Bishop Hill There’s something fishy about our journalists
Aug 10, 2014 Media This is a guest post by Danny Weston.
Just a few days ago our old friend, the Telegraph’s Geoffrey Lean, was rightly excoriated on this blog for yet another appallingly biased - not to mention incompetent – screed further justifying his apparent fear of imminent human caused thermageddon. Now it’s not news to any regular readers here that many of our glorious hacks appear to throw out all pretense of professionalism and impartiality when it comes to the issue of the seemingly ever omnipotent CO2 molecule belched from the belly of human industry. Motivated reasoning seems to be the root cause. Or is it? I’d like to propose an altogether more frightening theory – that in many cases it is in fact sheer incompetence that is the driving force and the reliance on climate catastrophist talking points is more an effect than a cause. It gives them a nice, tidy, heuristic for them to hang everything on, minimising their need to do their own research, editing or indeed, even thinking.
To explain why I’d like to talk through a number of personal anecdotes that all tie in together in various ways with both Lean’s article and his behaviour.
First, there’s Louise Gray. You’ll likely remember her as Lean’s younger, more energetic partner in crime at the Telegraph. She became well known for her “churnalism” of environmentalist press releases, which were then passed off as journalism with due diligence. Unfortunately only those regularly commenting on her pieces seemed to be aware of this. I traced a number of her articles online to see how far they would spread and depressingly the major, churned, talking points would be repeated far and wide, backed by the authority of the Telegraph as a trusted brand.
One of my favourite examples to use here of Louise’s incredible cut and pasting was the ‘Llamas help protect an ice age fish’ story.1 It was not only an egregious example of churn – it also demonstrated her complete lack of critical filters on her part. With regard to the former it was mostly copied from an April 12th, 2011 press release from the environment agency. With regard to the latter, it was quickly taken apart both in the Telegraph comments and over at WUWT.2 It’s also apropos to note that despite the cutting and pasting, Louise *still* made mistakes – she somehow rewrote ‘Sprinkling Tarn’ and ‘Sprinkler Tarn’.
I became quite interested in Louise’s work after this point and analysed dozens of her articles for churn, finding significant cutting and pasting from press releases in over 50% of them. I also regularly found those bizarre spelling mistakes and the fact that they occurred in largely copied segments still makes my head hurt to this day. In any case, I eventually confronted her face to face with these findings in public at an event held at the Royal Society last year “Fracking: science and scepticism”. Louise was on the panel. I managed to get a question in, demanding to know why or how she could be trusted given that she copied and pasted much of her content from environmental press releases. She started to open her mouth to respond but I interrupted – telling her not to deny it as I could place the articles side by side with the press releases and show the copied sections in no uncertain terms. She appeared to be gobsmacked and whimpered a quick response that I didn’t catch.
There was a reception afterwards, with drinks. I had taken two friends with me and we were chatting when Louise approached me, setting her pile of notebooks down on the drinks table next to me. My friends took a step back to witness the confrontation. What then followed was a painful hour of her attempting to justify her “journalism” to me. She cycled through three responses – i) it’s standard practice amongst journalists, ii) I shouldn’t pick out individual journalists for attention and iii) she only gets “four hours per story” and as such has to use press releases. As you’ve probably guessed I wasn’t sympathetic to any of these reasons and when pressed she would either not respond or change the subject. Also, the “only four hours per story” excuse rings particularly hollow for me and I’ll get onto that in the anecdote that follows. The encounter ended with her being so flustered that she disappeared, leaving all of her notebooks with me. I didn’t look at them. When handing them into the reception and giving them her details at the Telegraph I couldn’t help wonder if she would have given me the same courtesy had I left my notebooks with her.
This brings me to the next related anecdote. I imagine some of you – like me – immediately chortled at the pressure of having to cut and paste a story in “just” four hours. Given her pace of output at the Telegraph I did also wonder what she was doing for the rest of the time. Anyone who has worked in a genuinely high pressure environment and who has also seen the quality of output here in the blogosphere knows what is possible to do in four hours.
I was bemused at the idea that she struggled for original content so much that press releases were her only resort. Why? A number of years prior to this encounter I had been the administrator of two large EU funded research projects in robotics and AI. During this period I also worked as a researcher in the area, contributed to comprehensive proposals for new project funding and met dozens of academics from across the EU who were juggling numerous EU funded projects between them.
Something that isn’t widely known outside of these circles is that specific deliverables, time and resources are set aside in *every single* project for dissemination and promotion. A part of this is, obviously, the usual game of perverse incentives for academics – the publication and citation record. However the bulk of these deliverables is expressly aimed at reaching the wider public. And it is something that many academics express frustration over in that they find it difficult to drum up interest, even in such apparently “cool” areas as robotics and AI. I can tell you from direct, repeated experience that had a journalist such as Louise Gray called or emailed them, they would have ripped her arm off for interviews, given her project materials and shown her around the lab for photo ops.
