance of opinion” and “balance of evidence”, try Prof Stephan Lewandowsky’s piece in The Drum today, Climate debate: opinion vs evidence.
@stilgherrian: All journalists and media organisations have an agenda of some kind, whether it’s pushing what they do believe in or suppressing what they don’t. In 2006 the United Nations released a report on the devastating impact of animal agriculture on the environment and its contribution to climate change (citing it as one of the top two or three contributors and responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases). In October 2009 a Worldwatch Institute declared the UN report’s figures – while high – to be an underestimate and put animal agriculture’s contribution at 51% of greenhouse gases.
The column inches on both these reports in mainstream media were and continue to be minute compared with all the ‘buy this eco-product/Prius, make sure your lightbulbs are energy-efficient, recycle stuff etc’ articles churned out.
Look hard enough and you’ll find that animal agriculture is a far bigger inconvenient truth than Al Gore and the majority of (meat-eating) mainstream media journalists would have us believe.
And yes I’m an animal rights advocate and unlike many journalists I’m not afraid to admit that and pretend that I’m unbiased, because the ‘truth’ is none of us is. And by journalists uncovering the ‘truth’ of a story, that ‘truth’ will be coloured by their own views.
Katrina Fox, I couldn’t agree more. The sooner journalism gets over it’s factory-age Myth of Objectivity and lets journalists put their biases on the table rather than trying to hide them under faux-neutrality the better for everyone.
No-one can be objective. Brains don’t work that way. But we can be transparent about out influences.
JamesK, have you already forgotten the September 2009 study How Partisan is the Press? Multiple Measures of Media Slant, which showed that the only branch of the ABC which showed significant political bias was ABC TV — and that was to the Coalition?
KATRINA FOX: For what it’s worth I am now 99.9% not eating meat-because of what it does to animals. However, I don’t seem to be able to give up fish.
Sorry; talk about being off post.
I think it’s time the skeptics came out of the long grass. It’s time to open up for debate topics such as ‘is the earth really round?’, and ‘is bacteria real or just an invention by doctors to get more antibacterial handwash in their offices?.
Presumbly it suits Stilgherrian’s ‘beliefs’ that the reporting and evident absence of investigative reporting of the AGW debate by the MSM has nothing to do with political ideology.
The fact remains that the reporting of this potentially catastrophic issue from one or both of the planet’s ecology or the human suffering due solely to pricing carbon dioxide emissions has clearly been lopsided, shrill and replete with lies and misinformation.
The implications for the catostrophist view is exactly the endgame for leftist progressive liberals whether they believe in AGW or not.
Funny that.
“Straw man” Richard?
So what is Newman’s argument? It goes like this: “I’m no scientist, but hey, I reckon the science is not conclusive, and even though the ABC got pilloried for airing some really bloody flaky documentaries by deniers, they don’t seem to be banging the denialist drum as loudly as I would like…”
Or, simply, “I’m the chairman of the Abe, but shit I wish I was Kerry Packer”
Yep, not a strawman, just a plank.
I’ve just now noticed Stilgherrian’s last post, one shill quoting another to suggest that the ABC is a Conservative cheer squad!
That tells any aware observer,f they didn’t already know, everything they need to know about Stilgherrian’s bias.
Katrina Fox @3.33pm and Stilgherrian,
The scientific method devised a means to cope with this, several centuries ago, and honed last century in the peer-review process. Journalists writing reportage (versus Opinion — Australian news media do not distinguish adequately between these, particularly, but not only, News Ltd) should adhere to similar rules of only reporting evidence-based “facts”.
Of course even journalistic pieces have a mini-peer review in the sense that there is always someone else (sub-editor, editor etc) who vets the piece before publication. In the scientific world the standards are very high (generally at least two independent reviewers if not 3, and also editors) and in the highest rated journals, even more scrutiny and pressure to prove the proposition being published. That is why slips are extraordinarily rare.
Peer review does not eliminate those innate biases Katrina mentions but it does impose a powerful self-discipline. And in fact it will often cause the author to alter their view or approach — -that is what being forced to make an evidence-based case does (except in the case of lawyers or lobbyists like the IPA or Minerals Council etc who are paid for adopting a bias).
For example I am immediately sceptical of that claim of 51% GHG coming from farmed animals as it seems way too high — I have logged the information but am not sure if I will have the time to check it out (which of course does not mean simply accepting what gets written in one report by one organization; as you know it can be very hard work trying to pin such information down to credible sources).
So that is why I was pretty offended by “Jo Nova’s” piece in the Drum last week, because she wants to gain credibility by claiming she is a scientist. Even if she had ever been a scientist, (which I don’t believe she ever was — an undergrad degree is completely different to actually going on to post-grad research) that would still not be enough. Is the ABC-Drum going to ascribe as much weight to the Jo Nova’s as people like me with a lifetime of discipline in research and peer-reviewed publishing? Apparently yes!
I propose that EVERY time there is an article having anything to do with space that we ensure that the “theorists” that espouse we never went to the moon are given EQUAL time to the said space scientist…..
That’s the new Newman balance
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/10/2842322.htm
And how did that come to pass? By the zany requirement that all ’sides of a debate’ must be given equal floorspace, no matter how loopy some of the ’sides’ may be. Or by top-down editorial influence?
And given that climate change skepticism is generally associated with the political right, when Newman admits that the ABC has been more ‘balanced’ on this ‘debate’ isn’t that a concession that they are following a rightward editorial direction – that is, a biased non-central direction?
Thanks Crikey for covering this important story. Crikey is now the home of independent political coverage in Australia.
The ABC has far more balance than the rest of our “bought and sold” media.
The media? “Group-think on climate change”? Doesn’t Newman read “the Oz”?
These sceptics are labelled and mocked because of the selectivity of their choices of “evidence”.
What’s the answer, to this “crisis”, sell off the ABC and let Murdoch’s “Limited News”, with their record, buy it and run it all?
Or just let them have the “managing Rights”?
“Former stockbroker and businessman”? Does he still hold “certain shares”?
JamesK, the thing about science is that it’s not about “beliefs” but hypotheses, evidence, reason etc. And also a peer review process.
But you don’t have to presume what my beliefs are, you can just ask. I’m not afraid of expressing them.
Now I’ll agree with you on one thing. If I’d had to rely on the mainstream media for my understanding of climate change, I’d be rooted. Instead, I’ve read science media — albeit popular media like New Scientist rather than scientific journals — where climate change has been discussed at length for three decades or more. And yes,I’ve read about potential flaws in the data, in the interpretation, in the modelling and how they’ve been dealt with. Or not, and that part of the framework discarded.
