Balance as bias

[BT]

Gore says media miss climate message
Journalists have leaned toward balance at expense of consensus data, he says
By BEVERLY KEEL
Staff Writer


Published: Wednesday, 02/28/07
MURFREESBORO — After being the red-carpet darling of the Academy Awards, it was back to reality Tuesday for Al Gore, who resumed his usual role of history-spouting wonk as he addressed a gathering of national media ethicists at MTSU.

Gore was the star of An Inconvenient Truth, which won best documentary feature at Sunday night's Oscars. The film showed the slide show presentation the former vice president has given countless times across the nation.

Back in Tennessee on Tuesday, Gore told a crowd of about 50 people at the U.S. Media Ethics Summit II that the presentation's single most provocative slide was one that contrasts results of two long-term studies. A 10-year University of California study found that essentially zero percent of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles disagreed that global warming exists, whereas, another study found that 53 percent of mainstream newspaper articles disagreed the global warming premise.

He noted that recently the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its fourth unanimous report calling on world leaders to take action on global warming.

"I believe that is one of the principal reasons why political leaders around the world have not yet taken action," Gore said. "There are many reasons, but one of the principal reasons in my view is more than half of the mainstream media have rejected the scientific consensus implicitly — and I say 'rejected,' perhaps it's the wrong word. They have failed to report that it is the consensus and instead have chosen … balance as bias.

"I don't think that any of the editors or reporters responsible for one of these stories saying, 'It may be real, it may not be real,' is unethical. But I think they made the wrong choice, and I think the consequences are severe.

"I think if it is important to look at the pressures that made it more likely than not that mainstream journalists in the United States would convey a wholly inaccurate conclusion about the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced."

Gore would not answer any questions from the media after the event.

http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20070228&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=702280434&SectionCat=MTCN02&Template=printart

[Amianthus]

Back in Tennessee on Tuesday, Gore told a crowd of about 50 people at the U.S. Media Ethics Summit II that the presentation's single most provocative slide was one that contrasts results of two long-term studies. A 10-year University of California study found that essentially zero percent of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles disagreed that global warming exists, whereas, another study found that 53 percent of mainstream newspaper articles disagreed the global warming premise.

That's because they're talking about two different things.

No peer-reviewed scientific journal articles deny global warming.

However, the articles in the mainstream media are discussing whether humans are the main cause of global warming - a point which scientists disagree.

[Plane]

Four out of five dentists agree.....


Are Scientists always right?

Should all policys be approved or disaproved by scientific panels for scientific reasons?

Global warming is not absolutely a scientific question , economics and human desire enter in strongly , unless those are also sciences

[Xavier_Onassis]

Global warming is not absolutely a scientific question , economics and human desire enter in strongly , unless those are also sciences\
==========================================
WRONG!  It is ABSOLUTELY a scientific question. Either the average temperature of the world is increasing, or it isn't.

The reasons for this happening can be subject to supposition, but the phenomena is scientificaly proveable.

[Plane]

Global warming is not absolutely a scientific question , economics and human desire enter in strongly , unless those are also sciences\
==========================================
WRONG!  It is ABSOLUTELY a scientific question. Either the average temperature of the world is increasing, or it isn't.

The reasons for this happening can be subject to supposition, but the phenomena is scientifically proveable.

Wrong!

It may be scientifically proved or not that the Earth is warming , or that the Earth warming is a serious problem , but whether an austerity program is appropriate is a question for us all.

How many people would you kill to end global warming ?

Or more pertinently how many would you impoverish?

My number is thirty thousand , no more,........... and of course none of them can be me.

[domer]

Austerity? You mean like the fabulously wealthy foregoing a decadent tax break to pay for an unnecessary war? That kind of austerity? Or the austerity visited upon the well-heeled to provide universal health care? Believe me, many of us already know austerity while living in the lap of someone else's luxury. Your breast-beating moralisms fall on deaf ears.

[BT]

Will the government provide carbon offsets for those who can't afford them on their own?

[Plane]

Austerity? You mean like the fabulously wealthy foregoing a decadent tax break to pay for an unnecessary war? That kind of austerity? Or the austerity visited upon the well-heeled to provide universal health care? Believe me, many of us already know austerity while living in the lap of someone else's luxury. Your breast-beating moralisms fall on deaf ears.

By austerity I mean very high rates of unemployment.

I do not consider the Koyto treatys to be an imposition or trouble for the wealthy, why would it be?

[domer]

My point being that there are ways fiscally to structure the austerity so it hits the people who can most afford it.