ABC News Watch is unsure of the motivation behind Media Watch’s inquiries regarding my research on the Murray River. Based on their understanding, none of the 11 members of the Media Watch team have the scientific qualifications, or necessary scientific experience, to comment or judge the science behind the policy debate about the Murray River.
ABC News Watch today put 15 questions to Media Watch about what it is calling Murray-Gate.
Questions are here: http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com.au/
They are good questions. But what’s the deadline? When will the questions be answered? I was expected to give immediate answers to Media Watch. I think Media Watch should have until 5pm tomorrow, Friday.
Read more here: http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com.au/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Don’t hold your breath Jen.
This is like a episode of Mean Girls with the clique picking on the nerd, the tactics are the same. If it wasn’t so serious it would be laughable.
I hear this nerd can punch.
I hope you can keep up the pressure up Jen.
It would be excellent to flush out ‘the source’ of those blatant MW questions.
I agree with Binny, if it wasn’t so serious it would be laughable.
Someone somewhere was making a desperate attempt to reach a specific audience and discredit you and therefore by association your research on the Murray.
Personal attacks and innuendo are disgraceful and desperate tactics.
They are also completely overused.
You have done an exemplary job of standing on the higher ground and standing by your extensive research.
It makes whoever instigated this personal attack completely untrustworthy.
I hope the MW people have at least spotted that and hopefully told said individual/s to provide evidence via appropriate public means and desist from attempts to use unqualified but popular media personel to do their ‘dirty work’.
I also hope MW have learned a valuable lesson.
But Binny may be right there too. . . Don’t hold your breath!
Debbie,
It was Xanthe Kleinig from Media Watch who contacted me last Friday. She is a graduate from Flinders University in Adelaide.
Well it’s no surprise that the questions likely came from somewhere/someone in SA.
I wonder who helped her devise those questions and encouraged her to attempt to discredit you?
@jennifer
“She is a graduate from Flinders University in Adelaide.”
In what discipline please, Jennifer ?
here you go ian
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/xanthe-kleinig/14/992/287
If you Google her under LinkedIn:
Flinders University International Studies, Political Economy, Development Studies
1998 – 2003
University of Sydney Master, Media Practice
2008 – 2012 (expected)
No undergraduate degrees in science apparently. But then, Professor Tim Flannery apparently has a BA degree in English and is now a leading expert in climate change.
Our leading diatom experts have arts degrees.
Where have all the proper scientists gone? Probably all left Australia and gone to China if they want to do any reasonable science.
They are closing down traditional university programs in Australia in subjects like physics and chemistry. Much too hard for the kids. Need to use numbers a lot. Better to do media studies and twitter about all day long.
Glad its peaceful up here in the trees.
Dear Jennifer,
I read about this only today at Jo Nova’s site. My alarm began to grow the more I read, but when I read the Media Watch questions and your reply, I was flabbergasted. What grubs they are! I’m sure you are more than a match for Jonathon Holmes. I’d be surprised if they go ahead now.
My motto is- and you seem to be living it-
nil carborundum illegitimi- don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Keep up the good fight.
Evidence Rules OK!
Ken Stewart
I can only repeat what I said in my first post on this story
“Unbelievable – what’s it got to do with media watch?”
Here’s Media Watch’s response from producer Lin Buckfield:
Dear Mr Hendrickx
Thank you for your email, it is one of many Media Watch has received in relation to questions the program sent to Dr Marohasy last week. As you will be aware, Media Watch has not, as yet, run an item looking at the media coverage of the report “Plugging the Murray River’s Mouth” authored by Dr. Marohasy and commissioned by the Australian Environment Foundation.
Media Watch looks at how the media (all platforms) report and treat various issues. In order to do that we research many stories, telephone calls are made, emails are sent. Our hardworking team of 3 researchers cover a lot of ground in the course of their working days.