That’s how science works. It’s an on-going collaborative creation of understanding.
While I’m not a climate scientist, I was exposed to the scientific method in physics, chemistry, computing science and mathematics. So I can spot when someone’s using scientific methods and someone’s just hand-waving.
So what I “believe” (why are we putting “belief” in quotes?) is pretty much in line with the core consensus of climate scientists: That there’s been a substantial rise in atmospheric CO2 consistent with the rise of the Industrial Age. That there has been a general rise in global temperatures that tracks that within a significant margin of error. That while there are other things affecting climate, long term, none of these seem to be able to explain what’s happening by themselves. That computer models of how this might unfold in the future, based on our best knowledge, predict a variety of unfortunate end results from moderately to deeply fucked. That what has happened over the last 40 years has tracked what the predictions have been all along, within the margin of error of our understanding.
The droughts, bushfires and blizzards are pretty much as described in James Burke’s 1989 documentary After the Warming — a period of severe climatic instability around 2010.
I also believe that this interlocking framework of evidence and modelling is sufficiently robust that should problems be found with pieces of it here and there — and this is inevitable — that the faulty pieces can be discarded without the rest of it unravelling.
None of this depends on any one crucial ill-understood assumption. There are different strands of evidence which reinforce each other — which is why “Climategate” wasn’t really as significant as some folks want to make out. Especially is you read the emails in context.
That, again, is how science works. Things don’t become part of “mainstream science” unless there’s independent supporting evidence.
The implications for the catostrophist [sic] view is exactly the endgame for leftist progressive liberals whether they believe in AGW or not.
No, they are not, as this 10-minute video explaining the risk assessment of climate change, um, explains.
And finally, I believe that even if it turns out that humans aren’t causing the climate to change, the climate is changing. So building defences is a good plan. And if humans aren’t the cause, well, there’s no harm in re-building our economy so it’s not dependent on burning things and pissing CO2 in the atmosphere. Nothing wrong with learning to clean up after ourselves.
Of course, Mr Beecher’s post is about the role of the ABC’s chair in relation to editorial decisions. By buying into the climate change discussion I’ve become one of the people I despise: those who can’t even glance at an article which tangentially brushes one of their hot-button issues without repeating the same-old same-old dialogue — a process which sheds no new light and will change no-one’s mind. I hate myself.
VENISE - Hi, are you feeling better? Been worried about you!
I know it’s off topic, but I only eat chicken and fish, almost always! Like you, I’m pretty disgusted by the treatment of animals(cruel and unnecessary - pigs for example?) and amazed to learn of how much Co2 they emit? I saw a demo of an ‘automatic’ killing/skinning etc of cows in the 70’s(don’t think it’s in operation, but?perhaps I don’t want to know) and went right off beef. It was just horrific! I don’t think I could even describe it, except, there was no guarantee that said cow was not feeling the whole thing, or just ‘stunned’?
Wow! I also wonder about fertilizers etc!
@ Crikey! I do think Michael R. James, scientist, Brisbane has a point, don’t you?
Haven’t heard many holocaust deniers on Radio National lately? Better fix that while we’re at it. Maurice Newman’s other claim to notoriety is his refusal to sit on the ABC board (before he became chairman) with the staff-elected representative. He made many claims against the integrity of the incumbent (Ramona Koval) and was backed up by the Howard government which abolished the position so he could come back as chairman. The MSM and the feral commentariat then followed the government-Newman line, poo-poohing the idiocy of staff representation as being yet another example of extreme PC, but all failed to one notice that in Germany it is a legal requirement for corporations to elect staff reps on their boards. Newman is not a man one would trust with the concept of balance.
The fact that some people accuse the ABC of being ‘left’ or ‘radically left’ while others think it’s more to the ‘right’ is exactly the reason why - as Stilgherrian and I have pointed out - that journalists and media organisations should state their biases and be transparent.
Under an ‘editorial policy’ link it would be more honest to contain a statement (at the top, not buried in legalese) of the organisation’s political slant and biases. Same for individual reporters at the end of their stories or features. What do other journalists think about this?
PS: Venise and Liz45: if you like, click on my name to go to my website and email me re fish & animal agriculture & environment so I can give you links to check out.
The saddest thing is Eric’s description of the ABC as our “most important independent media organisation”. If only it were so. I fear it is already too late for the ABC. I wince each night watching the television news to see which News Ltd talking point they will blandly recycle. Their website is just a clearing house for Opposition press releases. And there is no fearless current affairs reporting as there once was.
The ABC has been nobbled by an unrepesentative, but noisy far right that not content with 60 per cent of the print media in this country being controlled by Citizen Rupert and his slaves, now is using the national broadcaster to push its barrow.
If Maurice Newman wants to complain about group think in the Australian media right now, he might start with the lazy, shallow and pack-driven reporting of politics that has allowed Tony Abbott to get away with blue murder.
As to climate change, Newman has no excuse. As others have noted, this is not a left-right issue. The overwhelming majority of scientists and major scientific organisations say human-induced global warming is a fact. Yet on blog after blog and forum after forum around the world, we are infested with paid agents of the fossil fuel industry deliberately spreading lies and misinformation to protect their grubby interests.
This is beyond tedium. And, of course, it is intended to wear people down - just as the tobacco industry sought to deny the harm done by its products for decades, despite the overwhelming scientific evdience to the contrary.
That Newman should attempt to pervert the editorial independence of the ABC with appeals for sham “balance” on this issue demands his immediate resignation.
Liz45
Make sure you watch Food Inc to remove any doubt about the food you eat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh8c9OUti4c&feature=PlayList&p=60018F0352ADE1A9&index=0&playnext=1
Setting to one side the argument as to whether it was appropriate for the ABC chairman to come out the way he did, surely he jests when he says that the anti-AGW brigade aren’t given sufficient air time! They’ve been afforded far more opportunities than warranted by their arguments. It’s an old technique that, complaining about how little coverage you’re really getting.
More on Strawmen..
By putting up a ludicrous, preposterous or facile example of a counter contemporary view e.g. flat earthers, you really are doing little more than indulging in another form of ad hominem attack. As best I can adjudge, those scientists and others who reject AGW as a done deal are inclined to cite evidence for their position..they don’t just say those who don’t agree with them are loonies and therefore should be burned at the stake (following a short re-education stint at Guantanamo).
Moreover, Newman had five examples or was it four; but no one has picked up on any of the others. Is there a reason for that? Could it be that his other less infllamatory examples don’t serve the argument you are attempting to mount i.e. that he has the makings of a heretic and must be burned.