It gets better (or worse depending on how you view it) than this, too. If I was a science or technology journalist I wouldn’t have to go looking for my content, I could deliver interesting original material week in and week out on this basis and without churning a single press release. All EU funded research projects are searchable on the CORDIS website.3 And if a project in your particular field (e.g. environmentalism) isn’t live at the moment, no problem. It is possible to search for projects going back to 1990. Many of those scientists and researchers would still be interested in talking to journalists about their previous work and how it may have had an impact since. And just like the spelling mistakes inserted into cut and paste jobs mentioned above, the fact that journalists do not make use of this amazing resource also makes my head hurt.
Speaking of the EU brings me to my third anecdote and back to the subject matter that Mr. Lean managed to ham-fistedly muck up: fish and fisheries. In November, 2012, I participated in a “hackathon” at Google campus, organised by the Open Knowledge Foundation and European Journalism Centre. The theme of the event was to look at data produced by the EU for interesting patterns and stories. There was a lot of interesting material (not least of which was the visualization of the number and location of lobby groups relative to the EU parliament). This included fish subsidy data. Unfortunately the main site that makes this information available in an accessible form, fishsubsidy.org is broken at the moment (check back in future though, it’s worth a look).
There were two distinct patterns we found in the data that shocked everyone there. Both of these related to the pattern of EU subsidy for fishing efforts that failed to catch their specific EU quotas. In these cases the EU would do two things: subsidise a bigger boat (no, really!) and sometimes also pay for the fishing to take place in waters outside the EU. Neither of these pieces of information seem to have reached out to the wider debates, concerns and narratives surrounding fish stocks in the EU. It is civically minded programmers who are digging this kind of thing out, making the data accessible, finding significant stories within the data and so on. And they are casting around for journalists who will run with it. But they don’t. Why?
I look at the rubbish routinely pumped out by the likes of Lean and Gray and have increasing difficulty in believing that they mendaciously cling to the climate catastrophism schtick to drive their journalism as a matter of pure ideology. If that was their primary motivation, they wouldn’t make so many ridiculous mistakes, they could find hundreds of EU Framework Program funded researchers to talk to directly who work on climate related research, and they could find competent hackers (in the positive sense of the term) to make large datasets available to them for free, complete with brilliant scoops. Instead, my current take is that following the collective hysteria and belief in imminent doom provides a fantastic cover if you have the unfortunate combination of being incompetent, a bit dim and looking for an easy ride being employed amongst the commentariat and attending jollies. I think I’d rather have the competent ideologues to contend with, personally.
---------------------------------
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8444032/Fish-carried-up-a-mountain-on-backs-of-llamas-to-escape-global-warming.html
[2] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/12/climate-change-craziness-of-the-week-a-fish-story-from-llama-land/
[3] http://cordis.europa.eu/projects/home_en.html
Reader Comments (69)
John Shade: It's the second volume I'm really looking forward to, the People's Great Encyclopedia of Explanations for the Climate Scare's Astonishing Demise.
Now that, Richard, is cheerful! Thank you for the tonic.
Nice anecdotes. You mentioned the CORDIS database. But journalists don't even have to do any sleuthing at all if they don't insist on it. There is e.g. a website "HARO" (Help a Reporter out) to which journalists can post request for COMPLETE articles being written for them ... for FREE ... if they just acknowledge e.g. the corporate editor who did all the work a little. They email all the interested parties three times a day and these journalist often get their material (NO copy/paste! Original!) under these four hours poor Louise was struggling with.
"Because we're broadly skeptics"--really? The thing about climate skeptic blogs is that they are narrowly skeptic. And such blogs, like this one, which often seize on the most ridiculous examples of alarmism emanating from the green community (which I've frequently commented on, myself), willfully ignore the most absurd and prevalent example from anti-wind campaigners.
Tell you what, can someone let me know when Bishop Hill or any other similar blog does a post on wind turbine syndrome.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2013/03/21/an-ill-wind/#.U-mC0igwL18
So odd that something that has become so prominent in the anti-wind movement has gone ignored on skeptic blogs like this. Yeah, "broadly skeptic," sure.
"... willfully ignore the most absurd and prevalent example from anti-wind campaigners."
"Tell you what, can someone let me know when Bishop Hill or any other similar blog does a post on wind turbine syndrome."
Because it's got nothing to do with "us". You're imagining sides in a debate, with equal reach, equal power and identical agendas. As I've explained to you before, such a view is nuts.
James Delingpole has some observations on feeble journalists, and on at least one feeble scientist, in an article I missed last month: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/07/15/The-real-problem-with-climate-change-experts-who-aren-t-experts He notes
"Because it's got nothing to do with 'us'."
