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Posts Tagged ‘propaganda modeling’
29.January.2010
Challenges for the modern journalist
Okay. I’ve been very critical of journalists and newspapers that are getting it wrong on climate change: here and here and here. But you should know that I have moments of being more, well, sympathetic with the modern journalist. I also believe that healthy journalistic institutions are essential for a healthy democracy. But our democracy is not healthy. And, like Noam Chomsky, I believe we live in one of the most extraordinary propaganda states of all time. But we also have some of the most freedoms of all time. So how is that even possible?
Well the answer to that question is too long 1 for this post. So instead what I’ve tried to do here is outline a few of the challenges facing the modern journalist by summarizing six challenges of publishing in this modern context.
Six challenges
First of all, newspapers are a businesses. They have clients. And their clients are businesses that want to advertise. But they lose these clients when the newspaper promotes views and says things that don’t align with the bottom line interests of said clients. So an oil company based out of Calgary, for example, has a fiduciary duty to be opposed to policies that limit their profitability. That in turn means that they can’t spend money on advertising with broadcasters or publishers that promote policies that hurt their profitability. And that means that journalists have to write in ways that don’t make their editors choke on their ties.2 I call this the challenge of compliance.
Second, this is happening in an internationalized context where newspapers are losing market share and profitability because of “the google”, or the “interweb”. So the pressure on journalists to say something of more interest and value than say, a blogger, is immense. I call this the challenge of attention.
Third, issues are complicated. Climate science is complicated. Social policy is complicated. Police brutality is complicated. Did so-and-so “die”? Or were they “killed”? This is sometimes a very tricky business. And given the possibility that someone with money or an agenda might sue you for libel, it’s easier to just write about the sports. In a complicated world it can be very hard to find out the truth or reasonable approximations of it. I call this difficulty, the challenge of integrity.
If finding the truth and understanding complex situations is difficult, try doing it on a timeline. And that’s the kicker: publishing for a newspaper means saying something on time. The traditional newspaper has a press that runs on a rigid schedule for economic reasons and reasons of scale. And because newspapers, and the old people that read them, hate trees and don’t understand the interweb-thingy, they still produce content on this rigid schedule. This is the challenge of production.
Fifthly, the pressure for journalists to understand a situation, produce some engaging copy, say something non-threatening for their advertisers, not get sued by a person in the story, get it to print on time all the while bearing the weight of the future of the newspaper, is intense. The financial future of all the staff is on their shoulders and the weight must be spine-crushing. After all, if Canwest fails to avert their bankruptcy and the whole empire tanks, the Aspers won’t lose their retirement savings or their house. Contra a common capitalist myth, it’s actually the employees that bear most of the real risk of the Canwest empire crumbling. Employees that have moved their families and invested in mortgages or are carrying the debt of their journalism degrees can’t afford for Canwest to go broke. So all of the myriad staff that it takes to design and print a newspaper, distribute it and find advertisers all rely on the content produced by the reporters. That’s a lot of pressure. The reporters are accountable to their fellow employees in a major way. I call this the challenge of positive-thinking-will-hopefully-keep-this-boat-floating-until-we-all-pay-our-mortgages.
And finally and perhaps most significantly, journalists need to worry about their own jobs. I actually don’t know this for certain. But this is the word on the street. Journalists, apparently, are losing there jobs. And, apparently, it’s not just Canwest that has been losing employees. So it turns out that reporters need to keep their editors very very happy. So, in deference to the first challenge, I also call this the challenge of compliance.
In Summary
- The challenge of compliance (for editors)
- The challenge of attention
- The challenge of integrity
- The challenge of production
- The challenge of positive-thinking-will-hopefully-keep-this-boat-floating-until-we-all-pay-our-mortgages.
