COMMENT: In June 2008 ABC News produced 10.275 stories per staff member. For June 2010 they managed just 7.074. This is a reduction of over 31% in the quantity of news stories in just 2 years. In real terms this means ABC News produced 3017 less stories in June this year than would have been produced had they maintained 2008 production figures. OVER 3000 LESS! That makes over 36,000 less news stories this year!
ABC News: doing less with more thus leaving its audience more and more mis-informed as the years pass by.
We invite ABC News to comment on the figures and explain where the missing news has gone.
It's not like interesting news stories are hard to find. Here's a small sample of stories ABC have missed so far this year...
Missing News: Oxburgh Inquiry-science was not the subject of our study
Missing News: Where's Watts Up With That
Missing News: Palaeoproterozoic fossils push back the age for multicellular life.
Missing News: Urban Heat Island effect at Laverton, VICTORIA
Missing News: Butterfly claims debunked
More missing news: No depth to ABC coverage of Oxburgh Report
Missing News - Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation accounts for changes in Swiss Glaciers
Missing News on Polar Bears
Missing News - Royal Society to revise climate message
Missing news: GLOBAL WARMING ADVOCACY SCIENCE: A CROSS EXAMINATION
Missing News: Cretaceous Extinctions: Evidence Overlooked
ABC miss the scoop for the poop
Missing News: ABC receives Gold Walkley for climate change reporting
Missing News - Study falsifies IPCC: Climate has low sensitivity to CO2
Missing News: More Curry for IPCC
Missing News: Homeopathy-no effects beyond placebo
Missing News: Wind contributing to Arctic sea ice loss, study finds
Missing News: Wong 'fully duped" according to climate researcher
More missing News: World may not be warming
Missing News: Censorship at AGU: scientists denied the right of reply
Missing News: Medieval Warm Period similar to Modern Warm Period
Missing News: No change in Global Tropical storm days due to Global Warming - Report
More missing news: UAE accused of misleading UK Parliament
Jones' BBC Interview missing in action-reports no warming since 1995
An eye on ABC NEWS: Keeping the bastards who keep the bastards honest - honest.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Missing News: Oxburgh Inquiry-science was not the subject of our study
COMMENT: Steve McIntyre continues doing the work of a whole team of ABC investigative reporters revealing that in the course of the Oxburgh Inquiry Climate Scientist Phil Jones admitted that it was probably impossible to do the 1000-year temperature reconstructions with any accuracy. As McIntyre notes
"Obviously, this would be a hugely important admission relative to this debate, but the Oxburgh Science Appraisal Panel “inquiry” did not report this admission even though UEA had announced that the Science Appraisal Panel would “re-appraise CRU’s science”."
In response to McIntyre's question as to why the Oxburgh Inquiry failed to report Lord Oxburg replied: "the science was not the subject of our study". We concur with Steve McIntyre who asks: "Why would anyone have expected that science would be the subject of study of the Science Appraisal Panel? Well, there’s a good reason why they would. The University of East Anglia and Muir Russell said over and over again that the Science Appraisal Panel would, uh, “re-appraise” CRU’s“science”."
"Obviously, this would be a hugely important admission relative to this debate, but the Oxburgh Science Appraisal Panel “inquiry” did not report this admission even though UEA had announced that the Science Appraisal Panel would “re-appraise CRU’s science”."
Read more at Climate Audit Oxburgh and the Jones Admission
In the meantime we will send a request through to ABC's investigative unit to look into the matter.
Missing News: Where's Watts Up With That
COMMENT: Since June 13 Australia has been privy to a lecture tour by American meteorologist Anthony Watts. Anthony Watts runs one of the most popular science blogs on the internet, wattsupwiththat.com, WUWT was awarded the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Science Blog and is currently rated Number 1 science blog by Wikio. Anthony has been presenting a series of lectures across Australia in conjunction with Dr David Stockwell, Prof. Bob Carter, David Archibold, Jo Nova and other scientists. He has been presenting advance results on his surface stations project to photographically survey every one of the 1221 USHCN weather stations in the USA used as a “high quality network” that has fallen into neglect.