I fear we are but a wafer away from a 15th Century religious manipulation whereby countless innocents will once again be burned as witches in the name of the new God, Science. Renounce your scepticism of the existence of God or be burned now!
LIZ: It was a real stinker. Pains in the chest for a week. Cough, cough, coughing non-stop. And at one stage I was close to going to the ER at the local hospital. It took two and a half weeks, out of my life. Ditto some of the people I had inadvertently given it to.
I saw a brief passing shot on the ABC where a live pig was being broiled by one of our so called ‘top companies’. I read in Richard Dawkins, I think, that the reason pigs are anathema to Jews and Muslims, is because pigs taste too close to human meat. And Fireies can’t bear having crackling because the smell is like roast human; this is all very depressing so I’ll get off the subject. Not Dawkins, Christopher Hitchins: God is Not Great or How Religion Poisons Everything.
On the AGW issue: I wonder why the scientists concerned didn’t go for, yes Global Warming, but the screaming need to control human breeding. Certainly difficult to enforce-especially when the Catholics wont tolerate birth control, or condoms against AIDS. Anything remotely likely to stop a baby from being conceived. Christ it’s a barbarous religion!
As for the denialists, the really depressing thing is they are not even wrong.
Enough chatter: thanks for enquiring about my health.
Cheers V
Cant see what the fuss is about. I used to have a preference for ABC seemingly balanced news. Seems it has not been so lately. Australian MSM has been very one sided on climate science of late. The big boss has every right to remind his professional employees to present a balanced and researched report. The fact he is not a journalist gives him a more open mind on the matter. I have been a reader of Time weekly for many years. I find they mostly give a balanced report, however there has not been one mention of climate change. Maybe Time Warner are involved in carbon trading and keeping a low profile. As for your claim of no professional science among the skeptics. Get real. 3000, including about 60 climate scientists in IPCC versus 31000, including around 3000 climate science people asking for more evidence and independent research. At least 4 well qualified skeptics outspoken in Australia who are regularly ridiculed by journalists.
Off-topic but I notice the Good Weekend (Fairfax colour mag) had a big spread abut Ian Plimer (lots of hearty photos of PIP in quasi-bush attire) although his views were bagged by hand picked critics towards the end of the otherwise v. friendly blurb. Seems the ABC is not the only outlet to be getting, er, cold feet on AGM.
To those bloggers who believe the IPA denialists or the likes of C. Monckton should be given equal time and who did not catch up with Stephan Lewandowsky’s article on the Drum, for me the essence is:
” Balanced media coverage of science requires recognition of the balance of evidence.”
And
“Instead, the very fact that many of the roughly 100 falsified “sceptic” talking points are continually reiterated in public draws a clear dividing line between healthy scepticism and arrogant denialism.
Sceptics seek answers and scrutinise arguments before accepting the current state of scientific knowledge as fact. Denialists dismiss sound arguments, solid data, and experimental evidence in favour of propositions that have long been shown to be flawed.
The world’s pre-eminent scientific journal, Nature, therefore refers to those who cling to long-debunked pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories while dismissing the findings of thousands of peer-reviewed studies by their true label — denialists.”
Another good justification for calling these people denialists rather than sceptics. And AGW is falsifiable, just that it might take another couple of decades to become undeniable by the denialists. By which time of course it will be far too late to do anything about it.
“Crikey is now the home of independent political coverage in Australia”, says Cuppa.
Actually, Crikey is the last redoubt of the climate cult. It now resembles Denialist catacombs like the Bolthole in its zealotry.
Hear the creaking floor-boards? Subscribers tip-toeing to the exit…
“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
I know many of you ‘feel’ the consensus of the climate change movement. It is endorsed by great authority and peer pressure.
It is interesting to note:
the sceptics are the ones who always want to debate the points of science - the AGW promoters are the ones who always claim the science is settled and we should listen to their authority.
Every sceptic and critical thinker knows this is something to beware!
“And AGW is falsifiable, just that it might take another couple of decades to become undeniable by the denialists. By which time of course it will be far too late to do anything about it.”
Indeed, M.R.James. It’s precisely the length of time needed to falsify or confirm the hypothesis that renders all debate about AGW pointless: (i) we know that nothing significant will be done to reduce CO2 emissions for several decades at best. In fact emissions will increase. Australia is already programmed to assist, both locally and by FF export. (ii) according to the cult, the end of the world is definite by (a) 2017 (Prince Charles), (b) well before 2050 (Prof. Kevin Anderson, climate modeller guru, who says virtual extinction will have occurred by mid-century). Even if you take a less Jonestownian view, debate is still irrelevant, because the lead times for emission reduction are so great. We know that wind-turbine infested Denmark has increased CO2 emissions. And what will all the other futile gestures achieve? Insulation, the Toyota Pius, more bikes? All admirable, but they will not affect global emissions. (iii) The failure is political. There’s no way Chindia and the rest of the recalcitrant sods will forgo anything. Period.
Which takes us back to “the science”, and the good news. Computer modelling in the infant science of climate is not like (a) evolution (b) lung cancer (c) gravity (d) the fact that the earth is a globe or (e) brain surgery. These fatuous analogies appear in every cult commentary. If you read all the CRU emails, you’d feel so much more optimistic. You’d probably even keep the beach house.
So: two reasons for cheer (a) the CO2 hypothesis will probably be weakly confirmed, but not enough to exterminate (b) you can’t do anything about it anyway.
The truly agnostic position on AGW would be to favour reducing greenhouse gas emissions because the cost of doing this if there were no global warming is way less than the cost of doing nothing if the world warms up as predicted. In other words, give the benefit of the doubt to global warming, as opposed to being apathetic and waiting for that certain il ne sait quoi to convince him.
I’m writing this after many erudite replies regarding Mr. Newman’s response to ABC reporting
of climate change issues. I’m responding as a senior science teacher who is getting fed up with the misinformation
about the science of climate change. That the professional credentials of ABC is being questioned after Lord
(HawHaw) Monkton’s diatriabe is bad enough. Worse is the quote from Newman that:
“Many of the people who have a different point of view on the climate science are respectable and credentialed scientists themselves” This is patently untrue as virtually none, if not actually any ,of the peer reviewed papers on climate change
contradict the hypothesis of human induced climate change.
It’s getting more and more difficult to attract bright students into pursuing the sciences, and the latest crop of deniers
(peddled out of the ignorance industry of right wing America) is helping to discourage more and more.
We need enthused youngsters to look up to the achievements of many great Australian scientists - not to see their efforts
debased by cant born of ignorance. Lets stand up to this nonsense.
To debate the science, first you have to understand the science?