- The challenge of compliance (for reporters)
This guy knows things about the future of journalism. Actually, he also has some good tips on just writing a blog. 3
17.December.2009
Making Tim Ball
This is a story about one of my moments of glory. Some of you know that some years ago I was fundraising for Greenpeace. One particularly cold winter day, I engaged a passerby in a conversation about global warming. The man who stopped to talk was quite charming but he clearly had no sympathy for the claims I was making. Wow was I startled when he said that he was Canada’s first climatologist!
Of course, that wasn’t enough to convince me of his points of view and eventually he said, “Meteorologists can’t predict the weather next week, how can scientists claim to predict global warming?” Now when he said this, some kind of alarm bell starting to ring deep down in my brain stem. Maybe he was just a little too slick. Or maybe, since I was so often speaking from a script, I was in a heightened state of script awareness. So at that point, I fell out of my own script and stuck out my hand and introduced myself. And he introduced himself. His name was Tim Ball.
We had an animated conversation about peer reviewed publishing, the dimensions of relative objectivity in science, global cooling, and socialism. Actually he accused me of being a socialist. And that was when my moment of glory came to pass in the form of a question I would ask in return. See, when he accused me of being a socialist I was provoked first to a moment of confusion – it just struck me as a non sequitur. But after the confusion, came clarity. And I asked him, “Do you work for the Fraser Institute?”
I still remember that moment and I remember exactly where we were standing – corner of Government and Yates in front of Eddi Bauer.
His eyes widened a little and he stepped back. Pointedly, he said no. I told him that equating concern for global warming with socialism sounded like something the Fraser Institute or the Heritage Foundation might do. He mumbled something and walked away. I quickly made some notes about the exchange, including writing down his name and went on with my day.
But that night I did a name search online for ‘Tim Ball’. Then I did a name search for ‘Tim Ball’ on the Fraser Institute website. And maybe he wasn’t an employee but I did find his name on lot’s of their communications. I was so excited! I met an important person who was clearly a hired gun for climate change denial and made his cover on one try! It was easy.
But unfortunately, many reporters and journalists have found him convincing over the years. Unfortunately, many so-called journalists continue to find him interesting. As of today, he’s still listed on the Fraser Institute website:
This is how his bio reads on the Fraser Institute website:
Dr. Tim Ball, one of the first Canadians to hold a Ph.D. in climatology, wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of London (England) using the remarkable records of the Hudson’s Bay Company to reconstruct climate change from 1714 – 1952. He has published numerous articles on climate change and its impact on the human condition. Dr. Ball has served on numerous committees at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels on climate, water resources, and environmental issues. He was a professor in the geography department at the University of Winnipeg before retiring. He has written a regular column on weather in the agricultural magazine. Country Guide, for 14 years. He is currently working as an environmental consultant and public speaker based in Victoria and has written, with Dr. Stuart Houston, 18th Century Naturalists on Hudson Bay, a book on the science and climate of the fur trade (McGill-Queens University Press, 2003).
But this is how he’s described in James Hoggan’s recent book, Climate Cover Up, The Crusade to Deny Global Warming:
There are few “skeptical scientists” with as little actual expertise and as much ambition as the Canadian geography professor Dr. Timothy Ball. Never a climate scientist per se, Dr. Ball quit his position as an associate professor at the University of Winnipeg in 1995, apparently ending an academic career that featured a lifetime output of just four peer-reviewed journal articles, none of which addressed atmospheric science. Yet ten years later, Ball-the-climate-expert seemed to be everywhere – on the radio, in the newspapers, on the lecture circuit, even testifying before a committee in the Canadian parliament.
Turns out that Tim Ball is paid by the Friends of Science that is funded through the University of Calgary Science Education Fund, set up by Barry Cooper who is friends with Stephen Harper, which is funded by the Oil patch. He’s also connected to the National Resources Stewardship Program, Tom Harris with APCO Public Relations, High Park Advocacy Group, Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Electricity Association. He’s effectively a paid mouthpiece with fewer credentials than he and the Fraser Institute claims he has. But I met him and he’s quasi famous and so I guess I met an almost famous guy! And I made him. That was my moment of glory.
