Misleading headlines create false impression about rock stencil authenticity

The following complaint sent to the ABC about this article from ABC Rural (updated):

Mine's Aboriginal 'rock art' found to be authentic

The headline to this report on disputed aboriginal rock stencils reads:

"Mine's Aboriginal 'rock art' found to be authentic"

The opening line reads:
"Environmental groups say Aboriginal rock art at a site earmarked for a controversial coal mine, has been proven to be authentic."

It goes on...

"There was a question of the authenticity of a white hand stencil, they found that hand stencil to be authentic, they found a number of other hand stencils in the cave, in the floor of the cave they found chert stone tools, which suggested previous Aboriginal habitation,

In fact...(from a real journalist...) 

Activists vindicated as Aboriginal cave art is ruled to be genuine

A report released yesterday by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage concluded at least some of the figures in the cave are genuine traditional art. Closer examination of the cave showed there were two separate sets of art: a whitish stencil and a series of reddish ones. The office experts concluded “the status of the grey/white hand stencil is inconclusive”, but they found reddish stencils showing “portions of hands and fingers” looked old and eroded, were consistent with a unique style of the area and were “traditional Aboriginal hand ­stencils”.

ABC's headline amounts to an editorial opinion and misrepresents the known facts. Please correct.

Reggae-loving parrot joins Vanuatu's climate change fight

Reggae-loving parrot joins Vanuatu's climate change fight.

well not quite....

Thank you for your email of 9 August concerning the headline “"Reggae-loving parrot joins Vanuatu's climate change fight".  

As your correspondence raised concerns of a lack of accuracy, your email was referred to Audience and Consumer Affairs for consideration and response. The unit is separate and independent from ABC program areas and is responsible for investigating complaints alleging a broadcast or publication was in contravention of the ABC's editorial standards. In light of your concerns, we have reviewed the story and assessed it against the ABC’s editorial requirements for accuracy, as outlined in section 2.1 of the ABC’s Code of Practice: http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/CodeofPractice2013.pdf . In the interests of procedural fairness, we have also sought and considered material from ABC News.

We agree that the headline was slightly misleading in that it suggested that the video was part of the fight against climate change as against part of the effort to prepare for it. The relevant part of the script said:

Climate change may intensify some of the impacts of El Nino and la Nina in the future. Learning how to adapt to the natural ups and downs in our climate will help prepare for long-term climate change

The headline has been modified and an editor’s note attached.

Audience and Consumer Affairs are satisfied this adequately resolves the problem.

Thank you for taking the time to write; your feedback is appreciated.

For your reference, the ABC Code of Practice is available online at http://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/CodeofPractice2013.pdf

Yours sincerely

Mark Maley                                 

Audience & Consumer Affairs

Editor’s note: (August 20) The original headline mentioned “Vanuatu’s climate change fight”. The headline has been changed to reflect the fact that the piece is more about information and preparations for weather events.

score +1

Update Comma Butterfly

We received the reply below from ABC Audience & Consumer Affairs in regard to our complaint about ABC reporting that indicated "the comma butterfly was able to make the leap from central England to Edinburgh, a distance of about 220 kilometres, in two decades."
 The report did not clarify that the Comma Butterfly was previously common in Scotland, for instance: 

The Comma is known to have a very dynamic range in the UK. It was known in eastern Scotland in the early-19th century being found as far north as Fife and Alloa, Clackmannanshire in the east but it was absent in western Scotland. After 1850, the Comma was in decline with the last 19th century record being for Denholm, the Borders in 1868.

 http://www.southwestscotland-butterflies.org.uk/species/butterflies/comma.shtml

Seems ABC do not understand the concept of "context"..from its editorial policy...
2.1 Make reasonable efforts to ensure that material facts are accurate and presented in context.
2.2 Do not present factual content in a way that will materially mislead the audience. In some cases, this may require appropriate labels or other explanatory information."

Here's the reply received today.let you be the judge. One wonders why the original report did not attempt to get in touch with the authors of the study for clarification. ABC-Cargo cult journalism in action...

Thank you for your email regarding the ABC Science story 'Wildlife responding fast to climate change'. I am sorry for the delay in responding to you.

I understand you believe the statement in the story "But the comma butterfly was able to make the leap from central England to Edinburgh, a distance of about 220 kilometres, in two decades" misrepresented factual information because the story did not mention that the range of the comma butterfly has previously included Scotland.

In light of your concerns, Audience & Consumer Affairs has reviewed this statement, within the context of the story, and assessed its adherence to standards 2.1 and 2.2 in the ABC Editorial Policies. These standards state as follows:

"2.1 Make reasonable efforts to ensure that material facts are accurate and presented in context.
2.2 Do not present factual content in a way that will materially mislead the audience. In some cases, this may require appropriate labels or other explanatory information."

I understand the story was sourced from Reuters. ABC Innovation has advised that the statement to which you refer was based on a quote from Dr David Roy, head of the Biological Records Centre in the UK and co-author of the paper the story reported on. The quote appeared in a press release about the paper. I am advised that ABC Innovation verified the accuracy of the statement by checking it against the press release and the paper itself, although there was no direct reference to the comma butterfly in the paper or supplementary material. Additionally, I understand ABC Innovation relied on Dr Roy's relevant expertise in this area.

