Update - Climate works for the ALP.

COMMENT: ABC have replied to our complaint  and posted a correction in relation to its story on a report by Climateworks (+1 to score).

Received 6 May, 2010

Thank you for your email regarding the ABC News online report Opposition rejects climate plan study.

The ABC acknowledges your concern with this report and accepts that it lacked  context by failing to note the political affiliations of the ClimateWorks Board.

An editor’s note has been attached to report, alerting the audience to the oversight.  The matter has also been posted on the ABC News online corrections page, which is available at the attached link, for your reference;  http://abc.net.au/news/corrections/

Yours sincerely

 Audience and Consumer Affairs

Wednesday, May 5 2010

ClimateWorks makeup

News Online

On March 16, in a story about a ClimateWorks Australia plan released to cut carbon emissions, the ABC did not provide enough context to indicate that key members of ClimateWorks are Labor Party members including the Chairman , John Thwaites who is the former Victorian ALP deputy state Premier. It also includes current sitting members Mark Dreyfus (Federal MP) and Sam Mostyn (a member of the New South Wales’ Premier’s Greenhouse Advisory Panel.

Quadrant: As wrong as ABC

COMMENT: The article "As wrong as ABC" by Des Moore appearing on the Quadrant website may be of interest to readers here.

The Great Global Warming Blunder

COMMENT: Dr Roy Spencer explores climate sensitivity in his new book The Great Global Warming Blunder.
We have requested ABC find time to interview Dr Spencer about his new work and the notion contained therein that the climate's sensitivity to increased CO2 is not as high as flawed IPCC climate models suggest. Come on, surprise us!


From Dr Spencer's Blog (HERE):

"About one-half of Blunder is a non-technical description of our new peer reviewed and soon-to-be-published research which supports the opinion that a majority of Americans already hold: that warming in recent decades is mostly due to a natural cycle in the climate system — not to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning.

Believe it or not, this potential natural explanation for recent warming has never been seriously researched by climate scientists. The main reason they have ignored this possibility is that they cannot think of what might have caused it.
You see, climate researchers are rather myopic. They think that the only way for global-average temperatures to change is for the climate system to be forced ‘externally’…by a change in the output of the sun, or by a large volcanic eruption. These are events which occur external to the normal, internal operation of the climate system."

Panic: a poor basis for risk management

COMMENT: Not that surprising that this panicky statement from Professor Steven Sherwood of University of New South Wales made in an interview with ABC science reporter Darren Osborne was passed and published without challenge:

"When you're planning sensibly for anything you plan for the worst case scenario".

From the Panic piece "Warmer planet to stress humans: study" published on ABC online 4 May 2010. On this basis I guess we can expect to see a large proportion of the world's GDP spent sending comet killing rockets into space. 

From the vault - biased-not us!

Lateline, 16 February 2009

Summary published: Monday 11, May 2009

Complaint:  A viewer complained about a story which focused on debate about fuel reduction in the aftermath of recent bushfires in Victoria. The story included a case study of a family who had been fined by their local council some years previously for clearing trees on their property. The viewer raised a number of concerns and questioned the report’s accuracy, impartiality and balance.
Audience and Consumer Affairs response:  The ABC agreed that the report contained two inaccuracies in relation to the precise size of the fine and the cost the family had incurred for clearing trees on their property. The online transcript of the report was amended and an Editor’s Note added to explain the changes.
Other aspects of the complaint were not upheld. The ABC was satisfied that the report presented principal relevant viewpoints on matters of importance and did not unduly favour a particular perspective.
http://www.abc.net.au/contact/corp_aud_upheld_May2009.htm

"From the Vault" - digging up past corrections and clarifications from the ABC archives

Oz Yellow cake in Antarctic!

Update reply recievced 6 June 2010: see below
Score +1


ABC HEADLINE: "Australian uranium dust found in Antarctic ice" Online 3 May 2010
ABC REPORTED: ABC covered claims by a Chilean researcher that uranium dust was found in ice core from the Antarctic Peninsula. The report states: "An ice core from the Antarctic bears traces of uranium that may have been carried by the wind from Australian mines in 1995, a glacier expert has told a Chilean newspaper.
The minuscule amounts of the radioactive element "correspond to a year (1995) when Australia increased its uranium production," Ricardo Jana, who participates in an international research effort in the frozen continent, told El Mercurio daily."
THE COMPLAINT: The headline overstates the certainty of the proposition made by the researcher. It also fails to take into account alternate sources of the uranium such as Uranium mines in South America including new Uranium discoveries in Chile (HERE) and Argentina (HERE) . As such the report lacks balance and contains factual errors. The result is shallow sensationalism.
OUTCOME:
Received 6 June 2010
Thank you for your email regarding ABC News Online.

Yours concerns of inaccuracy and a lack of balance have been referred to Audience and Consumer Affairs for review.  The unit is separate to and independent from ABC program areas.

On review, ABC News accepts that the headline to the report in question overstated the certainty that uranium dust found in Antarctica came from Australia. The headline has been changed to ‘Uranium in Antarctic ice may be from Australia’,  and an editor’s note has been appended to the story:   http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/03/2888354.htm  The headline did not meet the ABC’s standards for accuracy in news and current affairs content.

However, we are satisfied that the story was in keeping with the ABC’s standards for balance.  It was a brief news story reporting the findings of  scientists from the Chilean Antarctic Institute that uranium found in Antarctic dust may be from Australia; as such it reported the views from Dr Ricardo Jana.    We do not believe that further perspectives were required to be included in order to meet the requirements of the ABC’s Editorial Policies; Dr Jana was the principal relevant viewpoint on the subject to hand.    

For your reference, the ABC’s Code of Practice is available at:  http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/200806_codeofpractice-revised_2008.pdf

Yours sincerely
Audience & Consumer Affairs

COMMENT: Another example of poor journalism.

From the vault - next time ask a geologist

Catalyst - 16 August 2007
The complaint
A viewer complained about a Catalyst story which dealt with the discovery of the Tiktaalik fossil on Ellesmere Island. The report made references to "a time [400 million years ago] when all living creatures lived and breathed in water", and references to the air above water being "poison" and "toxic" at the time. The complainant pointed out that there were living creatures on land in the Early Devonian period and also noted that the air was not “toxic” at the time.
Findings
The ABC acknowledged that the two aspects of the story noted by the complainant were inaccurate. Catalyst should have referred to "all limbed vertebrates" rather than "all creatures" and references to “toxic” air should not have been included in the program. A correction was added to the transcript of the story on the Catalyst website. A complaint handling breach was also recorded as the complainant did not receive a response within the statutory 60 day period.
"From the Vault" - digging up past corrections and clarifications from the ABC archives.