I wouldn’t “debate” an astrophysisist, a car mechanic, or an electrician.
Many of those pushing this “delay”, under the auspices of “debate”, seem to have “brought their own lunch”, packed by someone else.
With the UN appointing an “outside panel” to review IPCC climate work there is clearly more than just a little concern about the present state of the debate and according to a new report in the Washington Post; “recently, several unsettling errors have been found in the climate panel reports issued in 2007”. The IPCC, which is mostly a collection of scientists volunteering their work, produced reports that had errors that ranged from mistaking how much of the Netherlands is below sea level to botching how fast glaciers in the Himalayans are expected to melt.
The Washington Post goes on to say: “Though the mistakes don’t undercut the broad consensus on global warning, they have shaken the credibility of climate scientists and given skeptics of global warming ammunition”.
If this were medical science and there were some evidence (that was able to see the light of day of course) of major side effects from a vaccine or drug, I would hope that sceptics would not be berated and ridiculed with “the science is settled - so shut the hell up!”
Anyway, the global data bases have serious problems that many feel render them useless for determining accurate long term temperature trends. Especially since most of the issues produce a warm bias in the data according to some recent reports. The Climategate whistleblower proved many insiders already knew i..e. the data was degrading and was being manipulated. It is accepted now that the IPCC and their supported scientists worked to remove the pesky Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and the period emailer Tom Wigley referred to as the “warm 1940s blip.” It looks like they also worked to pump up the recent warm cycle that ended in 2001.
Programmer Ian “Harry” Harris, in the Harry_Read_Me.txt file, commented about:
“[The] hopeless state of their (CRU) data base. No uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found…I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight”.
A recent Roger Pielke blog reports that The Stern Report has mysteriously changed 40% since its initial release. With the science in such disarray is there any wonder the public are sceptical?
My beef concerns who stands to gain out of this? The ludicrous solution of a game of “pass the parcel” between Third world feudal economies and first world polluters without any material change in pollution levels is what gets up my airways. I cannot see this farce benefiting anyone other than the global bankers acting as middle men, taking a percentage of every trade. This was going to be their new derivatives bubble to restart the funny money economy we have been living in since 1973 but it has been stopped in its tracks, even if for the wrong reasons.
What the heck has this got to do with the Newman anyway!!!!
Richard Wilson, clearly you don’t understand the proposition, which is that Maurice Newman wants to affect the reporting of the ABC because he has a particular point of view. That’s all.
Its obvious JamesK doesnt listen to the ABC’s Nat Prog breakfast with the incompetent Fran Kelly, or News Radios coverage from 5-30am with their completely slanted coverage of political matters, the former excellent interviewer on the 7-30 report O’Brien has lost his way completely, and even the continuity announcers in afternoon and evening shows on local radio have started becoming mouthpieces for the Coalition…its as plain as, but James K is renowned for only seeing what suits his stance of right wing religious fanaticism. A good ole catholic through and through, a good friend of the Christian order of brothers no doubt.
Incidentally I phoned Sen Conroys office and yes there will be an ABC staffer on the board again. An excellent move
Is this the same Maurice Newman who as ASX Chairman swallowed the whole Y2K scam hook line and sinker and spread the contagion from public sector to the private sector by insisting on a declaration by companies that they were “Y2K compliant” [whatever that meant] under threat of de-registration?
That particular piece of stupidity cost the country billions and should have resulted in his retirement. Some people have no shame.
i will be blunt and straight to the point,
how can this imbicile be chairman of the abc
this is the most amazing view i have ever heard expoused from some one in a postion of authority in the abc
the ABC’s sienfeld moment…
@J-BOY57 … Yep, and I nominate George Steinbrenner to replace him.
Wow what yet another load of unctuous self righteous piffle from Stilgherrian.
Twice now in this thread.
“We” didn’t did we? I did. A wry commentary on your post which was full of it…… quotation marks(sic) I mean.
I have absolutely no doubt that my scientific training was to a far higher extent than yours. Unlike you I know that counts for nought.
Your tiresome argument amounts to nothing more than the utterly dishonest on many levels science-is-settled drown-out-debate meme.
You are wrong about that. There are highly regarded scientists and atmospheric physicists who (unlike me) are deniers and there are a hell of alot more who either are sceptics or who if even accept that man does effect climate would also assert the effect is nowhere near the extent the IPCC suggests.
The first order of business in assessing scientific research is to know or respect the honesty and integrity of the unit or scientist authoring the work.
The are a relatively small coterie of scientists that dominate atmospheric physics and who contrive computer modelled simulations based on increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations with a staggering number of assumtions about the value of multiple variables.
There integrity has long been known suspect long before Climategate.
I have pointed that out on many occasions on these pages and years before Climategate.
Probably the most highly regarded 20th century scientist was Richard Feynman who famously demonstrated bias in scientific studies elute only slowly over time as the originally accepted belief become more widely recognised as false. He also said:
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
Don’t worry tho’ Stilgherrian…..when it comes to science you’re clearly no expert.
“A journalist’s job is to uncover the truth and inform us.”
Awesome. A nutty thread finally went apesh*t.
JamesK, do you really need all that name-calling in one comment? It does get a bit… what’s the word…? Tiresome.
God jamesK did you have a pinch of snuff and wave a frilly hanky about in high dudgeon before punching out that one?
While you’re flinging around out of context quotes here’s a story from the same person
Some years ago I had a conversation with a layman about flying saucers — because I am scientific I know all about flying saucers! I said “I don’t think there are flying saucers’. So my antagonist said, “Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it’s impossible?” “No”, I said, “I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely”. At that he said, “You are very unscientific. If you can’t prove it impossible then how can you say that it’s unlikely?” But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible.
(Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law. Cornell University Messenger Lectures (1964) )
Don’t hate your self Stilgherrian. Your comment had relevance and these pages are about conversation which is a very old and imprecise but also very human thing.
Sounds like our new ABC director has a case of Murdochitis. He wants to say jump and have all of the sub-editors ask him how high. It’s time to remove this clown and start lopping the deadwood that installed him from the board.
It would be highly embarrassing to see the ABC follow through with its regional broadcasting plans while degenerating into a FOX News style journalistic parody.
The ABC has been leaning right for decades. It’s time to bring it back to the centre.
VENISE - It sounds awful. Are you sure you didn’t have pneumonia or pleurisy? My daughter in law had pneumonia a couple of yrs ago - a healthy young woman in her early 40’s - it had affected the 3 lobes in each lung - she was a very sick person for several wks, hospitalized on oxygen. No real explanation, except that her Mother had died from cancer and her 2 daughters looked after her at home, and the final weeks were pretty horrific and traumatic for them all. I was not surprised that she got sick? I’ve heard similar stories in the last few yrs.