Following receipt of your complaint, ABC Innovation contacted Dr Roy about the issue you raised. According to Dr Roy, the statement was about the recent expansion of the distribution of the comma butterfly in recent decades, and not the historical distribution of the species. Dr Roy has advised that while it is true that the comma butterfly covered much of England and Wales, plus scattered localities in Scotland (as far north as Fife) in the early nineteenth century, it was absent from Scotland for more than a century (estimated to be since c.1870). I understand Dr Roy's quote in the press release, which formed the basis of the statement, reported the re-expansion of the species since the ~1980s.

On review, having regard to the steps taken by ABC Innovation and the relatively incidental nature of the statement within the context of the story, Audience & Consumer Affairs is satisfied that reasonable efforts were made to ensure that it was accurate and presented in context. Furthermore, given the information subsequently provided by Dr Roy, we are satisfied that the content was not presented in a way that was likely to materially mislead the audience. Accordingly, the requirements of standards 2.1 and 2.2 were met.

Nonetheless, please be assured that your comments have been noted and conveyed to ABC Innovation management so that relevant staff are aware of your concerns. Thank you for taking the time to write.

Yours sincerely
SM
ABC Audience & Consumer Affairs

The truth not reported while activists rule-update

Update to earlier post "The truth not reported while activists rule"

ABC science (perhaps in response to our complaint of a lack of balance with ABC's earlier coverage) get in on the act on a paper published in Nature that ABC claims links CO2 with extreme weather  "Study links extreme weather to climate change". In it they appear to have finally got around to interviewing (see update below-ABC did not interview Pielke directly and give the false impression of having done so in their report) the doyen of climate disaster studies  Roger Pielke Jnr. They give Dr Pielke two sentences: "Professor Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado says: "It is exciting to see the application of innovative approaches to connecting the dots between greenhouse gas emissions and damage from extreme events."

But he warns the methods used in the study are still in their "infancy"."

One wonders how long the interview went for, as ABC appear to have misrepresented Pielke Jnr's view's on this study. Here's a link to Dr Pielke's post on the paper in question: Flood disasters and human caused climate change.

Here are some extracts from that post:
Nature published two papers yesterday that discuss increasing precipitation trends and a 2000 flood in the UK.  I have been asked by many people whether these papers mean that we can now attribute some fraction of the global trend in disaster losses to greenhouse gas emissions, or even recent disasters such as in Pakistan and Australia.

I hate to pour cold water on a really good media frenzy, but the answer is "no."  Neither paper actually discusses global trends in disasters (one doesn't even discuss floods) or even individual events beyond a single flood event in the UK in 2000.  But still, can't we just connect the dots?  Isn't it just obvious?  And only deniers deny the obvious, right?

What seems obvious is sometime just wrong.  This of course is why we actually do research.  So why is it that we shouldn't make what seems to be an obvious connection between these papers and recent disasters, as so many have already done? 

Snip

Absent an increase in peak streamflows, it is impossible to connect the dots between increasing precipitation and increasing floods.  There are of course good reasons why a linkage between increasing precipitation and peak streamflow would be difficult to make, such as the seasonality of the increase in rain or snow, the large variability of flooding and the human influence on river systems.  Those difficulties of course translate directly to a difficulty in connecting the effects of increasing GHGs to flood disasters.

Pielke concludes "Connecting the dots is fun, but it is not science."

Read the rest and ask yourself if the ABC have fairly presented Pielke's opinion. Pielke Says "impossible to connect the dots", ABC says the opposite.

Update 19/2/2011 Dr Pielke provides a little more detail. ABC did not interview him directly, their article just a mis-mash of comments cut and paste from the NZ based Science Media Centre. ABC's lazy reporters caught out pretending to be journalists. Roger hence remains among the missing voices. From comments posted at Roger Pielke Jr's Blog:

Roger Pielke, Jr. said...13

-11-ABC NEWS WATCH
Sure, my comments were part of a "round-up" put together by the Science Media Centre (London) which you can see in full here:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2011/02/17/expert-reaction-to-paper-on-floods-and-climate-warming/
Here are my comments in full:
"It is exciting to see the application of innovative approaches to connecting the dots between greenhouse gas emissions and damage from extreme events. Pall et al. seek to quantify the increased risk due to greenhouse gas emissions for a particular flood event in England and Wales in 2000. Their methodology extends an approach first applied in the context of the European heat wave of 2003. Wide acceptance of such a methodology will most likely have to await the ability to demonstrate skill in seasonal forecasting (of the future) that improves upon methods that do not consider the influence of greenhouse gases. This is particularly the case in situations such as flooding in Wales and England, where the authors observe that the region has seen no long-term trends in either flooding or precipitation. Such important research is in its infancy."

Single soundbites rarely can capture the nuance involve with such issues, hence the importance of blogs to discuss in more depth.

FRI FEB 18, 06:37:00 AM MST

H/T Loaded Dog