Ours is a controversial program, our investigations rarely please everyone but we are bound not only by our ethics as journalists but also by the ABC Editorial Policies to fair, honest and unbiased in our approach to our work. We are under no obligation to discuss correspondence or conversations with third parties done in the course of legitimate research.
Given that Media Watch has not yet put an item to air looking at the media coverage of the report “Plugging the Murray River’s Mouth”, may I suggest you get back to me with any questions you may have if and when the item airs?
Sincerely
Lin Buckfield
Executive Producer
Media Watch
‘It is one of many we have received. . .’
Chuckle 🙂
Maybe they need to receive more?
@koalabear
“Flinders University International Studies, Political Economy, Development Studies
1998 – 2003
University of Sydney Master, Media Practice
2008 – 2012 (expected) ”
Thanks. Why am I not surprised ?
Oh no! Unqualified people (especially the media) can’t question or make comment on issues relating to environmental science? Gadzooks, tighten you tinfoil hats folks, the climate change debate is about to get very rocky. News Ltd better rack up a new Rebekah Brooks style sacrificial lamb.
@RWFOH
MW were NOT questioning environmental science – they are questioning Jennifer M’s integrity in an attempt to discredit her through argumentum ad hominen
This line of attack does not surprise me. MW is scientifically illiterate and mathematically innumerate, but well practised in gutter tactics. The tin foil hats are theirs
If the AGW believers did not have ad hom argument to use against skeptics, they would have very little at all.
Did anyone happen to notice on Xanthe’s linkedin page where she began her career in 2002 – 2 years and 3 months working in Media and Communications for former Labor Senator for South Australia Linda Kirk (she was the one who was dumped by the Labor right faction for former union boss Don Farrell. Kirk was subsequently given a high paying government job by Rudd).
Gee I wonder if during her time working for Senator Kirk whether Xanthe happened to have anything to do with another Labor senator from SA who was also elected in 2002 along with Kirk and who was quite vocal on the MDB and the lower lakes prior to becoming the minister for finance. Interesting.
Interesting that Media Watch says it will welcome questions after the TV show is aired. Whenever that is.
There’s likely some thoughts about dodging the bullet, and never airing the show. Anyone want to place bets?
RWFOH?
One therefore assumes that you find the MW questions balanced and fair and actually related to environmental concerns?
Otherwise, like MW, you are just ‘shooting the messenger’ and not concerned about the message at all.
Rather counter productive RWFOH.
Do you actually have a comment to make on the research?
I hope Media Watch is going to ensure that there is an opportunity for a balanced reply to Michael Mann’s interview on Lateline last night.
I think that Xanthe Klienig should be put on the case investigate those allegations of funding against anyone who questions Mr Mann.
She should also be asking Mr Mann why his hockey stick did not represent the MWP. He said he can expain the MWP, but did not expalin why is was absent from his graph. Maybe Emma did not spot that little trick, or simply forgot to ask.
Another long day for Xanthe – and its already Friday. Better not wait till 4.00pm tpo start phone calls.
Good morning Ms Marohasy
Do you agree with the following statement? ” . . . none of the 11 members of the Media Watch team have the scientific qualifications, or necessary scientific experience, to comment or judge the science behind the policy debate about the Murray River”
If so, this smells of high hypocrisy to me. I don’t recall you ever questioning the scientific qualifications, or necessary scientific experience, to comment or judge the science behind the policy debate about global warming by those frequent participants on this forum. Yet it is not ok to question the science you are purporting relating to the Murray River.
Regardless of the issue, be it the Murray-Darling Basin or global warming, everyone has a right to ‘objectively’ question the science – don’t you agree?
I look forward to your response on this paradoxical issue!
Hi Marc,
Yes and No.
I think the point is being made well by ABC News Watch that Media Watch is out of their depth on the issue of science they asked me about.