Really? I see plenty of posts at climate blogs like this one discussing the claims made by wind advocates/environmentalists. Similarly, I see such blogs as this one are very critical/dismissive of the claims made by anti-fracking campaigners.
In this context, the anti-wind movement has latched on to what I would consider the equivalent form of (anti-fracking) alarmism--wind turbine syndrome. And yet Bishop Hill has nothing to say about that, including when hight profile climate skeptics like his fellow traveler "Dellers" latches on to it. (By the way, where is that crackerjack reporter, David Rose, on this? He seems to be ignoring this, too.)
That's why blogs like this are only narrowly, selectively skeptical. It's a form of ideologically/politically driven skepticism. In no way are climate blogs like this--or Ben Pile--broadly skeptical. Stop pretending to be something you're not.
"And yet Bishop Hill has nothing to say about that..."
[Rolls eyes]
I note that the good Bishop hasn't written any posts lately denouncing perpetual motion machines, Nigerian email scams, reactionless drives, zero point energy, cold fusion, or the theory that Gina McCarthy's hard drive was kidnapped by aliens and had its memory wiped. I suppose that means we support them all?
I personally don't have any data on wind turbine syndrome, and haven't looked into it in enough depth to make a scientific judgement, so I don't. Speaking non-scientifically, I'm sceptical. It looks to me like somebody has spotted that the easiest way to block developments you don't like is to start a scare about some potential environmental hazard, and so campaigners against are cynically using the Green's own weapons against them. I think that's pretty funny, richly deserved, and I'll cheer them on all the way! - without at any time believing one word of it.
(I might care more about it if they were using such methods to block something that had any rational justification, but wind farms aren't going to save the climate even if CAGW is true, so I consider it a case of two wrongs cancelling each other out. I would much prefer, of course, that they banned them instead because they're useless, ugly, expensive, polluting, and kill the wildlife. It's not a perfect world.)
So now that wind turbine syndrome has been properly denounced in comments here, are you satisfied? Will you restore to us our coveted Certificate of Scepticism, that you alone have the proper authority to dispense? ;-)
Keith,
More examples for Dan's primary point - that competence is not a requirement for being a journalist. However it is not a bad choice if your primary purpose for going to college is to party.
One more, belated comment to Keith Kloor (Aug 12 at 4:09 AM). You mention skepticism as if it was a key value. I think of it more as a convenient label. In real life, clearly, sometimes it's wise to be sceptical, sometimes not. But what really struck me was reading your comment not long after this thread on Watts Up With That about the death of the wife of prominent sceptic John Christy. I believe that Dr Christy deeply shares his wife's worldview. So do I. We're not all 'sceptics' about everything. For some of us scepticism isn't the highest value, love is. And with that I thank you sincerely for coming on to Bishop Hill. I appreciate it very much. (I have to try. Harder. :) )
"It looks to me like somebody has spotted that the easiest way to block developments you don't like is to start a scare about some potential environmental hazard, and so campaigners against are cynically using the Green's own weapons against them.
Exactly.
"I think that's pretty funny, richly deserved, and I'll cheer them on all the way! - without at any time believing one word of it."
Great rationalization, by the way, for tolerating this tactic--when it suits your ideo/political views. Lovely logic that demonstrates my initial point about the nature of selective skepticism exhibited by those that frequent this and most other climate skeptic blogs.
Keith Kloor:
I would think most of us squirm a bit to find the clearly demented holding views whose objective comports with our own. Surely you don't take it upon yourself to condemn those if not in your camp, maybe in the camp next door.
I only worry about the clearly intelligent people I find myself in disagreement with. Skepticism can be pretty challenging. It takes a lot of study to acquire a grasp of something sufficient to support an opinion. Some people take the time and others don't. And the standard for sufficiency of grasp can be pretty personal as well - varies widely.
So i say your snicker at Nullius doesn't reflect the thought you often seem to give things. Shame.
jferguson,
"So i say your snicker at Nullius doesn't reflect the thought you often seem to give things. Shame."
Don't worry about it. Keith Kloor and I go waaay back. I've lost count of the number of times I've tweaked Keith over at his blog about his habit of opposing sceptics for their ignorant and unscientific ways while he gives a pass to his own side (and usually doesn't understand the technicalities of the argument himself). It's an old argument between us.
Keith's better than most, and he does have the occasional pop at his own tribe when it's on certain topics. And he's always civilised and open to opposition, which is better than most believers. I've got no complaints.
Keith,
"Great rationalization, by the way, for tolerating this tactic--when it suits your ideo/political views."
