Alan Caruba Has A Problem With The Truth About Accuracy In Media


Alan_Caruba recently wrote a guest column for AIM.  AIM promotes itself as Accuracy in Media for fairness, balance and accuracy in news reporting. 

I'm all for accuracy in news reports.  I strive to practice what I preach by presenting the facts and letting my readers decide.  As I am so fond of saying, I don't want to do your thinking for you.

It was with high hopes of witnessing accuracy in media at work that I went to AIM's web site to have a good read.  I read Alan Coruba's guest column.  I think that it sets new standards for journalistic accuracy, but please read it and judge for yourself.  I present my own observations below, but please: don't let me do your thinking for you.


Alan Caruba runs an organisation called The Caruba Organisation.  His AIM guest column is in response to Bryan Walsh's 'Explaining a Global Climate Panel's Key Missteps' article in Time Magazine.  Unfortunately, Alan Coruba appears to have quite forgotten to give his readers a link to the article he was criticising.  I am delighted to be able to help him address that unfortunate oversight.  The original Time article can be found here: Time article


Alan Coruba's own column can be found here: Time Magazine has a problem ...


Observations on accuracy in an AIM article

Firstly, as a matter of ordinary journalistic ethics, Alan Coruba declares his expertise in the promotion of bias:
Time Magazine Has a Problem with the Truth about Global Warming

Bryan Walsh has a great career in public relations awaiting him. Unfortunately he is currently passing himself off as a journalist for Time Magazine.

PR, a profession I have enjoyed for several decades, is widely seen to "spin" facts to a client's advantage and this is frequently the case. PR is advocacy. Journalism is supposed to be something else, i.e., the unbiased, objective reporting of the facts. Someone needs to explain this to Bryan.
Of course, as a matter of journalistic ethics, Alan Coruba has no doubt taken off his PR hat before writing this piece.

He goes on to observe that
... Bryan barely pretends to be a journalist as he engages in whitewashing some widely known facts about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations' scam for the propagation of the huge global warming hoax.
The words 'climate change' in pretty blue constitute a hyperlink.  To the IPCC?  No.  To explanatory notes? No.  Wikipedia? No. Er, Youtube?  No.  The link takes you to a different website with an article entitled: 'Time Magazine Has a Problem with the Truth about Global Warming', by someone called, by a strange coincidence, Alan Coruba.  (The illustration isn't as good as the one by Urshel Taylor.)

The words 'whitewash', 'scam' and 'hoax' indicate that perhaps Alan is beginning to allow his subconscious PR persona to surface.

Bryan noted that the Norwegian Nobel committee had "lauded the IPCC's fourth assessment report in 2007 as creating an ever broader consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming." Note that these are stated as facts, but in truth there never was a "consensus" in the worldwide community of climatologists and meteorologists, and other scientists.
Now, surely that isn't a straw man?  Not from a writer who is writing in order to promote accuracy in media, surely?
in truth there never was a "consensus" in the worldwide community of climatologists and meteorologists, and other scientists.
Well, nobody ever said there was.  The consensus is amongst the community of respected scientists who contributed to the IPCC review process.  That was just a subset of the worldwide community.  If the IPCC tried to include every scientist in the relevant fields the 1st review wouldn't yet be out, let alone the 4th.
Indeed, there have been three international conferences to debunk global warming, all sponsored by the  Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based non-profit, free market think tank that brought together some of the world's leading scientists who participated in seminars and gave addresses that were illustrated by graphs and other data that debunked global warming. A fourth conference is scheduled in May and, who knows, some members of the U.S. media might actually attend and report the truth this time?
Ah!  A hyperlink that actually works.  I have given my views about the Heartland Institute before, in this article so I don't feel the need to repeat them here.  Non profit?  Cui bono?

The assertion that there is a connection between human activities and the non-existent global warming doesn't even meet the lowest standard of journalistic accuracy. There is no connection. None has ever been proven despite the claims. In general terms, the Earth's climate is determined by the sun, the oceans, and other factors of such magnitude as to suggest that an ant hill poses a threat to a skyscraper.
Again, the same external hyperlink - to the same article.  Yes. "In general terms, the Earth's climate is determined by the sun, the oceans, and other" such factors.  Alan Coruba fails to state what these 'other factors' might be.  Here's just two: about 3 TW of heat from the lunar and solar tides and about 42 TW from geothermal sources.  These heat sources are significant heat inputs at the global climate scale.

... factors of such magnitude as to suggest that an ant hill poses a threat to a skyscraper.
Those two figures give us a scale of magnitude from 3TW to 42TW.  Human input is about 15TW and climbing.  Human heat input into the lower atmosphere is a third of what nature already adds to insolation.  That's 15 on top of 45.  Total 60TW and rising.

Some anthill! 

Some skyscraper!

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Conclusion:
It is time to end this shameful blot on journalism and begin to report facts...
Matthew 7:3 says it better than I ever could, Alan.