Australia’s mainstream media actively promotes climate change denialism
How Australia’s old media sows doubt about climate change Independent Australia 20 June 13, Australia’s corporate media does not properly hold politicians accountable or give the public the full picture — and is most especially remiss concerning climate change, says Brad Farrant, David Holmes and Assistant Professor Mark G Edwards. “…….
Why are they getting away with it?..….You would think most journalists would be forensically questioning any politician who denied the science or failed to devise and support adequate policies to address this threat.
Unfortunately, very few, if any, of our mainstream journalists have ever really challenged climate-science-denying politicians.
In fact, the opposite has been true. According to research by Robert Manne, many major media outlets – notably the Murdoch media, and particularly The Australian – have actively created doubt about the science. They have misreported the science and supported inaction among politicians who should be developing climate policies and offering national and international leadership on the issue.
The news media have largely failed to cover the science and the solutions to the problems it raises. A report on coverage of the carbon price by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (University of Technology, Sydney) said that some major Australian newspapers were
‘… so biased in their coverage that it is fair to say they ‘campaigned’ against the policy rather than covered it.’
The number of environmental journalists in Australian newspapers has declined, leaving the ABC and pockets of Fairfax as the only outlets to tackle climate change politics and science. This is a significant problem in Australia that has broad implications for national and international efforts to combat dangerous climate change.
Recent analyses of the statements made by our federal politicians have found that a large number o fMPs and Senators have publicly denied the findings of climate science. Around half of all coalition MPs and over two thirds of coalition Senators have publicly denied the science. Because the overwhelming majority of the science-deniers are from the Liberal and National parties, the failure of the press to hold them to account becomes a major political and anti-science bias by the media.
More insidious than outright denial of the science is a new form of denial where the science is accepted but where the need for carbon pricing and government intervention and regulation is denied. This appears to be the current position of the Federal coalition. ….
The culture of Australian media…
As in the United States (according to Pew) most Australians get their news from commercial TV (see page 9 of the Convergence Review). This format is suited to reporting live events, violence and conflict but not to the background needed for understanding big, global issues like climate change. Even when extreme weather events are covered, the dramatised suffering of individuals – rather than big-picture science – is highlighted.
This kind of news is all that politicians feel obliged to respond to, as they do their routine overflights of disaster zones and give nationalistic speeches about how Australians always pull together in a crisis….. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/how-australias-old-media-sows-doubt-about-climate-change/
No comments yet.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Leave a comment