I 'tolerate' this tactic - as a tactic - from all sides of the debate. It's perfectly legal, and given the silly way the law and politics often work, is a tactically sensible way of achieving one's purpose. I support the right to protest. I support people's right to object to things they don't like, simply because they don't like them. I support people's right to say what they like in pursuit of their own interests, even if I don't agree with it or think what they say is untrue or immoral. And if I am to tolerate the absolute free speech of those I disagree with, it would hardly make sense to do otherwise for my own side, would it?
It's like the argument about guns. I don't object to guns as such, or their use. I don't approve of them being used in armed robberies, but I do approve of them being used to defend the innocent. The moral import of any tool depends on what you're using it for.
I will support the actions of dissidents in totalitarian regimes morally, while fully agreeing that technically their actions are illegal where they live. I will support them telling untruths to the secret police. And yes, that's partisan, but I don't feel at all uncomfortable about it. It is only on the basis of my ideo-political views that I would argue the difference.
I don't oppose and disagree with the anti-frackers and anti-GMOers for using environmental concerns to block actions they don't like - I oppose them because they're wrong and the thing they're protesting about is something good that we ought to do. I oppose them for their aims, not for their methods.
Violent or threatening protesters, or those engaged in criminal damage, on the other hand, I condemn for their methods, irrespective of their aims.
"Lovely logic that demonstrates my initial point about the nature of selective skepticism exhibited by those that frequent this and most other climate skeptic blogs."
You're being selective again. The same phenomenon is perfectly symmetrical and practised by *both* sides in the climate debate - and many other debates. People may agree or disagree with many things, but they only devote a lot of time and effort to things they care about. I'd not object to anyone on any side of any debate doing that, unless they spend a lot of time pointing out the mote in the other guy's eye and making a big deal about it, as if they didn't do exactly the same thing. The argument isn't over who is or isn't a partisan - we all are - it's over who is right or wrong.
NiV:
Me too. Which gives me a faint excuse to quote one of my favourite passages about WWII:
From a long page about some other stuff.
Kk- " Great rationalization, by the way, for tolerating this tactic--when it suits your ideo/political views"
I can't speak for anyone else here -- which is rather the point, since sceptics aren't organised or influential in the way that environmentalists are -- but I have written a great deal about environmentalism as an epitome of nimbyism, and of a broader presumption against development. And in fact the first thing I ever wrote for public consumption was about the shortcomings of the scientific sceptics -- who pick fights with homeopaths and faith healers -- and argued that they had misunderstood what drives irrational beliefs. If I choose not to engage with debates about reiki healing, creationism, and other woo-woo, it is because there are only so many hours in the day.
"In no way are climate blogs like this--or Ben Pile--broadly skeptical. Stop pretending to be something you're not."
I'm not pretending to be anything. I've briefed against taking WTS at face value. I've made films about wind energy, and not been so ddesperate as to have needed WTS to highlight its failures. So I'm not sure what more I can do to convince you that I am as broadly sceptical as you say I am not. And that's the point, I suspect...
It seems to me that environmental correspondents especially need to identify another to identify themselves. Your particular interest in the putative sceptics' lack of bona fides suggests to me more wishful thinking than discovery. You invent a test of our actual committment to "real" scepticism -- your gotcha. And then you get to dance up and down about how you've uncovered our bogus claim. But it doesn't shed any light on the matter at hand -- the shortcomings of environmental journalism -- as much as it demonstrates the probelm
Ben:
Aha. That settles it for me.
That's true but it's also to make a point. I just became a sceptic about WTS because I trust Ben Pile. Credulous or what?
As you said there are only so many hours in the day.
In the case of sloppy science/environment journalists, it seems to date back to when the two topics were combined. The people who applied for these sorts of jobs were increasingly environmentalists rather than writers with a scientific background - and so began the long, slow decline to illiterate, innumerate advocacy which characterises so much of it today.
And, I must agree that if Louise Gray and others need four hours to produce 600 words consisting of a slightly doctored Press Release, complete with spelling errors, one wonders what they were doing for the other 3 and a half hours.
Someone mentioned what a blogger who is on top of his/her topic can produce in that time. Well, as a public servant who produced briefing notes that Prime Ministers, Premiers and Cabinet Ministers were going to stake their reputations on in Parliament in less time than that, I know just how mediocre and lazy these people are. Our work had to be perfect - no errors of any kind were countenanced, on pain of a permanent transfer to the Archives Authority. And, you know what? They were perfect, at least in the places where I worked.
The same sorts of pressures and deadlines applied at times when I worked in advertising and marketing.
Honestly, I have no patience with these precious little petals calling themselves "journalists" - they would be eaten alive in a job that involved real pressure and deadlines.
johanna: +1
What has not been explored is the role of the Science Media Centre in lazy journalism -
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/working-with-us/for-journalists/headlines-for-journalists/