Fragilecologies

Tag: media

  • “An IPCC dilemma: Who to trust talking to the media, its critics or its colleagues? ” Mickey Glantz (July 12, 2010)

    “An IPCC dilemma: Who to trust talking to the media, its critics or its colleagues? ” Mickey Glantz (July 12, 2010)

    The title of this editorial is a play on words with a bottom-line message: whom should you keep your eyes on — your enemies (critics) and or your colleagues, when it involves talking with the media about IPCC’s 5th Assessment findings.

    A colleague of mine, Ed Carr at the University of South Carolina, received a letter from the Head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) cautioning those selected to prepare the next (5th) Climate Change Assessment Report not to talk to the media, leaving that task to the IPCC Secretariat.

    Ed Carr wrote (his blog in just below this one):

    So I [Carr] was dismayed this morning to receive a letter, quite formally titled “Letter No.7004-10/IPCC/AR5 from Dr Pachauri, Chaiman of the IPCC”, that might set such transparency back. While the majority of the letter is a very nice congratulations on being selected as part of the IPCC, the third paragraph is completely misguided:

    “I would also like to emphasize that enhanced media interest in the work of the IPCC would probably subject you to queries about your work and the IPCC. My sincere advice would be that you keep a distance from the media and should any questions be asked about the Working Group with which you are associated, please direct such media questions to the Co-chairs of your Working Group and for any questions regarding the IPCC to the secretariat of the IPCC.”

    It is clear that the IPCC still has a problem. It claims the problem is with the media, or at the very least it strongly hint at that. However, in this day and age, if one type of news medium does not catch IPCC scientists off guard another type will. That is what the media is paid to do. I would argue that secrets are hard to keep from the media and are hard to be kept by the media.

    A political ‘rule of thumb’ is that ships of state (eg, governments) tend  by metaphor to leak from the top; that is, leak confidential information to reporters either to reinforce a political position or to undermine it. I would argue that the same rule applies to the IPCC as a scientific climate-change- related ship of state. Leaks about scientific deliberations came from within the IPCC science community. Partly it is due to the persistence of reporters and science writers and partly it is because of the egos of some scientists who thrive on media attention. [NB: climategate was the result of hacked emails and NOT the result of loose lips (off-hand comments) by IPCC scientists (as far as we know).]

    So, it seems that the email directive and the defense of issuing it by the Head of the IPCC makes little sense. instead of embracing openness with the general public, the IPCC leadership has chosen to cast another shadow about the objectivity of the forthcoming 5th scientific climate change assessment. Is there something to hide? I don’t think so. Will the public be led to believe that there is something to hide? I think so.

    Instead of emerging from the climategate situation feeling exonerated and with heads held high, the IPCC leaders seem to haves come out of it paranoid and less secure about how its work presented by the media to the public.


    Transparency is the best cure for the IPCC’s image. Even with critics at the door and media as well, the best strategy to pursue is to pursue openness. Good objective science will win out. Policing the comments of your colleagues (eg, friends) will likely generate frustration and resentment thereby converting friends into “frenemies” (friendly enemies who support IPCC science but not the IPCC process).

  • GUEST Editorial by Edward Carr. July 9, 2010. “Apparently, we have learned nothing . . .”

    GUEST Editorial by Edward Carr (University of South Carolina) July 9, 2010

    “Apparently, we have learned nothing . . .”

    www.edwardrcarr.com/opentheechochamber/

    I am part of Working Group II of the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As some of you might know, Working Group II of the previous Assessment Report (AR4) was the one that caught a lot of flak for problematic conclusions and references regarding Himalayan Glacier melt and whatnot. On one hand, these were stupid errors that should have been corrected in the review process (which will be part of my job in AR5).  On the other, they really did not affect the overall conclusions or quality of the report – they just gave those who continue to have an issue with the idea of climate change an opening to attack the report.

    Part of the problem for the IPCC is a perceived lack of openness – that something is going on behind closed doors that cannot be trusted.  This, in the end, was at the heart of the “climategate” circus – a recent report has exonerated all of the scientists implicated, but some people still believe that there is something sinister going on.

    There is an easy solution to this – complete openness.  I’ve worked on global assessments before, and the science is sound.  I’ve been quite critical of the way in which one of the reports was framed (download “Applying DPSIR to Sustainable Development” here), but the science is solid and the conclusions are more refined than ever.  Showing people how this process works, and what we do exactly, would go a long way toward getting everyone on the same page with regard to global environmental change, and how we might best address it.

