Friday
Jul102015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Truth and the green
Jul 10, 2015 Climate: Sceptics Greens Media Among the environmentally concerned, playing fast and loose with the actualité is seen as a tactic that delivers good results quickly and it's easy to see why: environmental correspondents are almost to a man (or woman) signed up members of the green movement and can be relied upon to repeat even the grossest misrepresentations.
As a good example of truth-telling among the green fraternity, take a look at the column written by Catherine Porter in the Toronto Star, in which she describes a "run-in" her nine-year-old daughter had with sceptic writer Ezra Levant. Then take a look at Levant's video response:
Unbelievable.
Reader Comments (72)
I have tried and failed several times to get the toothless Ontario Press Council to take on the Star's fact-free alarmist reporting.
In the last few years they have published close to ten thousand (not a typo) global warming articles but haven't yet noticed a 'hiatus.' They work incredibly hard to mislead readers and then cite opinion polls from the misinformed public as support for 'urgent action' by the government.
I sent this note to John Cruickshank, the publisher with copies to the reporter Porter and Kathy English, the Star's long suffering Public Editor:
"Star gets GLOBAL RECOGNITION! Porter and English deserve raises.
Popular Bishop Hill blog has linked to the “My daughter's run-in with Ezra Levant at her first protest” column:
The reason for Porter’s salary increase is obvious – She put the Star on the global map. But Ms. English also deserves a raise – defending the Star’s credibility and integrity requires a super-human effort 24/7/365 and an incredibly strong stomach!"
Children are always used as pawns by religions.
And the 2015 Brian Williams award for "It Didn't Actually Happen, But That's Journalism In The 21st Century" goes to .......
I would willingly bet that this awful woman's fellow activist friends could watch the actual footage of the encounter and still claim to believe her version of the story.
That is what these people are like.
At the end of video, I heard the little girl say: "You're talking to my mommy." Ezra claims that the girls also said: "You know that, right?" Although I didn't hear the last four words, I'll take Ezra's word for it. In any event, the response to the little girl's statement should have been: "It's about time someone did."
Her mommy isn't very good at listening.
It's a small world. Catherine Porter is the daughter of Mark Steyn's Canadian libel lawyer, Julian Porter (who is a friend of mine).
It also looks like Catherine Porter's father Julian has been involved in Ezra Levant's libel cases as well: e.g. http://www.ezralevant.com/julian_porter_crossexamines_an/
The Porter family, over 3 generations has clearly had some communications difficulties. They are likely to get worse, and lawyers are liable to win financially. I wonder if the young girl has lawyered up.
Ms Porter knew who she was targetting. Did Levant know who she was?
Adds an interesting twist as to why the Toronto Star published the rebuttal so swiftly.
Christmas lunch with the Porter family must be a hoot. How long can you talk about turkey, ham and hockey?
"Great illustration of one of the fundamental charater flaws of the liberal mindset : they see the world as they wish it to be, rather than as it actually is." --ImranCan
They actually believe that wishing will make it real, that the physical universe is a social construct. Taken to its ultimate, the liberal mindset leads to universal Lysenkoism, a very dangerous outcome, with consequences beyond their comprehension. .
I have zero influence on Ezra Levant but I have suggested that he ask the Star for a formal retraction - rather than a simple 'letter to the editor' rebuttal. If the Star refuses, go to the Ontario Press Council.
It does seem clear that Ezra will be making inquiries as to how the Star will deal with Catherine Porter when she returns from her brilliantly timed vacation.
Torstars regulations state something like "All studies, but particularly health and science studies, should be based on peer-reviewed, reputable journals and should include independent comment. -" I wonder if they comply
Golf Charlie "interesting twist as to why the Toronto Star published the rebuttal so swiftly."
from Levant's blog subtitle "Ezra Levant is a LAWYER, author, newspaper columnist and founder of TheRebel.media."
I have found a source to my previous quote In 2011 Toronto Star Newsroom Policy and Journalistic Standards Guide (which is brilliant)
- Some more quotes from it
"Truth emerges from free discussion and free reporting. An informed public
is essential to fostering and preserving Canada's democratic society. " ..have you got that Guardian and BBC ?
"With this right comes a responsibility for the media to be accurate, fair, honest and transparent."
"Journalists who abuse the power of their professional roles for selfish motives or unworthy purposes are faithless to that public trust."
"The Star is a forum for the free interchange of information and opinion. It should provide for the expression of disparate and conflicting views."
"That good faith rests primarily on the reader's confidence that what we print is true. Every effort must be made to ensure that everything published in the Star is accurate, presented in context, and that all sides are presented fairly."