A woman I know had to take a week off work very recently - a virus that knocked her too. Have yourself checked out just in case, don’t want pneumonia? I hope you’re feeling better each day!
(I’m sure people won’t mind me enquiring about your health, or your response. If they do, well????)
I’ve been reading and listening to what’s going on in the US re the Republicans etc and Climate Change, and it seems to be much the same here. A big campaign to create confusion about the need to stop pollution via fossil fuels, and those who have much to lose via profits etc are using whatever and whoever they can to fight their cause. Surprise, surprise. Isn’t the whole question about science is that it’s an evolving activity, and questioning and not being 100% ‘correct’ is part of being a scientist. I’m convinced that the overwhelming number of scientists believe that human beings are responsible, and that we need to turn this around. I just want them to get on with it now! Sick of all the rubbish! The tobacco lobby did the same thing re cigarettes - many so-called scientists(paid for by the tobacco lobby) lied their heads off! I think the tobacco companies should be charged with contributory manslaughter at least!
As for the catholic church. You already know my attitude to this misogynist organization that wantonly allows people to die through its so-called ‘god’s teachings’? What rubbish. It’s a deliberate ploy to keep people under control, particularly women. The BS re condoms is criminal in my view. People dying from AIDS because of their destructive manipulation of peoples’ minds. They have no shame! It’s interesting to note, that in this forum anyway, those who keep on spewing out BS about the church are men. Wouldn’t have a bloody clue how it is to be pregnant, give birth, let alone worrying about an unwanted pregnancy. Thankfully I saw through the hypocrisy at the age of 19 with only 2 out of my 3 kids then. I could’ve died with the third one, or he could’ve as well - that was enough for me. However it was used later as ‘proof’ that I didn’t love kids - I had my youngest blond haired cherub on my knee at the time! Amazing! They have a lot to answer for too! Manslaughter???
I’ve heard that comment re pork before. Doesn’t bear thinking about too much does it?
JEEBUS - I agree with you! I’m always frustrated by the ABC being content to just ‘tow the party(right wing) line’? How much indepth investigation goes into the invasions of both Iraq & Afghanistan for example? Or the democratically elected govt of Venezuela, or even why the people of Haiti were so vulnerable and so many died via the earthquake, while Cuba and Chile have had earthquakes of similar or higher verocity, and come out of it relatively unscathed by comparison. Cuba only 2 deaths, and Chile several hundreds only. While this is extremely sad, it could’ve been worse. The secret? the govts of these countries put the people first and built accordingly, while Haiti has a history of US/French/UN invasion/intervention and focused on the resources and to hell with the people - they’re suffering now under US occupation as well! Food and medical assistance refused to land at the US controlled air base! Horrific! Didn’t find this out via the ABC though! It’s only highlighted the alleged violence and rapes etc? Interesting, that both Cuba & Venezuela were the first in the country with lifesaving medical teams and food etc? The US? Sent in the military - AGAIN!
It’s not a question of leaning right or leaning left, it’s about the taxpayer funded ABC providing a non-partisan, non-advertiser pleasing, non-ratings driven, unbiased news and current affairs service.
I don’t care if it was climate change, the maternity leave kerfuffle or anything else.
I want unbiased information so that I can make up my own mind based on the evidence.
Unfortunately all one has to do is look at the ‘breakthrough in fighting cancer’ stories that get peddled by the media to see how journalists have been captured by special interests.
When was the last time that a journalist said “we have been told for two decades that pharmaceutical companies were close to finding a cure for XXX cancer. What makes your new wonder drug different from any of the thousands of others that have been announced by media release and parrotted uncritically by the media?”.
Rather than providing uncritical news and analysis, too aften the media acts as a mouthpiece for vested interests.
The ABC is no better than the commercial media, and the ABC Chairman’s call for an unbiased viewpoint is long overdue.
The fact that one of his examples was climate change is in some ways a distraction, however he was speaking across a range of issues.
Newman stated “there should be no public perception that there is such a thing as an `ABC view’ — we must be neither believers nor atheists but agnostics who acknowledge people have a right to make up their own minds”.
That is the crux of the matter.
Without the press releases from politicans and corporations the MSM is empty of content which means all who are spinning get a pretty free run.
Is Maurice Newman, chairman of the ABC board, the person responsible for the rash of cheap, historical docos, wherein all sorts of mysterious experts take the audience into the Valley of the Kings, and through the appalling actors/actresses posing as Cleopatra and her minions. Asking the sort of breathless questions as: Was Queen Hatshepsut really a man?
The sort of docos which aren’t suitable for any age person who may be verging on intelligence. Dead safe, of course, for androgenous (spelt wrong) ten year olds.
Where are the people who criticise the ABC being left/right of centre but don’t give a damn about the quality of the programming?
John Howard should have been crucified for the legacy he left behind him; not been made a chairman of the football board, /whatever.
BTW: Just in case anyone should be interested these docos were not just put on through the holiday season. They existed long afterwards.
They have got another one on at the moment on the origins of man. Interesting subject, but holy moley if the audience didn’t already know man’s ancestors emerged about four million years ago and that the possible exact ancestor emerged in the Rift Valley approx one hundred and thirty-five thousand years ago.
then there was the total stinker about a race of people who came across an island in the Pacific. Who-wait for it-found their food source to be shrinking, and who evolved downwards, in the space of three thousand years. Or something.
Mr Newman please spend less money on dimly lit English hysterical novels and more money on semi-intelligent subjects
PS: Creationists, don’t read the above comment. It might challenge your thought processes.
Couple of things Venise
Those fracking docos drive me crazy. I come over all Elvis and start lookin round for my revolver. How do they get on the ABC??
mispelled? not if you meant male parthenogenesis where the embryo contains only paternal chromosomes. Still you could have been attempting a pun which is quite funny.
Lastly it won’t challenge their thought processes ‘cause they have none. difference between belief and knowledge, science and religion MPM and everyone else.
really lastly glad you’re better wear a hat and scarf (maybe a spencer if it’s really cold) (mums standard advice)
Those doccos are there because the ABC doesn’t make doccos any more.
SBH: Hell, I ain’t that old; certainly not in the mind. However, now that I’ve got your attention…I’ve just tweaked the flexer- tendon in my groin. Did it at the gym this morning.
Would you recommend heat or cold to help ease the pain? I’m quite serious, it does hurt.
BAAL: Maybe they don’t but they are given enough money for programming; so why can’t they spend our money on semi-literate English stuff. Why not French or other parts of Europe-I know they will say ‘that’s SBS’s department.