    So I was dismayed this morning to receive a letter, quite formally titled “Letter No.7004-10/IPCC/AR5 from Dr Pachauri, Chaiman of the IPCC”, that might set such transparency back.  While the majority of the letter is a very nice congratulations on being selected as part of the IPCC, the third paragraph is completely misguided:

    “I would also like to emphasize that enhanced media interest in the work of the IPCC would probably subject you to queries about your work and the IPCC. My sincere advice would be that you keep a distance from the media and should any questions be asked about the Working Group with which you are associated, please direct such media questions to the Co-chairs of your Working Group and for any questions regarding the IPCC to the secretariat of the IPCC.”

    This “bunker mentality” will do nothing for the public image of the IPCC.  The members of my working group are among the finest minds in the world.  We are capable of speaking to the press about what we do without the help of minders or gatekeepers. I hope my colleagues feel the same way, and the IPCC sees the light . . .

  • “Who’s in control of our attention span”? Mickey Glantz. May 28, 2010

    Who’s in control of our attention span?
    Mickey Glantz
    May 28, 2010
    Back in the early 1960s my Political Theory professor mentioned that a study then showed that the attention span to any particular issue of a typical American was on the order of 2.3 years. In the mid-1970s Anthony Downs wrote about the American Public’s “issue-attention cycle.” These two pieces of information made sense to me; one providing a time dimension and the other providing the process.

    But that was then and this in now. My observation today is in conflict with those earlier pieces of information I had learned about. The fault was mine though, as well as of the professors. Those pieces of information (unchanging facts, I thought) were era-dependent pieces of information that no longer apply to reality today.

    The issue-attention cycle seems to still work. Anthony Downs (Public Interest, 28 [1972:Summer]), wrote an article entitled “Up and down with ecology: the issue-attention cycle”, and described the cycle in the following way: (1) a pre-problem phase; (2) an alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm phase; (3) realizing the cost of significant progress phase; a gradual decline of intense public interest phase; (5) the post-problem stage.

    According to Downs, “A study of the way this cycle operates provides insights into how long the public attention is likely to remain sufficiently focused upon any given issue to generate enough political pressure to cause effective change.”

    Today, it is not the attention span of the public that matters but the attention span of the media in heavy competition for increasing their share of the public’s attention. It’s a money thing: more viewers, readers, and listeners means more advertisers and more advertising revenue. The media are not there to educate the public. They are businesses. Bad news takes precedent over good news, because they provide for attention-grabbing headlines.

    I am not sure what started the downward spiral of reduced attention span of the public but I have a sneaky suspicion it was the media. Take TV, as an example: at night turn off all lights. Turn on the TV. Put your back to the TV and watch how quickly the scenes or news items change — every few seconds. Get the USA Today and count the number of short news items, not full stories. Check news on your iPod or iPad or iPhone or antroid: they come in brief news clips. Our (the public’s) attention span has eroded tremendously in the past 40 years. It now seems that the media determines what we focus on and how long we will focus on it. rhodesignattnspan2

    Some examples?
    The health care issue: how many are still in the dark about what to expect from the health care package that was covered by the media 24 hours a day and 7 days a week over one year? I am. Then attention was diverted to our financial crisis. Some months ago media coverage of the near collapse of Wall Street brokerages and the American banking system was relentless, 24-7 coverage: we’re all going to be broke left to work till we die …most likely in poverty. The problems remain; the media coverage of them does not. Media attention shifted to the Toyota cover-up of mechanical problems with its flagship auto models: hearing in Washington, DC including testimony by Mr. Toyoda himself. The problem remains. The coverage is gone. Now there is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of a collapsed off-shore rig and media are focused there, again, 24-7.

    The wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the continued financial fragility of the American economy persists teetering in unstable equilibrium at the moment, and Toyota along with other auto companies are engaged in massive recalls of their products and, oh yeah, Al-Queda continues its attempts to terrorize Americans on their own soil continue, but the media has chosen to focus on the oil spill in the Gulf 24-7. And soon the hurricane season will begin and the media will focus on that or some other quick onset event. The point is that the media are controlling the public’s attention span. We (the public) are led like cows with rings in our nose to wherever the media wants to take us. animal-with-nose-ring

    As a result, no issue gets the attention it deserves, no, demands, in order to resolve it. The wars go on. The financial crisis continues. Wall Street brokers and our bankers likely resort to “business as usual” sleazy financial practices.

