Genetically biased
Bias is in its genes. It’s not like it does it consciously, however, merely that evolution has determined that our national broadcaster hangs far to the Left, plugs climate alarmism, loves Tim Flannery and David Karoly, ensures that all its science presenters are fully paid-up warm-mongers, like Robyn Williams and Bernie Hobbs, and hates sceptics with a passion.
So it is little surprise that defamatory comments in an ABC blog concerning Hockey Stick destroyer Steve McIntyre of the incomparable Climate Audit blog remained unmoderated, requiring not just a formal complaint but an email from McIntyre himself before they were removed. As Marc Hendrickx explains:
In late November last year Sara Phillips, ABC’s environment editor, posted an opinion piece about climate negotiations at Cancun to her taxpayer-funded blog. I left a comment suggesting she might be better off covering a recent paper published in the Journal of Climate co-authored by Steve McIntyre. This work refuted an earlier study published in Nature in the summer of 2009 and widely covered by the ABC which claimed there was unusual warming in west Antarctica due to man-made global warming. McIntyre and co-authors O’Donnell, Lewis and Condon proved the statistical methodology of the Nature study was flawed and the results erroneous. I directed Phillips to a post on the subject by McIntyre, at his Climate Audit website.
The following anonymous comment was posted to Phillips’s blog shortly afterwards:
Annie : 03 Dec 2010 7:07:53pm
The denialist clowns return again . . . climateaudit.org . . . run by Stephen McIntyre a known climate denialist and extremist right-wing provocateur . . . you are a joke as are your answers . . . laughing hysterically.
On seeing the comment I alerted Phillips, suggesting the comment should be removed as it contravened ABC posting rules, namely, 4.4.1 defamatory, or otherwise unlawful or that it violates laws regarding harassment, discrimination, racial vilification, privacy or contempt; 4.4.2 intentionally false or misleading; 4.4.4 abusive, offensive or obscene; 4.4.5 inappropriate, off topic, repetitive or vexatious; 4.4.9 deliberate provocation of other community members.
After a day or so it was clear my request had been ignored, so I submitted a formal complaint to the ABC. This was turned down by the ABC’s audience and consumer affairs. The reply I received on December 16 included the following rationale from Phillips: The moderator has explained this decision as follows: “Mr McIntyre is described by Annie as being an ‘extremist right wing provocateur’. Mr McIntyre’s views are seen by some as extreme. Annie clearly believes they are. He could reasonably be described as ‘right wing’ as a speaking member of the George C Marshall Institute, which is known for its right-leaning politically conservative views. ‘Provocateur’ is a name given to describe those whose thinking goes against that of the status quo, another label that could reasonably be given to Mr McIntyre. As such, the comments from Annie are not unfounded and therefore not defamatory.”
Read the rest of the article to see the lengths required to have that disgraceful comment removed. Yet any comment that dared criticise the consensus that even slightly tiptoed over the posting rules would have been removed in a trice.
Also read Marc’s blog post on the subject: ABC Bias yields no apology for Mr McIntyre
Groupthink at work YET AGAIN at Their ABC, paid for by Your Taxes.
Australian Climate Madness 
More evidence that the ABC desperately needs an enema….
It’s good to see this is getting some coverage about the traps – effectively holding this bunch of one eyed activists at ABC to account – it’s over at Bolt’s blog as well.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_abc_of_climate_cariicature/
Thanks Simon, and WELL DONE (as usual) Marc.
Unthinking, ignorant bogans, the lot of them….Isn’t it funny how the ‘left’ are becoming exactly what they accuse the ‘right’ of being as the power goes to their heads….?
The left are our betters; just ask any one of them.
Unless you think like them, you can’t be trusted to think at all.
We should just accept everything they say without question – like good little sheepies.
There was another “Orwellian Doublethink” article in The Australian today about how a carbon price will “ease pressure” on electricity prices. However, the interesting thing was, nearly all the comments were very negative – some scathing. Even though these comments are vetted, it’s a great sign of the growing public scepticism to climate change.
It will interesting to see what happens at the ABC, once the whole climate change scam collapses. I somehow think there will suddenly be a whole lot of ABC journalists “retiring”. Remember revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
Political correctness is leftist political groupthink, a mental condition where the individual not only doesn’t think, but willfully suppresses thought with himself and bullies it with others. By doing this he/she avoids the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, seeing things he’s programmed not to see. Discriminating between truth and falsehood is of no importance. A lie is OK as long as it delivers the politically correct message. That’s why the ABC doesn’t need to apologise.
Someone like McIntyre is too disinterested and too much of a honest man to try and sue for defamation, slander or libel. Michael Mann, however, in response to a humorous satire of him chopping down a tree….. well, you get the picture.
The state of comments at any ABC site are cringe-worthy. There is very little original thinking and a whole pile of groupthink. I get the impression most of them are by the same group who used to waste their time pushing the ‘green left weekly’ while at university.
The ABC make me SICK.
I have tried to post “against the trend” at ABC online with argument against outrageous comments on a number of occasions but such posts were not published. I found no trouble having posts published that went with the flow however. (I have since given up as it was not good for my blood pressure)
On one occasion I was so peeved (it was a pro ets piece with much fawning in the comments as I recall) that I made mention in my post of the fact that not publishing critical comments was in effect limiting free speech and that the public had the right to make comment against this tax. That post miraculously appeared.
What is one expected to deduce from such behaviour other than they are severely compromised and are nothing but bloody activists.
My deduction was that the post appeared because they sensed a complaint coming their way.
NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Thanks for the plug Simon. I had a brief interview on the article on Brisbane’s 4BC just after 5pm. The word is getting out. Pity it hasn’t yet penetrated ABC’s shield of Groupthink.
Well done, Marc, for getting published.
Do you a Human Rights Commission & Tribunal in Oz? Here in Ontario, Canada, we do and if one were to show active discrimination, and abuse of their own regulations, they could be taken before the human rights tribunal. One would need to document the posts, such as the one referred to above as well as opposite views that people attempted to submit and which were not allowed or deleted by the “moderators”.
These kinds of proceedings are just one way to turn the rocks over and allow the light to shine on the denizens revealed thereby.
Unfortunately it is only through such legal and civil actions that people who abuse their power and positions can be held accountable.
In the US, I think things are beginning to change at no less a liberal paper than the NY Times. Take a look at this article from Monday’s paper, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/business/energy-environment/21green.html?ref=energy-environment
and this passage in particular, “Nowadays — doubtless to the chagrin of the clean-energy industry — coverage tends to focus more on the challenges and quirks of these new technologies. How will the electric grid solve the problem of integrating large numbers of wind turbines, which don’t spin when the wind doesn’t blow? Will wind machines interfere with military radar? What happens if the blades get icy? And perhaps most importantly, how will the clean-energy industry, especially solar, bring its costs down far enough to become competitive with fossil fuels? ”
The press should have been reporting the plusses and the minuses all along rather than breathlessly regurgitating press releases. But better late than never.
In the end, both sides of the climate debate will be better off if the media holds everyone’s feet to the fire in an effort to get to the truth. If it can happen at the NY tiimes, it can happen anywhere, including the ABC and the BBC.