BTW: AB bloody C: If I have to look at another English river, I’ll throw up! Do something useful; re-run the Great Gardens of the World, anything!
one can ring and write to the abc all you get is abuse if you do not think they are covering something very well.
Try.
They only concentrate on News Poll never mention Essential and Morgan which means the puiblic do not have a average view of polls.
They are there i thought to report on everything not cherry pick.
i think the only thing to make them realise is not to listen or write on blogs or react in any way i decided that some time ago. if some one realises that their customer base is going they usually try to address it well in the company i worked for they did any way but perhaps not in the media.
I am so fed up with their opinion that is exactly why i do not read the opinion pieces in the editorials the papers are only good for the local news. e.g. the country fairs or the social page the birth deaths etc. the rest i dont bother with.
And the only they get in to the house is by accident some one brings it leaves think i want it etc.
i never ever buy a news paper.
Now i only watch question time and come here sometimes.
the way the abc also put things together there is nothing positive;
Today it was the premiers dont like the health policy and no mention of the ones that do
e.g. David Bartlett and i think from what i heard the wa. premier. No they had to say the negative off the radio when again.
It such a depressing place to go to the abc the best story i noticed this week was the one bout the Baby Elephant now i can take more of that.
VENISE - no, they are not given ‘enough money for programming’. If they were then they would support an independent docco making culture in Oz.
o wonder if Mr. Scott ever read here
Further to the ABC’s docco dearth check out Tom Zubrycki’s piece http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/by/tom-zubrycki
i realize the Minister is NOT supposed to have any in put in to the ABC but i think
ITS TIME Mr Conroy. time to let them know that we think our taxes are not being spent correctly. they are such an opinated lot .
who directs what who decides what is printed not printed etc. is there an up manager
who decides on the headlines etc. I would like to see some faces of these people on the net and then explain to us each of their positions. How the news in put together where they sauce it from too much from the msm i think.
The abc was once the Bastian of our society. where have you gone.
I am not one of your intellectuals writing here just an ordinary grandma but i can see the difference in the abc in about the last 5 year s that really worries me as an australian and a tax payer.
Cold Venise, cold first. It is imperative that you reduce the inflamation first. Ibuprophen or diclofenac (I’d go 50 mgs if its really painful) will help but remember that diclofenac is toxic to vultures so if your will contains a clause specifying a tibetan sky burial play it safe and go for the ibuprophen (makes me come out in lumps but some people love it).
once the pain has subsided and you find the bit tight or stiff try a nice wheat bag (2 mins in the microwave on high)
The elephant story was good but why does Sydney have to turn everything into such a queeny drama. We (Melbourne) had a baby elephant with none of that silliness. primadonas
the best doco on the past year was Darwin o for more of that.
i beleive a good one starts this week on modern decoration of the 18Th century.
I admire William Morriss a drama done on real people of thier time. the bbc
do have some good stuff
the programes so far this year have been well dismal. Its seems they only have enough funding to buy programs for the winter. lets see.
Also they do not seem to understand what we want the collectors was moved now they have had complaints so back it goes. if you had an audience of 1.5 million watching would you not have left it where it was in the first place,
f
final word Mr. Beecher would you be so good as to Ring Mr. Scott and ask him to read what we think.
SBH - That’s because that baby in Melbourne was a girl one! She just got on with it - was born, no dramas, started to walk and have a chat with the family!
The boys are such sooks????????Hiding in the womb and playing dead? I’ve seen kids holding their breath during a temper tantrum, but in the womb?????
Truly! Talk about an attention seeker????????
That Mum is in for biiiiiggggg trouble!He’ll end up causing her grief?????
(seriously, I think it’s a lovely story. I’m glad he’s fine! what a cutie?)
snigger
oh geezus madame moderator the nark engine picks that up??!
VENISE - It sounds awful. Are you sure you didn’t have pneumonia or pleurisy? My daughter in law had pneumonia a couple of yrs ago - a healthy young woman in her early 40’s - it had affected the 3 lobes in each lung - she was a very sick person for several wks, hospitalized on oxygen. No real explanation, except that her Mother had died from cancer and her 2 daughters looked after her at home, and the final weeks were pretty horrific and traumatic for them all. I was not surprised that she got sick? I’ve heard similar stories in the last few yrs.
A woman I know had to take a week off work very recently - a virus that knocked her too. Have yourself checked out just in case, don’t want pneumonia? I hope you’re feeling better each day!
(I’m sure people won’t mind me enquiring about your health, or your response. If they do, well????)
I tried to do this before, but it’s still awaiting moderation? Don’t understand!
I know why I had to wait? I needed to renew my subscription? Oooopps!
I notice Stilgherrian now accuses me of name calling.
In fact apparently way too much of it in one post according to the self anointed One. Where exactly in my post, Stilgherrian, am I guilty of “name calling”?
I see you also utilise the old we-have-to-act-in-case-of-the-worse-case-scenario meme as well as the “peer-review” farcical defense.
Peer review in climate science is mutual back rub among a small set of climate scientists and all inappropriately aware of each other reviewing one another’s papers. This was identified many years ago in the Wegman Senate investigation of Mann’s infamously dishonest and totally nonscientific hockey stick graph much abused by the IPCC in its scaremongering.
When Climate Research published a paper dissenting from the “consensus,” Jones demanded that the journal “rid itself of this troublesome editor,” and Mann advised that “we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers.”
When Geophysical Research Letters also published papers not to the approval of the small coterie of ‘peers’ in so called climate science, Dr. Tom Wigley suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to “get him ousted.” They succeeded.
Who could forget Dr. Jones assurance to Dr. Mann, “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
The headline in the Wall Street Journal Europe is unimproveable: “How To Forge A Consensus.” Pressuring publishers, firing editors, blacklisting scientists: That’s “peer review,” climate-style.
@VENISE
((((((I think, that the reason pigs are anathema to Jews and Muslims, is because pigs taste too close to human meat.)))))))
The reasons might be more scientific than we think, maybe even medicinal….the pig is supposed to have some type of poison gland somewhere near the hoof. …it secretes sutoxins or something like that, can’t quite remember the name, but obviously whatever it is it remains in the meat.
The theory is that it causes the body to stress which weakens the immune system rendering one more suseptible to bronchial infections….AAAAchoooo!!!…excuse me.
LIZ: Ooopps indeed!
