Bishop Hill More on the ABSW awards
Jun 28, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Media Martin Robbins really is a very interesting blogger. I'm sure we disagree on lots of things and he's very rude about sceptics as well, but to see his thought process set out is absolutely fascinating.
His latest post is about the shortlist for the annual awards of the Association of British Science Writers and it is a case in point. He is complaining about the fact that most of the people on the shortlist are either with New Scientist or the BBC and the fact that science writers don't get the time to do proper investigative journalism these days. He moves from there to the closeness of science writers to scientists, a situation he compares to the problems with the Westminster political village:
[ABSW president Connie St. Louis] cites Paul Nurse's recent Horizon documentary "Science Under Attack" as a good example of the blurring between journalism and science communication:
So for example you probably remember Paul Nurse's program about why we don't trust scientists, and I think, so what is this response by the BBC, why is there not a journalist presenting this, why have we got a lovely affable warm scientist publishing it, I don't see the investigation, what's going on, where's the revelation, where's the journalist who says this is completely hijacked by the climate skeptics, this is big business. [Instead it's] sort of, 'look at us, we're lovely warm scientists, and please love us and trust us', and actually I don't think scientists should be trusted just because they're scientists, I think they should be trusted because they've been interrogated and not found wanting.
I defended Nurse's documentary at the time, but I do take her point. I think Nurse's tone was refreshingly free of a lot of the heat and argument that plagues the pseudo-debate around climate change, but the flip side is that it didn't really subject either side to the piercing beam of scrutiny. That's a shame, because while climate science has survived near obsessive attention, even the most casual inspection of skeptics like Christopher Monckton, for all their brabble, leaves them looking really rather hopeless and disingenuous.
Are scientists and journalists simply too close?
I've been to Christmas parties like the big one at the Royal Soc where there's packs of journalists and packs of scientists and we all mix and we're all very happy, and it's because it's such a relatively small world.
Which all sounds rather nice, but this sort of cosiness has severely and spectacularly undermined journalists on other beats, as happened with one recent, famous example...
...the MPs expenses - the political journalists didn't see that story, because they're busy wining and dining with them and making sure their kids get, you know, research places with them, and there's this incredible intimacy in parliament, and my friends who are political journalists they live and breathe these guys that go to their country houses with their friends their families.
There's a sort of almost an incestuousness about that whole political field, and the biggest story that breaks was not broken by a political journalist. I think we're in the same danger of that happening in science journalism, that the people outside will be able to see the stories better because we haven't got the right kind of focus. [...] I'm not saying that we shouldn't be sociable or kind, but there needs to be a professional distance.
I wonder if Martin has noticed that one of the stories up for the investigative journalism prize at the ABSW concerns the work of a bunch of "hopeless and disingenuous" sceptics doing some, you know, questioning of what scientists say?
Reader Comments (18)
David Whitehouse, a fine journalist himself, clearly thinks the BBC has lost it when it comes to environmental journalism.
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/3207-1995-and-all-that.html
Could it be possible that someone in the Guardian is starting to question the concept of science by consensus?
Where will BBC hacks go for their information?
What will Greenpeace lobbyists do f the Guardian starts to query the factual basis of their press releases?
What Martin wants is for someone to present the appearance of having done some proper questioning journalism, but then not actually do any, and end up still in cosy 100% agreement with the 75-scientist consensus.
Richard Black is the world's greatest scientific churnalist.
Control-C followed by control-V all day long.
In the ABSW Awards, of the 9 articles shortlisted in the three journalism categories, four are about us.
Fred Pearce: “Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws” (Guardian)
Debora McKenzie ”Living in Denial: Why sensible people reject the truth” (New Scientist)
David Adam: “The Hottest Year” (Nature)
Steve Connor: “Fabricated Quote used to Discredit Climate Scientist” (Independent)
There’s also Shanta Barley who blogs on climate change for the BBC (“Sea turtles, climate change and the 'Germaine Greer Effect'”)
shortlisted for promising newcomer.
Robbins complains long and loudly that no-one asks questions of scientists. So why doesn’t he? He says he “defended Nurse’s programme at the time”. Where? Not on his blog. Then he says: “I think Nurse's tone was refreshingly free of a lot of the heat and argument that plagues the pseudo-debate around climate change...”.
So he wants journalists to challenge scientists, but likes a tone which is “refreshingly free of ... heat and argument.” I’m not sure he knows what he wants.
Alarmist journalists in Austraila - help requested .........
