Secretive and unhelpful.

But scientist in Climategate storm

STILL gets his job back

VS.

Climategate scientists cleared of

manipulating data on global warming

Same story

Two different headlines.

In fact, two totally different stories.

The first headline is from The Daily Mail, a UK tabloid.

The second, from The Guardian.

The story is the same, the so-called Climategate (ie, Global Warming) scientists accused of falsifying data were cleared by a board of inquest who reported that:

Sir Muir Russell, the senior civil servant who led a six-month inquiry into the affair, said the “rigour and honesty” of the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) were not in doubt. His investigation concluded they did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism and that key data was freely available and could be used by any “competent” researcher.

Global warming deniers had been having a field day with Climategate, using it to discredit the science behind global warming.

This is not like reporting about Miley Cyrus. This is serious and important stuff.

But the tabloids can’t help themselves.  The Daily Mail, which is essentially a pretty good newspaper, far better than, say The NY Post, led their story with:

The scientist at the heart of the ‘Climategate’ scandal got his job back yesterday, despite being criticised by the official inquiry for being secretive and unhelpful.

Professor Phil Jones was suspended as head of the influential Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia last year after leaked emails appeared to show his team manipulated data and blocked Freedom of Information requests.

What is the matter with these people?

In the past two days we’ve engaged in a discussion about the future of journalism.

A lot of people have emailed complaining that ‘journalists are interested in the truth’, and therefor should not be ‘tainted’ by chasing every dollar.

Well, here’s journalism for you.

Is it truth? And if so, which one is the ‘truth’? (I have my own opinions).

And this is hardly an isolated incident, (although the one I came across reading the papers this morning in the UK).

In New York we always watch NBC Nightly News followed by the BBC’s World News.  Watching the same story on NBC and The BBC it is often as though you are watching two different stories, particularly when it comes to covering places like Afghanistan and Iraq. I tend to think that the BBC’s coverage is far closer to the truth.  The American networks coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan are generally laced with terms like heroes and victory and success. The BBC’s tend more toward ‘disaster’.

But what does this kind of coverage, day after day, night after night, do to the average viewer who is, in theory at any rate, supposed to be able to form their opinions based on this kind of public discourse.

In the case of Climategate, go to The Daily Mail and search on their website for Climategate and you will find two dozen stories alluding to the fraudulence of so-called Global Warming.  Faced with that day after day, who is going to care a whit about insulating their home, let alone carbon cap and trade?  No one.

They are building a constituency of doubt and even resentment.

In the US network’s endless coverage of ‘heroes’ in Afghanistan and Iraq, who would ever support withdrawl and an admission that the whole thing is an unwinnable disaster. In the UK, support for going home is far stronger.

As ye sow  so shall ye reap.

But don’t talk to me about ‘journalistic integrity’.