Why are supposedly quality journalists so misguided on climate change?
Paul Kelly and Greg Sheridan have clearly taken on board the alarmist global warming narrative.
Never mind the performance of the hacks, what has gone wrong at the top of the profession and the once-were reputable newspapers?
Global warming and the reduction of CO2 emissions will probably be seen as the signature issue of public policy at the start of the third Millenium alongside the emerging role of China.
In this situation, it behoves journalists who have access to a large readership among the educated public to obtain the best grasp of the issues that they can manage, given their training and their capabilities.
This does not mean that they have to become experts in the field or make it a major focus of their output, given that their briefs are wide-ranging.
In view of their reach and their potential impact on public opinion they had better take care that the opinions that they express on signature issues are carefully considered and offered with a warning when they are operating outside their areas of competence.
Area of competence are those where they have engaged with experts in the field over a long time to become familiar with the complexities and nuances of the subject matter. In these areas they will be clear about the differences of opinion that are held by professionals and experts in the field and if they are not experts themselves they had better not commit to one side or the other.
Warming emerged as an issue during the 1990s and it became a matter of significant concern after the turn of the century. This means that journalists have had two decades to do their homework on the topic. During this time they should have discovered the very wide gap between the views that the mainstream media have made into the dominant narrative and the views offered by a small galaxy of climate science stars who are flatly opposed to alarmism.
Responsible commentators should have discovered this situation and told their readers about it. They could also be expected to read enough of the more accessible literature and talked to enough well-informed people to realise how the field has been invaded by politics. They should know how alarmism is driven by various interest groups inside and outside the climate science community.
Kelly and Sheridan are pre-eminently political commentators and of all people they should be alert to the political currents that drive public debates on controversial issues.
As for coming to grips with the issue, we are talking about two decades or more. Warming did not emerge in the last year two years like the so-called pandemic where working journalist can be allowed more time to come to grips with the science and the conflicting opinions among the people who are supposed to be the experts.
United Nations Advises Showering Only 3 Times A Week and other inanities.
Jordan Peterson Educates Climate Activist Student with FACTS and LOGIC!
Quality? According to some, perhaps. Some time in the days preceding Anzac Day in 2018 The Australian published an article by Kelly on one of the battles on the Western Front in which Australians were the main participants. He did not mention artillery once. Quality? No.
“In 2006, the United Nations concluded that livestock emissions contribute to climate change.
Mitloehner convinced the U.N. to recant the claim in 2010.
https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/prof-debunks-flatulence-as-major-cause-of-global-warming/article_1c6c9c5e-2dbb-11e2-9e51-0019bb2963f4.html
In 2011, head of IPCC apologises for IPCC 2007 junk science claim that glaciers would be gone by 2035 …
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/20/himalayan-glaciers-melt-claims-false-ipcc
… like “changing light globes will save the planet,” the “evil cow farts” lie will not die for the climate doomsday cult.
Kelly and Sheridan are hacks just like the rest and parrot the narrative as happily as they do. They just manage to sound less stupid most of the time, which isn’t that hard.
A broken weather vane offers more stable opinion than either Sheridan or Kelly but I reserve my main opprobrium for the decrepit Sheridan…….a dribbling lightweight who pretends, when it suits him, to be conservative or centre-right. The truth is that he’s neither but what’s worse is that he’s a fence sitter and bases his puerile commentary on whichever way the wind is blowing on a particular day. His Trump commentary over the last five years has been a disgrace. I despise Sheridan.
You’re being a little unfair to Kelly and Sheridan – though what you say is absolutely on the money.
It’s instructive to go back and read an article (any article) in a reasonable quality newspaper (feel free to pick any one you like) from, say, 50 years ago.
Then compare that against the work of whoever you consider to be in the top, say, 10% of mainstream media journalists today.
Not only would a modern journalist have failed to produce a work approaching the same order of quality…but most modern readers would have been unable to understand it if he had.
You can do the same thing with school or University examination papers.
Decay is not just visible but waving its arms and flashing its lights.
My guess is they choose to be “misguided” as they are moral cowards like so many others and just keep feeding the chooks.
It is indeed shocking to see/hear/read one of the elite (or one who desires to be perceived as such) using a mouthpiece of the elite, to support a project of the elite which is designed to provide the greatest benefits and carry the least risk for, the elite.
There’s a common factor in there somewhere, but it has me baffled.
They are entitled to their opinions. Doesn’t entitle them to a pulpit. If they have a pulpit and push a company line for pay it makes them whores.
Kelly should stick to his music. I don’t listen to that either.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Kelly & Sheridan are just better quality hacks writing to order.
Adam Creighton is the only print journalist I can think of who has an independent mind.
“Adam Creighton is the only print journalist I can think of who has an independent mind.”
He did once…..not sure anymore.
Well this modern reader often fails to understand what modern ‘journalists’ write. Even in non-political, pure news stories, the writing is appalling and doesn’t make sense.
Et tu, Adam?
You’re all missing the point (makes you poor journalists…):
The MSM is the enemy of the people
Nothing evil that’s being done in the world today could be done without the connivance/collusion of the MSM
‘Journalism’ is, with few exceptions, now a synonym for ‘opinion.’
This will not be reversed.
As computing technology advances to the point where a credible audio-visual record of an event that did not happen (where the close-up details of a person’s physical (especially facial) appearance, their voice, gait, and other idiosyncrasies, are recreated digitally to become indiscernible from the ‘real’ thing by the naked human eye), ‘fake news’ will take on a whole new meaning.