    The public must first be made aware of what has happened: the media is used to telling us what to think, how to think it and why but as importantly when to think it. It is time for us to take back control of the issue-attention cycle, returning to a longer cycle so we can actually work through issues to reasonable conclusions. We likely cannot change the progression of the cycle but we can stay on topic until we understand it enough to resolve it in an intelligent way.

  • Is Osama Bin Laden going ‘green’? Mickey Glantz, 1 February 2010

    Associated Press writers (Keath and Nasrawi) reported that Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader, blamed the United States and other industrialized nations for climate change and said the only way to prevent disaster was to break the American economy, calling on the world to boycott U.S. goods and stop using the dollar.

    The AP writers suggested that bin-Laden’s message on climate change was designed to show the world that he and the movement he started were focused only on one issue: destroying America.

    “The effects of global warming have touched every continent. Drought and deserts are spreading, while the other floods and hurricanes unseen before the previous decades have now become frequent,” bin Laden said in his most recent audio recording, aired on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.

    The terror leader noted Washington’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and painted the United States as in the thrall of major corporations that he said “are the true criminals against the global climate” and are to blame for the global economic crisis, driving “tens of millions into poverty and unemployment.” Well, we know that bin Laden does not like the United States and would like to see it pay for all the damages worldwide resulting from its greenhouse gas emissions.

    The above commentary is real. Bin Laden did release an audio tape. He did talk about climate change and about America needing to be challenged for saturating the global atmosphere. But my first reaction was “Who cares what bin Laden thinks about the Earth’s environmental problems?”

    I certainly don’t. I can’t image that many people do. I wonder why the media bothered to even report it. Would the media care what Charles Manson has to say about climate change?

    Why did he do it? It was the first message from bin Laden devoid of mention of support for al Qaida and attacks on the US and its allies. But let’s play along and fantasize about al-Qaida’s attempt to broaden its support by appealing to environmental groups (as if that would work, or environmentalists would want their support).

    Here’s the whimsical (not real) scenario.

    Bin Laden has decided that arresting global warming has become more urgent that dislodging what he sees as America, the evil empire. He calls off the jihad again the USA and Europe. He issues a secret order to al Qaida operatives demanding that they prepare climate change risk disclosures (CCRDs) for their operations. He orders them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2015. Al Qaida then is asked to participate in carbon cap and trade and to shift its energy dependence from fossil fuels (including Saudi Arabian oil) to renewable energy sources including solar and wind. He then demands that American engineering concerns provide new clean technologies to al Qaida cells and that the U.S. Treasury pay compensation for global warming related damages that have already occurred.

    Let’s take this tongue-in-cheek scenario a step further: might we soon be hearing headlines like, “bin Laden calls on al Qaida to field a football (soccer) team for FIFA,” or “al Qaida to participate in gymnastics competition at the 2012 Olympics,” or, perhaps, “bin Laden picks Saints to win Super Bowl”?

    More seriously, one has to wonder what prompted Osama bin Laden to speak out on global warming. Does he want to be remembered as a 21st century Gandhi? Is his health failing? Is he seeking to broaden his support among environmentalists? Is he striving for a Nobel Peace Prize? Or, is he feeling neglected?

    Only time will tell what motivated him to talk now about global warming. I think that whatever it was it was more personal and psychological than political.

  • Rupert Murdock — Practice in your empire what you preach to the Chinese Government: an Open Letter to a Media Mogul

    Mickey Glantz
    Dateline: Shanghai

    15 October 2010

    Rupert Murdock deserves a prize. Really, he is one unbelievable entrepreneur a true media mogul. His empire is vast and his control over it quite secure. With all these prizes being given out, you’d think he’d be up for one: “Humanitarian of the year” award? “Truth in reporting” award? Well, the truth is that he is not likely to get any such award that has its roots in fairness, because he does not serve society: he caters to a small slice of the political spectrum, the far right conservatives. His media empire is monopolistic, or so it seems to the untrained eye. So, why write about this guy now? Many people know what Murdock is like… I think. They are aware of his power through control of the media and political stance through what his media print or air.

    The reason I am writing about him now is, because of an article that I saw, quoting Murdock in the Financial Times Weekend edition last week while on a flight to Korea. It was headlined as “Murdock calls for free media in China”.

