Tag: Jonathan Leake

Hell Freezes Over : BBC Apologises

Post author By Jo
Post date August 9, 2010
1 Comment on Hell Freezes Over : BBC Apologises

Jaw-droppingly, the BBC have apologised for the contents of a Today Programme. Not the one that caused poor, deceased Dr David Kelly so much embarrassment, God rest his soul. No, the one that featured the breaking of the “Climategate” e-mail scandal :-

https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/bbc_apologizes_to_university_o.php

The BBC picked the wrong scandal story to run with, it appears.

The real scandal of Climategate is how the scientists’ e-mails were “liberated” from the University of East Anglia, and then annotated to give heavily biased interpretation, then released to the general public via the Internet, and how the Media were taken in.

Certain people at the BBC chose to go with the fake scandal, it seems – the narrative fabricated and dictated to them by Climate Change deniers.

Anyway, now the BBC have made an apology, of sorts. Better late than never, but all the same, it would have been better earlier rather than later.

Thankfully, despite the late apologies, this particular alleged witch-hunt didn’t end with a suspected suicide. Although it did include reports that Professor Phil Jones had, in fact, contemplated suicide; the reporting of which just added to his completely groundless public humiliation at the hands of the Press. Which they should apologise for, in my humble opinion. Just as good (old) George Monbiot had the good grace to offer some regret for :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jul/07/russell-inquiry-i-was-wrong

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7180154/Climategate-Professor-Phil-Jones-considered-suicide-over-email-scandal.html
https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece

https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/rebuttalsandcorrections/johnhumphrys

“BBC apologises to University of East Anglia for “incorrect” remark”

“The BBC has apologised for an “incorrect” remark made by John Humphrys that UEA researchers had “distorted the debate about global warming to make the threat seem even more serious than they believed it to be”.”

Tags Al Gore, Amazon, Amazongate, anti-Science, apologies, apologises, apology, Bad Science, BBC, Ben Goldacre, Ben Santer, Christopher Booker, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, contrarian, CRU, David Kelly, delayer, denial, denier, Doug Keenan, Erik M. Conway, Fiona Harvey, Fred Pearce, George Monbiot, Guardian Newspaper, hell freezes over, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, James Delingpole, Jeremy Vine, John Christy, John Humphrys, Jonathan Leake, Justin Lancaster, Kevin Anderson, Lawrence Solomon, Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes, Nigel Lawson, obstructer, Panorama, Phil Jones, Richard Lindzen, Roger Revelle, S. Fred Singer, sceptic, Siegfried Fred Singer, Siegfried Frederick Singer, Simon Lewis, skeptic, Stephen Schneider, Steve McIntyre, Steve Schneider, The BBC, The Guardian Newspaper, Today, Today Programme, Tom Heap, Trevor Davies, UEA, University of East Anglia

Bad Science Media Science Rules

Amazongate : Jonathan Leake Retracts

Post author By Jo
Post date June 20, 2010
No Comments on Amazongate : Jonathan Leake Retracts

Another chapter in the ongoing saga of the exhausting struggle to educate the mainstream media journalists to check their Climate Change stories thoroughly before publishing.

You may have heard of “Amazongate” – the Amazon would seem to be capable of withstanding more frequent drought caused by Global Warming – according to one interpretation of an isolated piece of research.

However, if you believed that take on things, you’d be very much mistaken in doing so. And the person you’re most likely to be able to have believed on this story would be Jonathan Leake, writing in The Sunday Times.

An article that he wrote, published on 31 January 2010 has been retracted after a submission to the Press Complaints Commission by Dr Simon Lewis. The link to the original article has been removed from the Times Online website :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009705.ece
“UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim”

Searching for this article title using Google produces thousands of pages that refer to the original publication :-

https://www.google.co.uk/search

The retraction is apparently published here, but I have no access to it, because it requires subscription, which I will not register for, so I do not know what it says :-

https://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article196428.ece

Tags Africagate, Amazon, Amazongate, Climategate, denial, denier, Glaciergate, James Murdoch, Jonathan Leake, Leakegate, Richard North, Rupert Murdoch, sceptic, Simon Lewis, skeptic, Sunday Times, The Times

Big Picture Climate Change Media

Amazongate Redux : Jonathan Leake Still Misguided

Post author By Jo
Post date March 12, 2010
3 Comments on Amazongate Redux : Jonathan Leake Still Misguided

I was going to entitle this little web log post “Yet More Proof Journalists Can’t Read” but I thought that might seem a little too rude, and anyway, I wanted to be clear about the subject of the content of the post in the title, so I changed it.

I have just received an e-mail from Jonathan Leake of the Times of London and the Sunday Times. By order of his e-mail signature, I am not permitted to share entirely the contents of that e-mail with you, however, I can relate to you that it concerns the latest Climate Change “sceptic” bunkum story, to which you can find extensive reference plastered all over the Internet like some ugly, testosterone-fuelled teenage graffiti :-

https://news.oneindia.in/2010/03/12/amazonrain-forests-were-unaffected-from-once-in-a-centuryd.html

“Amazon rain forests were unaffected from once-in-a-century drought in 2005 : Friday, March 12, 2010”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311175039.htm

“New Study Debunks Myths About Vulnerability of Amazon Rain Forests to Drought : ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2010)”

Tags Amazon, Amazongate, Climate Change, Climate Change Science Obstructer, Climate Science Obstructer, denial, denier, drought, Global Warming, GRACE, Jonathan Leake, MODIS, obstructer, satellite, sceptic, Simon Lewis, skeptic

Climate Change Media

“What’s Nuked, Pussycat ?”

Post author By Jo
Post date March 3, 2010
No Comments on “What’s Nuked, Pussycat ?”

[ NOTE FROM JOABBESS.COM : ALL UNEXPLAINED QUOTATIONS ARE TAKEN FROM TRANSCRIPTS OF THE SIMPSONS EPISODE “FRAUDCAST NEWS”, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. ]

[ AS AN INTERESTING ASIDE, IT’S CURIOUS THAT THE SIMPSONS CARTOON MAKES MORE SENSE THAN A GREAT DEAL OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA JOURNALISTS WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO WRITE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. ]

“I’m going to change this town’s accurate impression of me – I’m going to buy every media outlet…It’s time to win back the love of those hateful morons.”

Amy Turner at The Sunday Times (“yeah ! I’m a feeeeeature cooooolumnist”), in my humble opinion, makes a really poor show of comprehending what’s really going on in the “Blogosphere” (“now there’s a thousand freaks xeroxing their worthless opinions”) :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article7043753.ece

As the Blogger Tim Lambert (“the pen is mightier than the flaming bag of poop”) at the Deltoid makes clear, her article could easily be criticised as a blatant attempt to frame the whole Blogging world with her own narrative (or probably that of her ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch), seemingly deciding on her readers’ behalf who to accept as the “big fish” in the Blogosphere, and who to dismiss as “the amateurs”; and then quoting one of her trusted “big fish” Roger Pielke Jr :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article7043753.ece

“…Among these minnows are controversialist bloggers like Tim Lambert, who are professionally unqualified to engage in the substance of most debates (certainly the case with respect to my own work)..”