He’ll also tell his story of conversion from climate alarmist to skeptic in the 1990s, as well as some salient points about what he’s learned from his climate blogging experience.
You'd think this event would be worth some coverage by our National Broadcaster. Perhaps an interview with Tony Jones on Lateline or a piece with Sydney Radio presenter Deborah Cameron. But search for the name "Anthony Watts" on ABC News and you won't find much about Anthony Watts the meteorologist. You will find plenty of stories mentioning Anthony Watts the Hooker/Forward for the North Queensland Cowboys Rugby League team. You'll find stories about a Jack Watts - a forward for AFL team Melbourne. You'll find mention of Naomi Watts, an Australian Actress. There are stories about Adelaide Crows forward Fergus Watts, radio celebrity Merrick Watts and Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, but nothing on Anthony Watts the noted US meteorologist. We have requested ABC rectify the situation.
While we wait for ABC's gears to grind into action, readers may be interested in a recent interview with Anthony featured on Quadrant online titled Anthony Watts interviewed.
While we wait for ABC's gears to grind into action, readers may be interested in a recent interview with Anthony featured on Quadrant online titled Anthony Watts interviewed.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Update: Uranium from Uranus
ABC News Online, 3 May 2010
Summary published: Tuesday 29, June 2010
Complaint: An online reader complained that a report ‘Australian uranium dust found in Antarctic ice’ contained factual errors and lacked balance.
Finding: Upheld against 5.2.2 (c) ABC Editorial Policies (revised 1 March 2009)
Audience and Consumer Affairs response: The headline to the report did not meet the ABC’s standards for accuracy in news and current affairs content as it overstated the certainty that uranium dust found in Antarctica came from Australia. The headline was changed to ‘Uranium in Antarctic ice may be from Australia’ and an Editor’s Note was appended to the story to clarify the amendment. The complainant’s concerns about balance were not upheld.
Summary published: Tuesday 29, June 2010
Complaint: An online reader complained that a report ‘Australian uranium dust found in Antarctic ice’ contained factual errors and lacked balance.
Finding: Upheld against 5.2.2 (c) ABC Editorial Policies (revised 1 March 2009)
Audience and Consumer Affairs response: The headline to the report did not meet the ABC’s standards for accuracy in news and current affairs content as it overstated the certainty that uranium dust found in Antarctica came from Australia. The headline was changed to ‘Uranium in Antarctic ice may be from Australia’ and an Editor’s Note was appended to the story to clarify the amendment. The complainant’s concerns about balance were not upheld.
Missing News: Palaeoproterozoic fossils push back the age for multicellular life.
COMMENT: The Australian cover one of the most significant stories in palaeontology for the decade. ABC Science on the other hand appear slow off the mark. We'll wait and see if they provide any coverage...
FOSSILS discovered in west Africa have pushed back the dawn of multicellular life on Earth by at least 1.5 billion years, scientists believe.
From Nature's Editor Summary:
A series of well preserved centimetre-scale fossils in an extended fossiliferous level within black shales near Franceville, in Gabon, West Africa, provides a glimpse of perhaps the earliest form of multicellular life so far discovered. Evidence for multicellular life before the Mesoproterozoic era (1.6–1.0 billion years ago) is scarce and controversial. These new finds are from sediments dated at 2.1 billion years old, not long after the rise in atmospheric oxygen concentration and about a billion and a half years before the rapid expansion in multicellular life forms known as the 'Cambrian explosion'. The fossils are variously sized and shaped remains of well-structured soft-bodied organisms, some exhibiting wrinkles suggestive of flexible sheet-like structures. Their shape and regular fabric indicate a multicellular degree of organization. These fossils may represent the earliest evidence so far reported for cell-to-cell signalling and coordinated growth behaviour on the scale of macroorganisms.
Fossils found in Gabon rewrite timeline of life on Earth
FOSSILS discovered in west Africa have pushed back the dawn of multicellular life on Earth by at least 1.5 billion years, scientists believe.
From Nature's Editor Summary:
A series of well preserved centimetre-scale fossils in an extended fossiliferous level within black shales near Franceville, in Gabon, West Africa, provides a glimpse of perhaps the earliest form of multicellular life so far discovered. Evidence for multicellular life before the Mesoproterozoic era (1.6–1.0 billion years ago) is scarce and controversial. These new finds are from sediments dated at 2.1 billion years old, not long after the rise in atmospheric oxygen concentration and about a billion and a half years before the rapid expansion in multicellular life forms known as the 'Cambrian explosion'. The fossils are variously sized and shaped remains of well-structured soft-bodied organisms, some exhibiting wrinkles suggestive of flexible sheet-like structures. Their shape and regular fabric indicate a multicellular degree of organization. These fossils may represent the earliest evidence so far reported for cell-to-cell signalling and coordinated growth behaviour on the scale of macroorganisms.
ABC NEWS: June 2010 Productivity Report
COMMENT: ABC's productivity reporting is completed for June 2010. Results appear below. We will provide commentary at a later date.
Summary Report for Policy Makers:
ABC NEWS - Doing Less with More
Stories: Total stories posted in ABC News Archives for June 2010 was 6666. This is the lowest on record.
Year Total Stories
2003 7230
2004 6920
2005 6899
2006 6995
2007 7988
2008 8894
2009 7134
2010 6666
Year Staff
2003 766.24
2004 735.04
2005 756.6
2006 770.68
2007 842.37
2008 865.59
2009 913.14
2010 942.33*
Year Stories per staff per month
2003 9.435685947
2004 9.414453635
2005 9.118424531
2006 9.076400062
2007 9.482768855
2008 10.27507249
2009 7.812602668
2010 7.073954984
Summary Report for Policy Makers:
ABC NEWS - Doing Less with More
Stories: Total stories posted in ABC News Archives for June 2010 was 6666. This is the lowest on record.
ABC 24 hour news-what can you expect
COMMENT: As part of our Productivity Survey we have had a quick look at ABC's productivity over the day. We collected data from the last 5 weekdays of June 2010 and looked at the time stories were posted to ABC's News Online website. The results are shown in the figure below. Over 80% of stories are posted between 6 am and 6 pm,with just 17.6% posted over the remaining 12 hours.
ABC were recently criticised for dropping the ball on the ALP's take down of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, seemingly being so inflexible that they couldn't break into normal programming to report on events as they were happening in real time.
The breakdown of ABC's current performance (see chart below) suggests ABC is currently incapable of covering stories outside normal office hours on a continual basis without a drop in productivity elsewhere.
Based on these results we predict that the bulk of content on ABC's 24 hour news channel will be recycled news stories posted earlier in the day.
So why should Tax payers fork out funds for a service already undertaken satisfactorily by the private sector? Foisting a 24 Hour News Channel on an organisation that is already under-performing, an organisation producing less reports with more staff, just means ABC's news coverage ends up being even more mediocre. Rather than wasting money on a mediocre 24 hour news channel ABC could use tax payer money better if it simply covered important events as they happen. It clearly missed an opportunity to do so with Kevin Rudd's demise as PM
ABC were recently criticised for dropping the ball on the ALP's take down of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, seemingly being so inflexible that they couldn't break into normal programming to report on events as they were happening in real time.
The breakdown of ABC's current performance (see chart below) suggests ABC is currently incapable of covering stories outside normal office hours on a continual basis without a drop in productivity elsewhere.
Based on these results we predict that the bulk of content on ABC's 24 hour news channel will be recycled news stories posted earlier in the day.
So why should Tax payers fork out funds for a service already undertaken satisfactorily by the private sector? Foisting a 24 Hour News Channel on an organisation that is already under-performing, an organisation producing less reports with more staff, just means ABC's news coverage ends up being even more mediocre. Rather than wasting money on a mediocre 24 hour news channel ABC could use tax payer money better if it simply covered important events as they happen. It clearly missed an opportunity to do so with Kevin Rudd's demise as PM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)