Red top in the morning, global sheperd's warning

A nice link I have been sent: ‘Ye Olde Hot Aire’*: reporting on human contributions to climate change in the UK tabloid press

Brilliant, but shame it did not have a management summary!

Addendum -

No sooner posted than sorted. A kind addition from a fellow forum member. A lot better, but still, a mouthful:

IOP PUBLISHING ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Environ. Res. Lett. 3 (2008) 024002 (8pp)
Abstract

This letter explores daily print media coverage of climate change in four United Kingdom (UK) tabloid newspapers: The Sun (and News of the World), Daily Mail (and Mail on Sunday), the Daily Express (and Sunday Express), and the Mirror (and Sunday Mirror).

Through examinations of content in articles over the last seven years (2000–2006), triangulated with semi-structured interviews of journalists and editors, the study finds that UK tabloid coverage significantly diverged from the scientific consensus that humans
contribute to climate change. Moreover, there was no consistent increase in the percentage of accurate coverage throughout the period of analysis and across all tabloid newspapers, and these findings are not consistent with recent trends documented in United States and UK ‘prestige press’ or broadsheet newspaper reporting. Findings from interviews indicate that inaccurate reporting may be linked to the lack of specialist journalists in the tabloid press. This study therefore contributes to wider discussions of socio-economic inequality, media and the environment. Looking to newspapers that are consumed by typically working class readership, this article contributes to ongoing investigations related to what media representations mean for ongoing science–policy interactions as well as potentialities for public engagement.

Sorry if I missed it if it was in there. Sadly not always the time to go through all such things in detail, which is kind of the whole problem suggested. Though I suspect many tabloid editors do go through... and then choose to take certain directions anyway.

There is of course the base stance being taken as read as well. I'd also note in passing that though the audience for this is specialist, there may be an argument to try and package key points in a way to get the desired message across a tad more easily.

My old mantra of the fault being not so much with those you don't convince, but with you for failing to convince them.

While you're out luv, could you get me a pack of cars?

In the same edition that looked at causes of MWCC: Here comes the £1,200 car

But I'm betting they have 'Bags for Life' when the do their shopping at the mall.

Closing the garage door after the main issues has accelerated away?

That old devil called trust again

So here we have it: In global warming we trust

Seems clear enough. But hold on. Global warming? Not climate change? And what about man made climate change? Or, there again, what about (Possibly/probably) man-worsened climate change?

Nope, at least for the majority of those who graze hereabouts it seems you have to be either a denier OR a believer in just one of two extremes.

Green cannot be viewed simply in terms of black or white. Try it and not only you will get tied up in knots, there'll be plenty willing to wrap themselves around it to a point not even Alexander could cut through the layers of pointless debate that will ensue. Just look above. QED.

There is still one heck of a lot in between the absolutes, and I reckon the best vote is with those who are getting on with DOING and leaving the hot air brigade to knock further spots off each other in their pointless, downward semantic spirals.

Seems the climate is changing. And for the worse. Maybe it's natural, maybe it's not. Maybe personkind is having an influence, maybe not. It sure seems unlikely, as 'we' expand and pollute as we do so, that it's helping much.

Mitigation at the very least seems a decent urgent option now. Reduction quite soon behind. With a few big issues tackled first by the grownups rather than a ton of divisive irrelevancies that let the extremities get excited and gnaw on each other to the distraction of all.

At least, that's my belief. Let's see what 'ist/zi/inger/ier' I get called by the pack this time.