The number one alarmist newspaper in Australia (The Age) is running an on-line survey. The question is “Should tackling Climate Change be a priority for Australia?”. Currently the Yes vote is winning but it’s very close because the alarmists are better organised. Anybody who would like to vote No would be helping the cause in a big way. If this vote goes against the alarmists then they will have lost the last piece of support they have in Australia. Every other poll is against them, if they can’t win a poll in their own newspaper it’ll be all over. If that happens then it’ll put even more pressure on the government who are in desperate trouble already.
http://www.theage.com.au scroll down to the bottom of the page, look under “Most Voted”
This writer's style is depressingly familiar to anyone who is familiar with the now-dated 'stream-of-consciousness' genre popularised by the late Hunter S Thompson. It doesn't have the bite of the original, or even the originality of the original. Unless any writer using this style fixes on something meaty as a theme and is quite brutally honest, it comes across as if written by a breathless Year 13 wannabe writer.who doesn't have any real idea of what or even who he or she wants to be when it grows up, or even which way is up.
And I'm not very impressed that he has spotted a problem in the cosy world of public relations that so much journalism has become but not laid out his view of the problem on anything but his own blog.
This writer's style is depressingly familiar to anyone who has read the now-dated 'stream-of-consciousness style popularised by the late Hunter S Thompson. It doesn't have the bite of the original, or even the originality of the original. Unless any writer using this style fixes on something meaty as a theme, it comes across as a breathless Year 13 wannabe writer.who doesn't have any real idea of what or even who he or she wants to be when it grows up, or even which way is up.
And I'm not very impressed that he has spotted a possible problem in the cosy world of public relations that so much journalism has become and not written something, somewhere, exposing the problem.
Alexander K, why do you post everything twice?
The penumbra of this article sends two important messages. The first is that Martin has no clue about criticism in science. The sceptics, who I prefer to call the critics, sometimes show an extensive understanding of scientific method while the spokespersons for CAGW, especially Lord Nurse, can manage only a cartoon version of scientific method. In my humble opinion, the CAGW people studiously refrain from discussing scientific method because there has never been one point raised about method that supported the CAGW position. Martin should understand that if there is no discussion of scientific method then there is no criticism of science. Martin should ask himself how well he understands scientific method. Then he should demonstrate his understanding by doing a guest post here in which he explicates for the public his understanding of scientific method.
The second point is that the chumminess that rules at the Royal Society Christmas Gala has become over the last three decades the de facto mode of operation for the official deliberations of the Society itself. The same is true of all of academia, at least in the West. In general, criticism has become boorish, regardless of its substance, relevance, and brilliance. In its place is "professionalism:" you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Rather "In Groupy," that.
Alexander K, why do you post everything twice?
Jun 28, 2011 at 5:54 PM | steveta_uk
TO BE SURE, 2 B SHORE?
Steveta and Perry;
My apologies!
I had no intention to do this, but posting gets complicated if one checks the copy and then corrects too often. Apart from that, old age and stupidity seem to be complicating factors. :-)
Would that, we were all paragons of virtue, integrity and omniscience [balanced to a nicety] and that objective thought and comment would 'exude' from our every pore.
I envy Mr. Robbins, how wonderful it must be to be thus: as enlightened and wise as he.
And, such wit, from one so young.
Judith Curry asked the same question on her blog.
Look at our friend Keith Kloor at his blog: he questions the judgment of Antony Watts for days on end. Have you seen him ask a single question of climate science, any time?
The Left had a great tradition of questioning organized science. It was dubbed 'Science Wars' once.
Where is the Science Wars against the exaggerations and system-building in climate science, and environmental science?
Again, take the example of Kloor. He wastes his talent fighting against the efforts of an individual blogger from Chico.
Why do they not 'Fight the strong, and not the weak'?
"I think they should be trusted because they've been interrogated and not found wanting"
In theory yes but I think Robbins means "interrogated" by journalists. How many of us would trust a journalist, Robbins ioncluded, to understand what they were interrogating about let alone to do it honestly. He seems to see journalists as the final arbiters of truth rather than its perverters.
There's David Whitehouse, PhD.There's no Richard Black, Ph.D (has he got an English major too, I wonder).
That explains it all. Likewise for Monbiot.
I think your doing this wrong, all i see is reaction from AGW blogs, they said this, they said that!...get on the streets. Organize, March, lobby. your like an old woman with a lost cat, grow some balls.
-Fendi watches conusExcellent! Your post has a ton readers.
How did you get so many readers to see your article I’m jealous!
I’m still learning all about blogs on the net.
I’m going to look around on your blog to get a better understanding how to attract more people.
Thanks for the help!