"..errors of fact, as well as errors of omission, should be corrected promptly and as prominently .."
"There can be no compromise with accuracy"
(generally) "the Star does not unpublish content from our websites or archives, but does append corrections"
"Columnists .. not engage in personal axe-grinding .."
stewgreen, I do not know the background to all of this, but clearly there is more to it. I get the impression that Hockey Stick Mum has scored an own goal, but whether driven entirely by her own self righteous stupidity ..... ?
Ms Porter's original piece of Green Blob creative writing deserves wider publicity, so she gets the recognition she so richly deserves. Hopefully her daughter won't pay too high a price.
From this Saturday's Star report on the Goracle's Toronto visit:
“Just this week, one study found that even if we manage to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius — the target for current climate negotiations — sea levels may still rise six metres above their current heights, drastically affecting millions of people and altering coastlines around the world.”
Nearly TEN THOUSAND 'climate change' articles in the last few years - this is typical.
The Star has a policy to misinform. When sufficiently alarmist, IPCC is their trusted go to source, but when AR5 results proved to be not scary enough - crickets. Not a word about the hiatus, failed models, inability to attribute extreme events, etc.
There is a torrent of Green Religion disinformation, everyday half the story all the time.
Friday it was Porter's fabricated story, today it's the BBCr4Today prog reporting
"Over the last 40 years we have lost 50% of the world’s wildlife" a claim based on wacky WWF extrapolations for VERTEBRATES which @BBCmoreOrLess debunked 1 year ago
- Are Media Ec0-warriors lying or self deceiving ? both I guess.
I think it's a perfect storm Noble Cause Corruption added to a media culture of fakery.
-------------------
#1 Distorted worldview : RealWorld vs fictiousWorld ie GreenReligionFantasyWorlds.
In that Green issues are not as full colour complex as we see them, but more black and white simple EMOTIONAL narratives
* Environment is perfect/catastrophe * The Jesus of Green magic solutions *The Devil of rightwing bogeymen in the pay of BigOil
- That simplistic worldview causes the Noble Cause corruption(NCC) mindset, which fuels to “End Justifies the Means EJM behaviour.
#2 The Fakery culture of the media, they get so used to faking to improve the story that they forget where the boundary to reality is.
As the BBC competitions scandals showed it is often expeditious to fake things eg animal footage from months is edited to make the perfect story for 1 day.
.. Thus, EJM behaviour is facilitated by that media fakery culture. Thus we get Greenspun stories with opposition voices demonised and excluded .
Which I am calling Mummying Bias
So @Political Junkie Tor-Star has a fantastic ethics policy, but it exempts GreenReligion from it.
Interesting UPDATE Newspaper issues kind of apology ..long and interesting, 'all things to all men' ..via @Clipe..in Canada
@Johanna commented \\the author is forced to list multiple untruths and breaches of editorial policy, but can't quite bring herself to say that it was a disgusting, unethical, pack of lies. Compounding her anguish is that the columnist might be a "bad parent," which has her sitting right on top of a politically correct barbed-wire fence. Ouch!//
@Clipe notes \\Note readers comments closed after five hours of them saying what you said.//
Yes after 94 comments, only 10 spinning towards green.
- The last 2 comments are on a different topic, when the press panel adjudged clearly unjustly ..so maybe comments were closed to stop the spread of dirt digging.
@Johanna further commented
\\"This is of serious concern to the Star, but as Porter left for a wilderness canoe trip immediately after her column was published, we could not talk with her about these issues until this week." (like wilderness right next to city)
Well, of course she did. It's what the average person does straight after being utterly discredited. Unless they have just bought a ticket to a country in South America without an extradition treaty.
I note that she also explains that she had numerous interactions with the columnist in putting together her evaluation, but one chat was enough with Ezra Levant. Very funny, IMO. I'm guessing that Ezra said "you have the evidence, take it or leave it." Meanwhile, Catherine no doubt wanted to have several discussions about "nuances."
Ezra is a gun lawyer, they were potentially about to get sued to Kingdom Come. So we got this no doubt carefully vetted bilge.//
another update from Levant
Catherine Porter vs. Ezra Levant: Toronto Star's "mea culpa" is admirable, but it left out something important -- and disturbing
update #4 via @Clipe Pathetic excuse for an apology. In the Star from CP
The Star's own sister paper The Hamilton Spectator headlined it's report "Stars Catherine Porter apologises -sort of"
...but quickly disappeared it
update #5 Ezra Levant replied basically 'LIAR, LIAR Liar sad Liar'
Porter had a tantrum and forced The Spectator to change their honest headline! Luckily I saved it for posterity: