Missing News: The Times Says: Royal Society bows to climate change sceptics

The Times says:Royal Society bows to climate change sceptics
Britain’s leading scientific institution admits there is greater uncertainty over future temperature rises than previously thought.

BBC Says: Society to review climate message 
The UK's Royal Society is reviewing its public statements on climate change after 43 Fellows complained that it had oversimplified its messages. They said the communications did not properly distinguish between what was widely agreed on climate science and what is not fully understood.

ABC says...(something about tumbling tumble weeds) 

From the vault - slip of the tongue

Media Room - Media Releases

Incorrect Transcript on "AM" Story 06/10/2005
On ABC radio's "AM" current affairs program yesterday (October 5th, 2005) a story quoted Alamdar Bakhtiari, who (along with the rest of his family) was deported to Pakistan by the Australian Government in December last year.
In that story, Alamdar Bakhtiari said "I don't blame the Australian Government for all this. I myself, now I can understand what's happening, it was not the Australian Government who caused us to be deported. It was all caused by our lawyers."
The transcript of the story was later posted on the ABC's website, and it contained an error.
Due to a mistake in transcription, the word "lawyers" was misheard and written as "lies".
The website has now been amended to correct the error, for which the ABC apologises.

http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/media/s1476457.htm

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

Missing News: Too many nuances at Nature

In a piece titled Invited Letter Now Rejected By Nature Magazine Roger Peilke Snr describes how Nature rejected a letter it initially requested about problems with global surface temperature data. Despite submitting the letter, and making revisions as requested by Nature's editorial staff, he reports that the invited letter has been rejected, not because it is not up to standards, is incorrect, or is not on point, but because "there are too many nuances to this situation to be properly communicated by a short item (or items) on our letters page.".

The full letter and Roger Pielke Snr's description of events can be found HERE.

We suspect this news item will prove to be "too nuanced" for ABC to provide coverage.

ICRP Decision: ABC's yellow-cake bake

ABC have now issued a press release and posted the full ICRP report on our complaint about an ABC report that claimed Australian Uranium was found in Antarctica. The PDF is available here. 

Despite assurances that ABC would look at additional viewpoints on this issue it has never reported on a ministerial statement contained in a  letter  from the Australian Antarctic Division that included the following:

"News reports that uranium dust from Australia was found in an ice core from the Antarctic Peninsula arise from an unpublished study by scientists from Chile, the United States and Brazil. The data were presented at conferences in Punta Arenas, Chile in October 2009 and in Maine, the United States in May 2010.
Data from the World Nuclear Association indicates that in 1995 there was a marked increase in uranium production worldwide. The above mentioned study did not involve fingerprinting or source analysis of the uranium dust, consequently there is no evidence of an Australian source for the dust."

ABC News...baking the yellow cake: sensational icing, raw on the inside.

Dried mud in your eye

A Great Dust Storm

While looking at ABC's lack of reporting of failed weather forecasts, here's another forecast for the diary...
Australian dust storm could be weeks away

"An earth scientist says another major dust storm over south-eastern Australia is likely within weeks."

This is no surprise given the frequency of dust storms in Australia. See for instance this report titled "Severe Dust Storms" from the Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday 27 September, 1938.

We'll look back in four weeks time to see how this particular forecast faired.

Missing News: Taking forecasts to account

Image from http://www.warwickhughes.com

One wonders how long it will take the ABC to report on failures in BOM's long term weather forecasts. In a post titled Ongoing BoM utter incompetence Warwick Hughes compares BOM's 3 month temperature outlook for Australia for MAY 2010 with recorded temperatures, finding very little skill in BOM's forecasting capabilities.

ABC are quick to report BOM's long term and seasonal forecasts, but appear to look the other way when those forecasts turn to out to be wide of the mark. The first person to provide a link to an ABC News article critical of Australian Bureau of Meteorology's long term or seasonal temperature forecasts will be rewarded with a copy of "We're not scared anymore Mr Gore". Happy Hunting.

See Warwick's post HERE.

End of Groupthink culture?

Does the resignation of Kerry O'Brien from the ABC's 7.30 Report herald the beginning of the end of ABC's Groupthink culture, or is it just a speed bump on ABC's path towards a total Groupthink monoculture?

As ABC's Code of Practice states: 3.4 "Content will be impartial. Editorial judgements will be based on news values. One perspective will not be unduly favoured over others.", perhaps we can expect a host from outside ABC's Groupthink mould to host the 7.30 Report next year?  Then again...