12.December.2009
Bumper stickers
Bumper stickers and car magnets are an interesting window into human identities and human values. Generally people aren’t paid to put these kinds of things on their vehicles so we know they’re authentic. And in our culture, a car or truck is a serious reflection of who we are. We’re generally very careful about what kind of vehicle we own, much like we’re very careful about what kind of clothes we put on to be seen in. Given these factors, bumper stickers are powerful indicators of a vehicle owner’s values. From rainbows to Darwin fishes, there’s a surprising amount of background knowledge needed to really get the iconography. And sometimes it’s just really straightforward.
01.December.2009
Hey, Calgary Herald, you suck on climate change
Here’s a fun thing that you can try at home. It’s a simple form of media analysis. The result of this particular analysis leads me to think bad thoughts about Canwest. But that’s just me. Here’s what I did. First I went to the Calgary Herald website. But you can pick any online media outlet that you want. I then picked a topic and typed it into their website search function. I chose “climate change” but you can pick a topic that is of interest to you. I kept track of the time and date to make it more scientific!1 I then read the first ten articles that the search function brought up, discounting duplicates. By using their search function, and setting this plan out in advance, my analysis is more impartial and I can’t be accused of cherry picking bad articles. Here’s what I got.
1. Feds warned over climate change protectionismOttawa must act to ensure proposed U.S. climate-change policy does not lead to “adverse affects,” such as carbon tariffs, on Canadian industry, a Conference Board of Canada report advised Friday.
Christmas came early this year for Diane Katz and other Canadians at the forefront of the most polarized political fight on the planet. For many years Katz–the director of environment policy at the Fraser Institute, the free market Vancouver think-tank –has argued alongside her allies that global warming is neither a man-made phenomenon nor the doomsday crisis it is widely considered to be, and that the scientists who fuel such fears have in fact hoodwinked us.
U .S. President Barack Obama’s commitment to attend Copenhagen and put emission targets on the table is like a gust of wind power under the flopping sails of the climate change summit. But unless his ambitious targets are passed through Congress –and that will be a challenge –the proposal will amount to nothing more than hot air.
Softening permafrost and rising temperatures will mean pipelines, roads and buildings in Canada’s north are at grave risk as the world’s climate changes in the decades ahead, according to a federal report to be released today.
Premier Ed Stelmach went on the offensive Tuesday to rebuff environmental salvos toward Alberta from Ontario’s premier and a former U.S. vice-president.
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Leading climate scientists issued a grim diagnosis for the planet Tuesday, along with a stern warning for world leaders. The upcoming round of climate talks will have “profound”…
More than $200 billion worth of Canadian assets are at risk from global warming, says an international report released Monday. The report, released jointly by a major insurance firm and an…
Last week, Stephen Harper decided it’s not a good time for Canada to save the world from climate destruction. He will not make us a shiny green example for the rest of the world to follow. We will not be leading lagging, dirty countries out of the abyss.
I’m relieved. I like my life. With statements made by U.S. President Barack Obama on the weekend that there would be no legally binding agreement among the 192 countries attending the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, the summit is now set up to be a nonevent.
10. Good climate news, bad news for climate alarmistsThis had been a disappointing fall for climate alarmists, even before Friday’s revelation that, for years, some of the world’s top climate scientists may have been doctoring the evidence for global warming
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Then I scored the articles, on a scale of -10 to +10, on the following criteria:
How many soundbites are from libertarian, big-business think tanks? How many soundbites are from published scientists who work in the field of climatology? How many soundbites challenged the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by humans? How many soundbites encouraged or supported the notion that Canada ought to meet it’s carbon emission reduction goals? How many soundbites create confusion about the fact of climate change? What is the educational and informational value of this article? Is it evidence based?
ARTICLE 1. Feds warned over climate-change protectionism
SUBTEXT: doing something about climate change is bad for business.