But I did get a great email from a Geoffrey Kelley on Monday morning that was a copy of his email to media watch with comment:
“As a reporter you ought to have a bit of basic geographical knowledge about our southern estuarine systems, including Port Phillip Bay and the Gippsland Lakes, as well as Marlo at the entrance of the Snowy River. They are all marine estuaries with similar marine barriers.”
The point Kelley goes on to make is that you don’t need to be an expert to understand that the Australian public has been misled on Murray Darling issues.
Oh deary me Marc,
More ‘shooting the messenger/s’ ?????
As Jen points out, there is a difference between some solid, geographical, practical knowledge and ignorance.
Those questions from MW demonstrated ignorance.
The ‘tone’ of the questions did not exhibit a desire to: ‘objectively’ question the science –
They were quite clearly: ‘subjectively questioning Jennifer’s motives.
If they were indeed attempting to : ‘objectively’ question the science –
I doubt Jennifer or anyone else would have minded.
It is also correct that MW were obviously not qualified to comment on questions of that nature in that type of forum.
They’re supposed to be ‘Media Watch’…their justification for these type of questions are extremely tenuous…don’t you think?
Jennifer’s blog is very, very clearly labelled:
‘A forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment’
If you have somehow missed that, just go to the top of the page and look on the bottom right of the blog title.
Are you able to appreciate the difference??????
Not too OT I hope but a transcript of koalabear’s reference to the Michael Mann interview on Lateline last night is here: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3454652.htm.
I thought Emma Alberici’s interview was good in the circumstances, for it is a complex issue, though someone with more research and a sceptical scientific background would have pulled Mann up on his comments about the MWP and his obfuscating about “Mike’s Nature trick” and “hiding the decline”. His answers were neither direct nor honest, which would have been apparent had further research on the relevant emails been conducted.
For example, with reference to the “Mann hockey stick” see emails: 0886 (“the curve will also show that the IPCC curve needs to be improved according to missing long-term declining trends/signals, which were removed (by dendrochronologists!) before Mann merged the local records together. So why don’t you want to let the result into science?”); 0002 (“the greatest uncertainties lie in the multi-centennial band where tree-ring standardization methods have the greatest impact”); 1104 (“In my review [for the IPCC-TAR report 2001] . . . I criticized the fact that the whole Mann hockey stick [sic] is being printed in its full length in the IPCC-TAR report. In 1999 I made the following comments: 1 the spatial, temporal (tree ring data in the multitudes [sic] mainly contain “summer information”) and spectral coverage and behaviour of the data is questionable, mainly before 1500-1600AD. 2 It is my opinion not appropriate already to make statements for the southern hemisphere and for the period prior to 1500AD, My review was classified “unsignificant” [sic]”); 3373 (“Furthermore, the model output is very much determined by the time series of forcing that is selected, and the model sensitively which essentially scales the range. Mike [Mann] only likes these because they seem to match his idea of what went on in the last millennium, whereas he would savage them if they did not. Also – & I’m sure you agree – the Mann/[Phil] Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year “reconstruction””).
There is many more email references to the “hockey stick”: 3994/4241/4369/4758/5039/5055, while emails 5096 & 5111 are particularly telling about the uncertainties with reference to the MWP (or MCA), and this is only the tip of the iceberg!
What is apparent on even a cursory reading is that many of the involved scientists do not agree on Mann’s “hockey stick” temperature reconstruction indicating the related science is certainly not settled. The ABC is potentially sitting on a story of the century yet has neither the wit nor wisdom (or inclination?) to pursue it.
As Lin Buckfield, executive producer of Media Watch, states in her reply to Marc Hendrickx above, “We are bound not only by our ethics as journalists but also by the ABC Editorial Policies to fair, honest and unbiased in our approach to our work.” Perhaps there is a story for Media Watch here, investigating Lateline’s handling of Mann’s obfuscation through omission.
PS Sorry about the extended posting.