    I could not believe the comments he made to the Chinese Government. According to the article, Murdock has been trying to break into the Chinese media market for years but to no avail. Relentless efforts by this powerful, rich mogul were stymied (rebuffed, actually) by the Chinese Government at it highest level. So, Murdock visited China to give it yet another try. Murdock’s comment that caught my attention is the following: “Rupert Murdock called for China to allow a more open media sector, saying Beijing needed to compete in a global marketplace of ideas” {emphasis is mine}.

    He attended an “audience” (along the line of a visit to the Pope in Rome) with Chinese leaders along with 300 or so media representatives, each kowtowing to the government in the hope of getting a piece of a potentially lucrative media market made up of a potential target audience of 1.3 billion . Murdock wants China to allow his corporation to “open the door for his internet companies to operate commercially”. But one must ask, what is likely to be the political flavor of the content and messages carried by that media?

    Murdock’s track record on fostering open and fair discussion and exchange of views from across the political spectrum is poor at best. He has a political agenda. For Murdock to point an accusatory finger the Chinese government for its lack of openness is laughable, because he himself does not practice what he is preaching to Chinese officials.

    Interestingly, the Financial Times writer of the article that sparked my interest, Katherine Hille, reported that “the editor in chief of Reuters, called ‘openness, transparency and accountability’ in the media a ‘precondition to a truly healthy, stable and successful system’”. I can only wonder if Murdock takes heed of such an observation. In America his media outlets are the last place an objective person would consider as an open, free “marketplace of ideas” where all perspectives are sought and welcome.

    Perhaps instead of looking in the mirror each morning as he shaves, he should listen to how disingenuous his plea to China for a free liberalized media sounds when compared to the lack of the same in his own media system. From any other quarter, such a plea would have merit. Not so from Murdock.

  • Rupert Murdock — Practice in your empire what you preach to the Chinese Government: an Open Letter to a Media Mogul

    Mickey Glantz
    Dateline: Shanghai

    15 October 2010

    Rupert Murdock deserves a prize. Really, he is one unbelievable entrepreneur a true media mogul. His empire is vast and his control over it quite secure. With all these prizes being given out, you’d think he’d be up for one: “Humanitarian of the year” award? “Truth in reporting” award? Well, the truth is that he is not likely to get any such award that has its roots in fairness, because he does not serve society: he caters to a small slice of the political spectrum, the far right conservatives. His media empire is monopolistic, or so it seems to the untrained eye. So, why write about this guy now? Many people know what Murdock is like… I think. They are aware of his power through control of the media and political stance through what his media print or air.

    The reason I am writing about him now is, because of an article that I saw, quoting Murdock in the Financial Times Weekend edition last week while on a flight to Korea. It was headlined as “Murdock calls for free media in China”.

    I could not believe the comments he made to the Chinese Government. According to the article, Murdock has been trying to break into the Chinese media market for years but to no avail. Relentless efforts by this powerful, rich mogul were stymied (rebuffed, actually) by the Chinese Government at it highest level. So, Murdock visited China to give it yet another try. Murdock’s comment that caught my attention is the following: “Rupert Murdock called for China to allow a more open media sector, saying Beijing needed to compete in a global marketplace of ideas” {emphasis is mine}.

    He attended an “audience” (along the line of a visit to the Pope in Rome) with Chinese leaders along with 300 or so media representatives, each kowtowing to the government in the hope of getting a piece of a potentially lucrative media market made up of a potential target audience of 1.3 billion . Murdock wants China to allow his corporation to “open the door for his internet companies to operate commercially”. But one must ask, what is likely to be the political flavor of the content and messages carried by that media?

    Murdock’s track record on fostering open and fair discussion and exchange of views from across the political spectrum is poor at best. He has a political agenda. For Murdock to point an accusatory finger the Chinese government for its lack of openness is laughable, because he himself does not practice what he is preaching to Chinese officials.

    Interestingly, the Financial Times writer of the article that sparked my interest, Katherine Hille, reported that “the editor in chief of Reuters, called ‘openness, transparency and accountability’ in the media a ‘precondition to a truly healthy, stable and successful system’”. I can only wonder if Murdock takes heed of such an observation. In America his media outlets are the last place an objective person would consider as an open, free “marketplace of ideas” where all perspectives are sought and welcome.

    Perhaps instead of looking in the mirror each morning as he shaves, he should listen to how disingenuous his plea to China for a free liberalized media sounds when compared to the lack of the same in his own media system. From any other quarter, such a plea would have merit. Not so from Murdock.