WORDCOUNT: 117
SUMMARY: The Conference Board of Canada2 is quoted in the lead paragraph. Climate change policy is linked to U.S. protectionism. The rather loaded phrase, “carbon tarriffs slapped on Canadian goods” is then used to make people worried about climate change. Then Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jisun Kim from Washington’s Peterson Institute for International Economics, another right wing think tank with significant connections to the oil industry and international markets, are quoted in the final paragraph.
SCORE: -5 *
ARTICLE 2. Hacked e-mails allude to rigged warming tests
SUBTEXT: There is no scientific consensus on climate change science: scientists are corrupt.
WORDCOUNT: 1055
SUMMARY: The Fraser Institute3 is mentioned in lead paragraphs. The Fraser Institute representative is quoted at length. Some of the Fraser Institute soundbites are taken as fact as a way of showing how reasonable their claims are. Mann is quoted and Bennett, from the Sierra Club of Canada is quoted. Stephen McIntyre is called a Canadian climate researcher and his website is given, even though he is a major climate change denier. The article’s final assessment and opinion is against Mann’s reputation. Finally, “climategate” is linked to Copenhagen, and Copenhagen is indicted as being hopeless, and another anti-global warming think tank, Energy Probe, is brought up and the representative from Energy Probe is quoted.
SCORE: -7 *
ARTICLE 3. Good climate for positive change
SUBTEXT: Doing something about climate change is bad for the economy.
WORDCOUNT: 512
SUMMARY: Harper and Obama are going to Copenhagen and are aligned in their response to climate change. The Liberals did not meet their Kyoto targets. Hopefully the Conservatives can be more practical. Contra the report by TD Bank Financial, doing anything about climate change will have economic costs. The Canada West Foundation “will issue a report next week refuting TD Bank Financial’s claim the targets could be met without a great deal of economic damage.” So there will be economic damage. Alberta’s economy cannot be damaged or it will be bad for the entire nation.
SCORE: -3 *
ARTICLE 4. Climate report warns $5 trillion in infrastructure at risk
SUBTEXT: Climate change can be managed, money will be spent on the North.
WORDCOUNT: 468
SUMMARY: A federal report says that infrastructure in the North will require maintenance and reconstruction from climate change. Ottawa is mentioned. The federal government is mentioned. Billions of dollars, and trillions of dollars in spending are mentioned. Dr. Andrew Weaver is mentioned and quoted.
SCORE: +4
ARTICLE 5. Stelmach fights climate criticism
SUBTEXT: Spending money on climate change is wasteful and politically dangerous.
WORDCOUNT: 780
SUMMARY: The premier of Alberta, Ed Stelmach, is drawing fire from political quarters over climate change. Al Gore is a “climate-change crusader”. Alberta is working to with carbon capture and storage technology to mitigate the tar sands carbon emissions. Ed Stelmach is also criticized for this expense because they are currently running a healthcare deficit. Paul Hinman is quoted as saying that Alberta should not be investing in “unproven science”. Stelmach is not going to Copenhagen – he is going instead to World Future Energy Summit.
SCORE: -4
ARTICLE 6. Climate scientists offer bleak outlook for planet
SUBTEXT: Climate change is set to destroy our world if emissions trajectory continues.
WORDCOUNT: 338
SUMMARY: This article presents an earnest and dire, if somewhat dark, summary of our situation and how it’s progressed since Kyoto. Dr. Weaver and Environment Canada are mentioned. The UN and Copenhagen are mentioned. The German Advisory Council is mentioned.
SCORE: +8
ARTICLE 7. $200B in Canadian assets at risk from climate change: report
SUBTEXT: Insurance premiums might go up from property damage from climate change
WORDCOUNT: 138
SUMMARY: An international report was published on behalf of WWF Germany and Allianz Group (identified as insurance group) by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the U.K. (identified as environmental group). But quotes are placed around “tipping point” and the report is clearly identified as being produced by climate scientists and environmentalists.