Marc in case you didnt notice this is a blog where anybody can come and comment. Media Watch however is a publicly funded business that should not be taking a clear editorial line. Surely nobody could dispute that the questions were inherently biased?..could they? Do you think as pointed out above, media watch would use the same tone with micheal mann? Somebody who has been proved to have actively and with enormous bias clearly distorted the science to reach a preconceived agenda, is surely much more worthy of MW action?
If it wasnt for people like Jen, who make little if any money from their actions, the global warming movement would be gaining traction.
Fortunately thx to people like Jen, most people who can be bothered to read a bit have recognised that not being sceptical of the “settled science” can really only be the realm of zealots or fools.
And anybody who buys into any of the political parties solutions to a potentially non problem must surely be a misanthropist?…since we know all current solutions will lower living standards whilst doing nothing for climate. No new technology means no change. ( nuclear would help cut co2 …but we all know what the politicians and dogooders think of that?)
http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/1751 says it all really
“we are bound not only by our ethics as journalists but also by the ABC Editorial Policies to fair, honest and unbiased in our approach to our work. ” I particularly like this response from media watch to marc hendrix….given the clear bias in the questioning of Jen, should media watch be investigating media watch?
I think that the approach of Mediawatch is embarrassingly juvenile. It is not even undergraduate level. If I was in ABC management I would be wondering what I was paying for. I could have just as easily asked one of the unis running journalism courses to set it as a project for their students for free and accept that the result would only confirm my worst fears about the quality of journalism courses.
Regardless of the ethical issues raised by this episode the embarrassment factor for Mediawatch is at an excruciating level and their credibility is zero.
There is another facet of this strange experience to consider is that under the censorship/suppression culture proposed by the recent “finkelstein report”. Ignorant partisan ‘investigations’ by Media Watch would have much more dangerous legal ramifications. The natural outcome of these sorts of media hits would be more than simple annoyance and personal emotional pressure of the target. Under the Finkelstein regime, a group of appointed bureaucrats would be not only audience for media watch style shows, but would be able to do something about it with the weight of government authority.
While climate science is vital, AGW is consuming, or attempting to consume, more and more of the public space. Imagine if eugenicists could, in the name of evolutionary biology, suppress Churches for talking about a religious explanation for the universe. Or shut down talk anywhere that questioned the eugenicist version of evolution and their desire to control human breeding by way of law. We are, it would seem inching towards this worldwide with AGW’s self-proclaimed importance as the excuse.
Who’s watching the watchers? Jennifer!
What will be interesting is the spin the put on the information they get. If none of the skeptical blogs are funded by Heartland or “Big Oil” they will either make up the numbers or allow the study to fade into obscurity. The big deal for them is they are casting doubt on everyones “honor” without a lick of evidence just as they have done with Heartland. Yet a “Follow the Money” reveals that the CAGW crow is the one getting big money from Shell Oill, Britisb Petroleum, The Rockefeller Foundations (Standard Oil) ….
Climate Research Unit of East Anglia: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
The Money Trail: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2835581.htm
So you are waiting.
What a disappointment you are, Jennifer Marohasy.
Why this spurning of truth for fees from vested interests, regardless of harm done elsewhere?
Can’t you earn an honest living like other people, or is it just neolib ideology you’ve been brainwashed with that makes you resentful of the environment and the science that explains it?
And your funding will end up being traced back to the Koch bros, et al?
You are so sharp, careful you don’t cut yourself.
Paul, my arent you insightful and witty. got any real evidence to support your zealot like opinion?
only a zealot or an idiot would not be at least a bit sceptical of teh rubbish sprouted as gospel about CAGW and the MDBA. Why dont you come back when you have done some real reading and have something constructive to add? If you arent able to see that the vast majority of money is being spent trying to prove CAGW….and it is going backwards in the publics eye…all because of a few sceptics?…or because people are sick of the stream of lies and exageration and recourse to platitudes and superior morals that actually bring with them real costs and few if any benefits?