Study shows newpaper bias about the carbon price

The Australian print media have been criticised for inaccurately reporting the carbon pricing mechanism (CPM), and in some instances for actively campaigning against the Gillard government. Research from the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, before the start of the carbon price, reinforced these claims. It found an overwhelmingly negative coverage of the carbon price by News Limited papers in a study of ten national newspapers.

Following the introduction of the carbon price, an undergraduate research team from the University of Melbourne has confirmed these findings in an analysis of The Age, Herald Sun and The Australian.

We found that these newspapers are contributing to an uninformed and inadequate public debate on the carbon price and Australian climate change policy.

The research considered all articles in the three newspapers that referred to the “carbon price”, “carbon pricing mechanism”, or “carbon tax” in three different weeks.

One was the first week of July 2012, when the carbon price was introduced. The others were a month before and a month later. The articles were analysed in terms of their tone (was the article supportive, unsupportive or neutral), terminology (was the policy referred to as a tax or price), and source content (who was quoted).

When neutral articles from each newspaper were excluded, The Australian and Herald Sun were found to be overwhelmingly unsupportive of the policy. Articles in The Age were also unbalanced, with a preference for a supportive stance.

News Limited newspapers almost exclusively used the term “carbon tax”, with little reference to the mechanism as a “price”. This selective use of language is extremely important, as people respond differently to the language of prices or taxes when confronted with options for paying for climate change mitigation. However, while the word “price” is used in official government publications, the language used by most politicians is generally “carbon tax”. Interestingly, Prime Minister Julia Gillard reinforced this when she admitted after the election the mechanism would operate “effectively like a tax”.

Of more concern was the small number of articles quoting economists, climate scientists and other independent experts. This gap in coverage contributed to a shallow media discussion. It contextualised the policy in terms of short-term economic effects rather than long-term environmental – or economic – goals.

The carbon price follows logic set out in the Stern Review. It advocates for investment in climate change mitigation now, to ensure continued economic prosperity and minimise later economic costs from climate change impacts or delayed climate change mitigation.

Not only was this fundamental argument barely mentioned, discussion of climate science was almost non-existent. This is critical to public perceptions of the carbon price, as without reinforcing the motivations for introducing such a policy, readers are less likely to believe it is necessary.

More balanced newspaper coverage of the carbon price might have discussed alternative solutions to climate change, rather than merely campaigning against the policy’s short-term economic consequences. Importantly, articles might have questioned the generous concessions given by the government to certain businesses, and might have asked questions regarding the reliance on overseas abatement to meet emissions reduction targets.

The aim of this research is not to condemn articles and newspapers that are critical or discuss flaws with the pricing mechanism. Rather, the study highlights that the way the media is discussing the mechanism is inadequate: current reporting techniques and standards fail to give the issue the level of analysis required. This means that the overall media coverage does not discuss the need for action on climate change, nor does it balance the short-term economic costs against long-term gains.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/study-shows-newpaper-bias-about-the-carbon-change-policy/

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I don't think we needed to be told, to know that Uncle Rupe's media HAS BEEN unbalanced on this important issue... My own observations (empirical and sporadic like a Gallup poll survey) would tell me and you that the media, including the ABC has been way out of kilter with the reality... Global warming is REAL and we can do something about it by reducing our CO2 emissions to zero/neutral... But the merde-och press has not be able to come to term with the proper science, which of all things is still very conservative in its estimates on the development on what is measured.... Meanwhile the planet warms up without caring one iota about our "beliefs" on the subject...

While the chance of Christmas sunburn remains pretty low, parts of Germany are experiencing the highest temperatures ever recorded on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, in parts of Eastern Europe, brutal cold has killed dozens.

Thoughts of a white Christmas were far from the minds of Germans in southern Germany on Monday, where the mercury topped 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) in some places, making it the warmest Christmas Eve since records began over a hundred years ago.

According to the German Weather Service, one weather station in downtown Munich recorded a temperature of 20.7 degrees Celcius. The previous record for December 24 in Munich was 14.5 degrees, set back in 1977. Earlier on Monday, the city of Freiburg in southwest Germany reported a temperature of 18.5 degrees. The previous Christmas Eve high for the entire country was recorded in 1983, when Baden-Baden and Müllheim each had 17.8 degrees.