SCORE: +6
ARTICLE 8. Chumps on climate change
SUBTEXT: Only wackos believe in climate change; don’t wreck my life.
WORDCOUNT: 699
SUMMARY: Stephen Harper is doing the right thing by stalling on doing anything about climate change. That’s because climate change is bunk. The scientists are in disagreement about everything and the debate is very evenly balanced. Plus, even if there were any truth behind climate change, we couldn’t do anything about it anyway. China and the US are the real players, not us. Kyoto is complicated. Too complicated. Meeting Kyoto will decrease the author’s quality of life.
SCORE: -9
ARTICLE 9.Continental approach to climate change is critical
SUBTEXT: The US should set the agenda on climate change; Harper, and Canada, are not responsible.
WORDCOUNT: 820
SUMMARY: Obama and the US are more important economically than we are so we should wait and see what they do before committing to anything. Luckily for the “oil sands”, it looks as though there will be no binding agreement at Copenhagen. It’s business as usual and it’s not our fault. The University of Calgary is mentioned, as is Jim Prentice and Jason Grumet for the Washington based think-tank, Bipartisan Policy Centre.
SCORE: -1
ARTICLE 10. Good climate news, bad news for climate alarmists
SUBTEXT: Climate change scientists are corrupt and ideologically driven; climate change is bunk.
WORDCOUNT: 848
SUMMARY: This article argues that there has been no warming since 1998 and that there is no scientific consensus on climate change. The emails that were stolen are quoted from numerous times in ways that are meant for the reader to conclude that the senders are corrupt and conspired to hide data from the public. While the author lamely admits that the emails “may amount nothing” in the last paragraph, the damage is done and confusion about the issue has been struck in the minds of readers.
SCORE: -9
Conclusions
All scores range from -10 to +10, where a positive score is a good article and a negative score is a bad article. This score is than multiplied by the word count to factor in the relative volume of the article. The scores are then added. If the sum total is a positive score than the Calgary Herald has been publishing good and informative articles. If the sum is negative, than the Herald has been publishing bad articles.4
Only three article scored in the positive end of the spectrum. Interestingly, the articles that were better in terms of their content were generally the shortest articles. There is one exception to this: the first article (and the shortest at only 117 words) scored a minus five. The average article length was 578 words. After factoring for the article length, the final average value of the articles from the Calgary Herald on the topic of climate change, on a scale of -10 to +10, is -4. Which sucks.5
The total negative points by the seven bad articles came to: -27369
The total positive points by the three good articles came to: 5404
The grand total is: -21965
The average value of each article is: -2197
The average article length: 578 words
The average value of each article: -4
- That’s a joke. But I did do this search at 3:45 Pacific on Sunday, November 29, 2009. ↩
- The Conference Board of Canada is one of Canada’s leading right-wing think tanks that has long been part of the denial and confusion industry ↩
- The Fraser Institute is a prominent Canadian, right-wing, economic think tank that claims to be independent and not politically motivated although most of their policy work is anti-taxation and anti-regulation. ↩
- I think that I would argue that they are misinforming the public and are possibly committing a crime on behalf of their big business and Big Oil clients. ↩
- There were a number of organizations that were relied on for expert advice: 1) Conference Board of Canada, 2) Peterson Intsitute of International Economics, 3) Fraser Institute, 4) Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia 5) UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 6) Sierra Club of Canada, 7) ClimateAudit, 8) Energy Probe, 9) the Canada West Foundation, 10) TD Bank Financial, 11) National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 12) Canadian Federal Government, 13) American Federal Government, 14) University of Victoria, 15) Provincial Government, Alberta, 16) Provincial Government, Ontario, 17) German Advisory Council on Global Change, 18) Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 19) Bipartisan Policy Centre, 20) Government of India, 21) Leibniz Institute, 22) Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. ↩
29.November.2009
Random ideas about Rex Murphy
The thing about Rex Murphy that troubles me is the way he calls his show “Cross-Country Checkup” but whenever I find myself listening I hear a representative from The Conference Board of Canada or the Fraser Institute. These guys (they seem to be men mostly) are payed to pretend they’re experts on any topic of consideration and then bridge to their key messages. The key messages they bridge too, work towards predictable and simple goals: 1) lets make sure that big business pay less tax, 2) lets make sure that big business is less regulated. That’s about it: let’s protect the profit margins of big business. But the discipline and innovation that they bring to the key messages is totally amazing. They will drape these goals in any garment du jour, from “it’s better for everyone” to “this is the cost of freedom” to “the only way to protect society is through conservative values” to “those guys are idiots, don’t listen to them if you want to keep your house.”