I did think it was pneumonia which is why I nearly went to the ER ward at the local hospital. I called a locum who gave me three tablets, one for a strong antibiotic and two pain killers (Just as well I’m not into pain killers for fun). The following morning I felt as if I was trudging through Golden Syrup-it was hard to move. Got to the leech and he followed up with the same diagnosis as the locum (How do you spell that word?. Much later I rang him to ask about the X-rays he asked me to have.
But he didn’t ring back. I’ve been so hysterical with joy to find I’m still alive that I didn’t follow through. To be fair, I think he would have rung me back if I was dead.
SBH: Thank you! I’ve been following your instructions. First I rubbed in some Rapigel (horse liniment) I then put an ice pack on it. This caused the area to go dead. But it stopped the pain.
I’ve put the wheat bag thingy into the microwave and am just about to turn it on, when I decided to say thank you first.
Cheers V
PS: to both of you. Agreed, typical Sydney! And typically male! All that hiding and centre-staging. But he’s gorgeous; not quite as divine as the Melbourne baby. Also, I thought the little cracker looked a bit lost.
Having found Mum he’ll be OK very soon. 
MY SAY: I was furious that the AB bloody C moved The Collectors to a different time slot. Who gets to watch it at 6.30 on a Sunday? Everyone is cooking at that time.
VENISE: A very grave error. The only panel show with real information, but without comedians or a screaming live audience. Fair to conclude the ABC does not know what it is doing
VENISE - I think you should check with the doctor re the X-rays? I’m sure he’d have let you know if you were dead! (giggle giggle - sorry!)I’m so pleased that you’re not! Who will make me laugh re the catholic church if you’re not there/here? I sympathize re the pulled flexor-tendon. As a person with tenosynovitis and other diseases involving tendons, I have much sympathy. My experience has been, if one doesn’t work, try the other? Hot baths might help too! And rest until it’s OK! If I’d known that and what was happening to me, I wouldn’t be in constant pain after 26 yrs? Take care!
I like the ‘AB bloody C’ too, and I agree about The Collectors - whose decision was that? Some bloke who never prepares evening meals I’d say!Like 0ne of those pompous right wing god-botherers on here?
MY SAY - Thought you were a woman too! Now there’s SBH - I think the same, but I could be wrong!
PS. VENISE - Don’t leave the wheat bag in the microwave too long! I’ve heard of quite awful results - exploding wheat bags, not good!
I’m looking forward to seeing the “little cracker” on the news. I kept waiting for him to blink? I couldn’t tell whether he was looking or what! Quite strange! Did anyone see the doco about the young male elephants who were acting violently - out of character - and killed some humans. Psychologists worked out, that when they were little “crackers” (love that)they’d experienced their mums and other family members being brutally killed (by Idi Amin’s stooges or poachers etc) and they were traumatized, like PTSD in humans. It was very moving. When they applied nurturing practices etc to prevent their male hormones being too high, the violence stopped - no more deaths. I was in tears by the end of it. I love elephants for their brains and their caring and supportive actions - particularly the females. They’re just lovely creatures aren’t they? Whales are the same! If only humans……………………
two minute or as per instructions on the pack Venise, if heat doesn’t help then the only help is …shudder… rest and doing nothing.
SBH: I swear I can feel some relief. Truly. But gee the warmth was terrific after the icy blast I gave it.
LIZ: I’ve just finished talking to him. I rang him. He says I had an infection (Oh really?) and that I should be perfectly alright. Ho hum. Grrr
welcome Venise
Only One word to characterize such a great post “WOW” that was a very interesting read
such a wonderful information for me..i am really impress it.
Livea Diet Supplement
VENISE - Isn’t the doctor supposed to ask you if you’re alright? Rather than tell you! Strange! Has the infection gone, that’s the point I think! If you’re still feeling grotty you should go back perhaps! I hope I don’t get it, sounds ghastly to say the least!
JAMESK - I remember the warnings re climate change decades/years ago. The nonsense going on now is pretty stupid. The Republicans in the US are going on with the same nonsense, and the denialists are having a field day - as they are with the health care legislation. It’s right wing nonsense that is just wasting time in my view. All the hot air(sorry about the pun) is really tedious. I just want govts to get on with it before it’s too late. This blokey thing(it seems to me, mostly blokes) is a ‘my dick’s better/bigger than yours’ typical blokey rubbish. The SA politicians are doing it with who’s tougher on crime BS that they pull out at every election., NSW will be next, the Feds are doing it over ‘border control’ and paid maternity leave. God it’s so boring! Sick to death of it!
Who’s employing/paying the overseas denialists? That’ll say a lot!Who’s paying the Australian people, apart from the big mining companies, whose filth and BS is causing the problem anyway!
@LIZ45 - for sure -it’s a matter of who is footing the bills and what is their agenda -ours? a habitable sustainable planet for our kids & grand kids -keep it up and thanks for the intelligent well though out posts. cheers
ALEXANDER - Thank you! How’s that dear little baby girl going? (I do have the right person don’t I?) Going out to friends - I’m taking half the dinner? Better go!
Cheers to you too!
It is never too late:
92yo charged with husband’s murder. This beauty from ABC “just In”.
Yeah! I read it. I wonder how long they’d been married? Perhaps she just got sick of being bored to death.
They wont throw in in gaol: will they?
Lots of indignation spewed out in the comments so far. Most of you are just plain wrong. The ABC’s editors are independent, but here’s the killer. They are not above criticism. They should be open to criticism from all quarters as the price they pay for their independence. Editorial independence does not mean you hold office without question.
I suspect what got you all upset was not the attack on editorial independence, but the subject of climate change. Someone in considerable authority has questioned the articles of faith of the left, the ABC’s staff, Crikey bloggers and commenters, and their fellow travellers. They had achieved a sanctimonious monopoly on how the subject was presented on the ABC, and now someone was calling them on their own journalistic ethics. And he was not only right, he was right to do so.
Venise:
It might have been his irritating habit of playing solitary ’ patience’, year in year out, not saying much. The vegemite lid never put back.His underpants on top of the laundry basket instead of inside. His sniffle and nose noises. His loathsome hearing aids on the bedside table.
Year in year out.
Who knows? There are limits.
GERARD: Yes indeed!
Venise:
There is nothing like love and a bit of balance from the ABC’s “just in”.
92yo murder accused ‘loved husband deeply’
Updated 6 hours 17 minutes ago
Quote ABC, Just in. “A family friend of an elderly woman accused of killing her 98-year-old husband, says she loved him deeply”. Unquote
It is clear that love is a dangerous state to be in. Where are the Consumer- Watchdogs or Choice when it comes to protect the innocent? Next time someone says the word ‘love’, call triple 000 immediately and dive under the table. Give me some hope in my dotage.
It is often too late.