A spokesperson from the German Weather Service said Christmas Day could be even warmer.

But while Germans in the southern part of the country basked in the balmy weather, temperatures at the other end of the scale have lead to several deaths in parts of Russia and Ukraine.

Temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees in Russia have landed 1,200 people in hospital so far this winter due to frostbite, Russian media reported Monday.

http://www.dw.de/southern-germany-records-warmest-christmas-eve-ever/a-16477867

The same temperature in Munich than in Sydney for Christmas...????  6 degrees C above the previous record in Munich???? 

Christmas day in Sydney is often miserable weather on the day with glorious days either side... Yesterday, the temp was 30 degrees C...

Meanwhile West Antarctica is warming up a twice the speed we expected:

A paper released Sunday by the journal Nature Geoscience reports that the temperature at a research station in the middle of West Antarctica has warmed by 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1958. That is roughly twice as much as scientists previously thought and three times the overall rate of global warming, making central West Antarctica one of the fastest-warming regions on earth. …

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/12/24/1375181/study-antarctica-is-warming-even-faster-than-previously-thought/?mobile=nc

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See also the thin ice in your whisky

Tony Abbott and the merde-och press are iddiotts. See toon at top...

The rise of media bias — or the loss of subtlety

While editors from the past would always cover a good story, says Trade Minister Craig Emerson, if today’s editors don’t like its politics they will happily ignore or bury it.

......

It seems 2012 has been the year of Coalition coincidences.

When it emerged that Ms Bishop had, in fact, had a prior telephone conversation with Blewitt on Wednesday 21 November, she issued a written statement conceding she may have spoken to him but wasn’t sure as it had only been for a few seconds and the line had dropped out. Blewitt subsequently claimed he’d spoken to Bishop for about three or four minutes.

Bishop immediately went to ground, cancelling her attendance at an Abbott book launch and at a National Press Club luncheon address by the Prime Minister of PNG. Ms Bishop remained unavailable for Press Gallery interviews, consenting only to friendly interviews with Alan Jones and Paul Henry where the subject of the number of conversations with Blewitt conveniently was not raised.

Then, on Saturday 15 December, Ms Bishop appeared on ABC24 with Latika Bourke. Not only was the discrepancy relating to Blewitt not raised, the Ashby-Brough-LNP matter was completely ignored.

Several conclusions reasonably emerge from these two examples.

First, matters relating to events almost 20 years ago are adjudged by several media outlets as being more newsworthy than those relating to the year 2012.

Second, despite the Prime Minister holding two full media conferences, answering questions in Parliament and giving the Opposition Leader ample time under parliamentary privilege to set out his case for why the Prime Minister of Australia was a criminal, media outlets persist with their claim that the issue is unresolved and the Prime Minister still has questions to answer.

Third, despite a scathing court judgement that the Ashby complaint was designed to benefit LNP candidate Brough and change the balance in the House of Representatives  – and, hence, the Government of Australia – the News Limited tabloids and the Saturday edition of ABC24 do not consider this to be newsworthy.

Fourth, the Coalition tactic of going to ground when a Shadow Minister lies to the media, or is – at best – evasive, is very effective.

None of this has the subtlety of the early 1970s.

If editors consider a news story doesn’t accord with their editorial position — they simply don’t run it. And if journalists want to protect favoured politicians from answering questions about their untruthfulness — they simply don’t ask them.

In making these observations, I am not asserting there is a general bias in the media. Of course, some editors and a few journalists are blatantly biased; that has always been the case.

But the real problem is the abandonment of professional standards to give effect to that bias — all subtlety is lost.

read more:  http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/media-2/the-rise-of-media-bias-or-loss-of-subtlety/

I believe when Tim Mathieson made a really bad joke about prostate and Asian doctors in order to entertain the West Indies cricket team, he knew what he was doing...

First, what does the media love?... CONTROVERSY...

What does the media hate? Prostate examinations...

Thus Tim knew that to get media traction on the prostate thingy he had to be CONTROVERSIAL... Timmy achieved it BIG. All he had to do was to apologise the next day.

By then, what bloke in Australia had not been made aware of the necessity of prostate medical checks?...