Take climate change for example. The fact of climate change, by itself, is not perceived as a threat by Big Oil and their bottom line. But public opinion and the subsequent possibility of government taxation and regulation is a perceived threat by Big Oil and their profit margin. So organizations like the Conference Board of Canada, C.D. Howe and the Fraser Institute step forward to disrupt public opinion.
The first step is to get air time. To do this they call up their media buddies with the National Post or Cross-Country Checkup. Either by getting quoted directly or by influencing the analysis of the overworked, job-threatened and under-educated reporter, the underlying message and the framework for that message gets public exposure.
The second key ingredient is to pretend to be trustable. This happens through the use of expert titles and heavy reference to the number of researchers and academics employed by the think-tank. Crucially, they’re usually economists or communications people, but they never say this. The representative will generally pretend, and Rex Murphy will pretend along with him, that they are all experts in climate change science. Add to this the years of branding by the National Post and Cross-Country Checkup that they’re impartial and authoritative news sources serving our democracy and you get a potent recipe for believability. And this brings me back to why I think Rex Murphy is a jackass. He creates a call in show, branded for everyday Canadians, but brings in well paid representatives from right-wing think tanks to represent the wealthiest and biggest businesses in the country. He poses as a show for the people. But it’s not.
With this access to a trusting public ear the key message has propogated: climate change and it’s causes are uncertain. The underlying message has been confusion. The result is a public opinion that we shouldn’t jeopardize our mortgages and our jobs and our habits of consumption. This brings me to the December edition of FOCUS and a great article by Gene Miller. Rex Murphy has perhaps too eagerly defended Big Oil and too eagerly added his voice of dissent to the environmental movement. Rex calls the movement Big Green. Miller says:
“Big Green?” Those the ones associated with Big Feminism, Big Peace, Big Anti-Land Mines, Big Racial Equality and Big Anti-Child Slavery?
…you sound like the South before Lincoln, or the British before Gandhi. You sound like the flatearthers in Calgary. You sound like some gaseous table-pounder bellowing about how good-paying jobs in the oil-patch now are worth more than some speculative issues that maybe our great grandkids will have to deal with—woo-woo stuff like the bankrupting relocation of coastal infrastructure around the globe, global loss of freshwater, global loss of arable land, global desertification, the migration north of a couple of billion people, and the end of national boundaries and the nation-state. Deal or no deal, Rex?
Actually, we won’t be getting our energy from Alberta within 25 years anyway (my guess); and red deer will wander through the silent, empty office canyons of downtown Calgary. (Take oil out of the Calgary economic equation and the city folds like a suit from Kresge’s.) The world by then will be operating on a mixed-source energy regime that conspicuously excludes oil.
Miller is great. Partly what makes his article such a great example of a solid communications strategy is that he first focuses on the environmental and moral considerations of ignoring global warming. He then reconsiders his argument from an economic perspective for the sake of those that only understand these issues through the lens of economy. Stephen Harper and Rex Murphy seem to think that the economy has greater reality than our environment or climate. Miller, acknowledging their psychological impediments, attempts to parse his message in a way that they will understand.