CAPTAIN COL: If you had bothered to read the comments carefully you would have noticed that I criticised the ABC, and Mr Maurice Newman for the wretched drivel which they would have us believe is good programming. And a few people agreed with me.
Please enlighten me as to the value of their recent historical docos. One wretchedly unfortunate one where assorted scientists had come across a Pacific island. We were asked to believe that a group of sea going people had arrived by there-in a period when there had been no history of sea-going native peoples. These hapless adventurers found over a period of two thousand years that their food supply was much reduced and had, over a short period of time, evolved downwards.
This together with inane programs asking “Was Queen Hapshesut really a man?” And sundry other gems, all complete with dreadful actors swanning around pretending to be Cleopatra and her assorted handmaidens. It gets worse, but I shan’t bother you with further horrors.
Capn, this is about more than someones political slant. Typically, the gumnt says something, the opposition makes an outrageous demonstrably untrue statement, the ABC journo picks it up and says “the gumnt is under fire over xyz” gumnt ministers are then asked to address patent nonsense and the ABC intones “gumnt in trouble over XYZ claims’
It happens again and again and neither the issue or the party is important. What’s lacking is any kind of analytical filter which says ” now your talking crap. I know its crap, it can be easily shown to be crap and I won’t lower myself to repeat, uncritically, this crap”
Because there’s no fun in that approach, it doesn’t hook in the ratings and its duller and harder work. In a democracy we deserve better from the news service we fund and we expect to be high quality and impartial.
Gerard, although I do tend towards the humourless I feel that that tragic story of a woman suffering severe dementia may not necessarily be the subject of tastefull humour. .
SBH:
Not much humour is tastefull. Depressing isn’t it?
To pit anything with intellectual or thoughtful contents against the commercial world is difficult. The ABC is fighting for ratings and popularity against a world dominated by money merchants catering down for the fish and chips crowds chewing their cud at the food courts of emptyness.
The idea that AGW is factual does not sit well with the opposition, so, with the habitual mantra by the Libs accusing the ABC of pro ALP bias, the denialists have been give their acreage and for weeks now at ABC The Drum/Unleashed are being allowed to regurgitate their rants against climate change. This is done with the hope the ratings will go up. It is increasingly difficult to make a cracker, isn’t it?
The Fish & Chips will replace the table set for gourmet dinners and emptyness will grow fatter.
SBH: Why do you imagine the lady has dementia?
VENISE - The first thing I thought of when I heard this sad news story, was that her husband may have been suffering and it was euthanasia out of love or accident. Why would someone wait until this age to get rid of someone? And if he/she did have dementia, why wasn’t she/they helped? I bet I’m close to the truth!
SBH - I’ve never found heartbreaking stories to resemble any form of humour! I just hope she’s being cared for! Surely she wouldn’t be in jail - would she? No, we’re a caring society aren’t we???
LIZ: Yes it could have been as you suggest; big but, surely at ninety-eight both parties must have been aware that he didn’t have long to live?
Also, why didn’t she use the same formula to put an end to her own life?
I left a post for you and Meski on “Sport yes, abuse no”.
Oh sorry Venise, I was away. I read a report saying that she suffered from severe dementia.
VENISE - They must have been reasonably OK to still be living at home???Being old isn’t an illness, why would you kill yourself if you’re OK? Maybe she was suffering from dementia(many types, including Alzheimers?). If so, why were they being neglected, or were they?
We don’t look after old and vulnerable people very well - for instance, nurses caring for aged people receive $300 less per week than other nurses - says it all really doesn’t it? In Holland, all beds in nursing homes are water beds(prevents bed sores for instance) run by the govt, and staffing is more than adequate etc. Privately run places put profits first - they should be govt run and staffed, and nurses paid decent money! We could just lower the budget to Defence and issue a warning re buying paintings, leather lounges and staying at exotic hotels for conferences - $47 BILLION wasted!
(SMH last Tuesdday!)
There’s also an ageist attitude in this society. Being old(or older) lessens your right to be treated as a person?? I just hope she has family who are looking after her lovingly! Or a nursing home staffed with people who cared for my little Mum for the last 10 yrs of her life! Special people they were!
LIZ: The longer the authorities take to disclose the details the more it will look like euthanasia. IMHO
LIZ: Maybe someone from the ABC does read some of the criticisms from the likes of us.
They announced tonight that ‘The Collectors” is returning from Sunday night oblivion at 6.30pm, back to Friday nights @ 8.30pm. Olé
The Collectors at 8pm NOT 8.30pm
Liz 45
The greatest kick is the one up the groins of the elderly. I totally agree that Australian care for the elderly is wanting.
My parents decided not to risk the urine scented age care in Australia and returned to their home country of Holland. A wise move. They enjoyed a care that we could not even imagine here. We visited them often and each time I was astonished. There is no difference with having money or not. The aged are all given excellent care at different levels throughout their ageing process. Of course, their much higher level of taxation ensures a general good health care and other social infrastructures. We in Australia delight in taxation minimisation and then complain.
Two years ago I noticed an old man being pushed by a nurse on a wheel chair without a foot board to rest his feet on. He was beyond protesting when his feet crumbled backwards and under the wheelchair with the nurse indifferent to his agony. When I pointed out the obvious torture, she smiled and said, ” he can lift his feet”. I almost killed her.
GERARD - What a horrific story. I’d feel like you did! I remember before my father died in a private nursing home, a male nurse was whining about putting my fathers few clothes in his drawer - he didn’t know I was in the room! I did the nut, told him to stay away from my father in future, and reported him. My father, at that stage was unable to complain about anything much, except when he was in pain! I didn’t see that bloke again, and I don’t care if he got the sack! Should be digging ditches, using a computer? not working with weak and vulnerable people. My dad was about 6 stone when he died - tragic!
The nurse you referred to was committing a crime - causing pain and suffering! I think it should’ve been treated in the same manner as if she physically struck that poor man. Older men are also susceptible to osteoporosis (almost as high a stat as older women) and she could’ve broken several bones in his foot - there’s heaps to break?
I found out about the great care in Holland via a friend. Like you I was astonished, and this was over 25 yrs ago! Water beds and wonderful care - the least the elderly and vulnerable deserve!
Of course, as for taxation, it’s a question of where it’s spent. $48 BILLION wasted by the Defence people would do heaps for the health of all of us? (Last Tuesday’s SMH has the details - disgraceful?) Giving subsidies to wealthy mining companies? A new submarine? No, sorry folks, no money to care for you when you’re old, weak and dependant?
I’m off to take my mate shopping!
BAAL: Yes at 8pm on Friday nights. I apologise for my error.