Kelly and Sheridan, who both work for The Australian, are professional weaklings pandering to the zealots being turned out of journalism schools (which The Australian is full of), who are trained by academics to use journalism as an activist tool to change the world instead of using it to accurately report the news. Instead of using facts to point out the idiocy of the global warmening religion they’ve been sucked in by, they’re like two old parents letting the kiddies run wild.
Ninety five per cent+ of Australian journalists are Greens/Labor voters who detest their readers and are utterly unlike them. Like the unelected experts they so admire, they loathe democracy because they think ordinary people are too stupid to vote.
Spare a thought for Chris Kenny and Terry McCrann, both on The Australian.
And Peter Smith at The Pipeline.
Michael Smith seems to be one journalist that has broken the mould.
Hasn’t he had to go into exile to do so?
Not that I read newspapers much anymore, but the quality of written English used has certainly deteriorated, jupes. A decade or two ago university lecturers used to complain about the poor level of literacy and numeracy of undergraduates but one doesn’t hear much about that anymore. Presumably those doing the complaining have since retired and universities have simply lowered their standards since.
Fair enough.
He wasn’t a bad Footballer tho.
Any clown can be a rabble rouser.
All Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council are fully on board with the Climate Change Grift.
So that’s where we’re going.
The alternative is International Sanctions, where Syria is today, and what got South Africa where it is teday.
Yes, he had to start his own blog: Michael Smith News.
Mr Ed
The alternative is International Sanctions, where Syria is today,
A many years’ long civil war might have contributed, in a small way, to the current status of Syria rather more than any sanctions have.
PS, that was sarcasm Mr Ed.
Kelly was never a quality journalist just look at the hawkeating propaganda he used to churn out during the 80s. Sheridan is at best a twerp. Any decent journalism now comes from citizen journalists.
You get quality journalism on this site unlike the muck served up on Costello/Murdoch rags.
As well as the average citizen who records and reports the truth: Melbourne, what they WON’T show you.
The media simply edit the visuals and then call these protestors anti-vaxxers, vaccine-deniers and right wing extremists. The same would apply were these people protesting climate bullshit.
It was?
Here’s the facts.
Syria can’t export it’s Oil because
1. America is illegally occupying it’s Oilfields, and prevents any other country or dealer from buying that oil.
American Sanctions also prevent Syria from buying food and Medicine.
Mr Ed
Put down the bong.
Media is owned by the same people who own just about everything else.
“This incredibly eye opening documentary reveals something astonishing: the majority of our world is owned by the very same people. Because of this they can control the entire world and impose their wicked agenda onto all of humanity. This is the time to expose them and to rise up as one to defend our freedom.”
https://rumble.com/vmyx1n-monopoly-who-owns-the-world-documentary-by-tim-gielen.html
Paul “Is wrong, again” Kelly and Greg “I’ve just emerged from my rubbish bin” Sheridan are the personification of everything that is wrong with braindead lamestream j’ism in this country.
In any just world, none of us would ever have heard of them*.
*Apart from the other numerous Paul Kellys blundering around on this continent.
Kelly gave Scotty some invaluable advice about not making Nuclear Power an Election issue, and Sheridan has been consistent on Defence Issues.
Kelly’s problem is that he can’t write more than 250 words on a subject without digressing into
boredom inducement territory.
Sure, they’re both Labor Party men and while it’s hard to give Scotty credit, they’ve credited Peter Dutton with doing good work for Australia.
Mr Ed
Sheridan has been consistently wrong on Defence Issues
Fixed for you, no charge.
Old turds
Thanks Rabz, I forget about that Paul Kelly!
An understandable oversight for Demon supporter.
In case you missed it.
Ellen of Tasmania, good to have you on board here.
Don’t be a stranger. Or a lurker!
Kelly and Sheridan are not deep thinkers. Few could be such and pump out reliable quantities of bilge according to schedule, but whoever they are Kelly and Sheridan are not they.
Their credibility as controversial writers will exist in their readiness to take a contrarian position which has only 45% percent support in their mainstream press, rather than having the courage of the 75% which characterises most j’ismists.
If these numbers seem strangely exaggerated, that they cannot be avoiding so much of debate, bear in mind that they are able to ignore the real controversial issues on any given day – when data comes out showing that AGW is a hoax they can write anodyne columns about government stimulus packages or the implications of Scott Morrison’s hairdo in Glasgow.
Things like vaccine mandates and challenges to the fundamentals of climate change are just too brave for these algae sucking minnows.
To be honest, I am surprised to find Rafe pondering such a far fetched alternative universe. They are not worth it. Never were.
ROFL
thanks Rafe.
Quality? According to some, perhaps. Some time in the days preceding Anzac Day in 2018 The Australian published an article by Kelly on one of the battles on the Western Front in which Australians were the main participants. He did not mention artillery once. Quality? No.
Kelly, in about 2004, wrote an article about Australia selling uranium to India, which John Howard wanted to do. Kelly said that since their 1974 nuclear test India had been well behaved and used nuclear power for peaceful purposes. I emailed him to point out that he had forgotten about the 1997 India vs Pakistan nuclear test series (mine’s bigger than yours).
He didn’t take it well.
Cassie of Sydney:
Most fence sitters believe they are being part of the political middle when they give an opinion. They claim they are fair minded and listen to both sides of an argument. This of course is utter bullshit. It’s merely an excuse for them to parade their intellectual and moral superiority over the rest of us who make a stand on principles which may not be popular.