ABC chairman: media displays "group think" on climate

Group think on climate

The sound of lefty journalistic heads popping at the ABC can be heard for miles around. Their chairman,  Maurice Newman, has pilloried the media for its one-eyed stance on climate change:

Describing himself as an agnostic on climate change, Mr Newman said climate change was an example “of group-think where contrary views have not been tolerated, and where those who express them have been labelled and mocked”.

He warned ABC staffers that he would not tolerate anyone suppressing information, citing the fact that a BBC science correspondent knew for a month before the scandal broke of damaging emails at the University of East Anglia in Britain highlighting the politicised nature of climate science but did not report them.

Mr Newman said the Guardian newspaper had noted that the moment climatology is sheltered from dispute, its force begins to wane.

“Which raises an important question for a media organisation,” Mr Newman said in the speech obtained by The Australian. “Who, if anyone, decides what to shelter from dispute? And when?

“Should there be a view that the ABC was sheltering particular beliefs from scrutiny, or failing to question a consensus, I would consider it to be a dangerous perception that could lead to the public’s trust in us being undermined.”

The first of the lefty heads to pop were those of two committed global warming advocates (notice I don’t use the word “journalist”), Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes, and batty science reporter Bernie Hobbs (see here for an example of Bernie’s form). And then managing director Mark Scott “played down” his comments, using the offensive “D-word” as usual:

Sources said Holmes had told Mr Newman he was wrong to assert that sceptics were silenced on the ABC. Holmes declined to comment when contacted by The Australian. [Gee, I wonder why? – Ed]

ABC science journalist Bernie Hobbs also spoke, supporting Holmes’s view and saying the ABC could not give undue weight to the sceptics and thereby push a sceptics’ agenda.

Mr Scott is said to have tried to make the peace by playing down the importance of Mr Newman’s remarks.

Sources said while Mr Newman claimed publicly he was agnostic on the issue, he was a passionate climate-change denialist in private. Mr Newman has told journalists he doesn’t believe in the science of man-made climate change. (source)

All smoke and mirrors. And it won’t make the slightest bit of difference when you have people like Holmes, Hobbs, Robyn Williams in the frame. And the ABC is on good form this morning, plastering its broadcasts with a story about a Chinese official who claims climate sceptics are a bunch of crazy extremists (again, throwing in the “D-word” again just for good measure):

A deputy director of China’s most powerful economic ministry has come out swinging against climate change denial.

Senior Chinese government figures have described the view that climate change is not man-made as an “extreme” stance which is out of step with mainstream thought. (source)

Slightly at odds withChina’s policy of doing absolutely nothing to reduce its emissions, perhaps? The journalist hasn’t considered the possibility that if climate change were not manmade, then billions of dollars in climate debt would not have to flow from the West to developing countries any more… duh.