Thursday, July 29, 2010

HELP alert the media to denialist activity

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Turn the Tables on Monckton
Written by Professor Scott Mandia

Christopher Monckton and other deniers get far more press coverage than they deserve. Journalistic false balance has caused the public to be confused on climate change – the greatest threat to humanity this century. Worse, these deniers have used mainstream media to attack climate science and the scientists who pursue the truth. Let us now turn the tables.

Monckton has been exposed by Dr. John Abraham and instead of hiding his tail and whimpering away, Monckton has gone on the offensive by attacking Dr. Abraham and asking his followers to essentially “email bomb” Dr. Abraham’s university president. We need to alert the media to this story.

I have assembled a list of media contacts in the hopes that my readers will follow my lead and send letters asking for an investigation of Monckton and his attack on Abraham. Please feel free to use the letter I sent below as your own or to modify as you see fit. I have placed mailto links that will make it easy to send letters to several contacts at once with a single click.

In the thread comments, please suggest other contacts in the US and from abroad. This blog thread can then be used in the future to alert the media to denialist activity.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Journalistic “false balance” has led the general public to believe that there is still scientific debate about whether humans are causing climate change.
The IPCC (2007) WGI report states: “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns.” There are no international bodies of science that hold a dissenting opinion and over 97% of climate scientists that publish in journals agree with the IPCC conclusions.

Several publications (eg. Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Oreskes and Conway, 2010) have shown that mass media has repeatedly presented the science as having two sides well after scientists have arrived at a consensus on issues such as tobacco’s link to cancer, acid rain, DDT, ozone depletion, global warming, and others. There is only one side with regard to the primary cause of modern global warming: humans are responsible for most of the warming. One of the most visible and publicized deniers of manmade global warming is Christopher Monckton.

Christopher Monckton has no scientific credentials nor has he published any articles in a peer-reviewed science journal. Monckton has only a degree in classics and a diploma in journalism, yet he is consistently quoted in the media as an “alternative voice” to the scientific consensus and he recently appeared in a recent (2010) congressional hearing regarding “Climategate”. (Climategate was a well-orchestrated attack on scientists and climate science that has been shown repeatedly to have been without merit.)

Recently, Dr. John Abraham of St. Thomas University painstakingly debunked many of Monckton’s false claims and misrepresentations of the science of climate change and posted these results on the Web. In response, Monckton has embarked on a smear campaign against Dr. Abraham and has asked his followers to flood the email inbox of the University President demanding removal of the documents that expose his unsubstantiated “scientific claims”.

These personal attacks on scientists must end now. Climate change is the greatest threat to humanity this century and it is criminal to intentionally misrepresent the science and attack the scientists that find the evidence for manmade warming. Please investigate the Monckton and Abraham story. Expose Monckton for the fraud that he is, and by doing so, you may regain the trust of scientists that may be shunning mass media because of the journalistic false balance that discourages scientific engagement with the media. The public do not read scientific journals so they rely on your service to be accurately informed. Serve your listening public, maintain your journalistic integrity, and do the right thing.

Please feel free to contact my if you wish more information about this story.

Sincerely,

Scott A. Mandia, Professor – Physical Sciences
mandias@sunysuffolk.edu
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/



Print Media:

John Hillkirk, USA Today – Editor@usatoday.com

Alan Murray, Wall Street Journal – a.murray@wsj.com

Bill Keller, NY Times – http://www.nytimes.com/gst/emailus.html

Russ Stanton, LA Times – russ.stanton@latimes.com

Marcus W. Brauchli, Washington Post – letters@washpost.com,

Reporters: Juliet Eilperin- eilperinj@washpost.com & David Fahrenthold – fahrenthold@washpost.com

Gerould W. Kern, Chicago Tribune – ctc-editor@tribune.com

Martin Dunn, Daily News (NY) – voicers@edit.nydailynews.com

William K. Marimow, Philadelphia Enquirer – bmarimow@phillynews.com

Jeff Cohen, Houston Chronicle – outlook@chron.com

Col Allan, New York Post – letters@nypost.com


Jonathan Wolman, The Detroit News – jon.wolman@detnews.com

Robert W. Mong, Jr, Dallas Morning News – bmong@dallasnews.com

Nancy Barnes, Minneapolis Star Tribune – nancyb@startribune.com

Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe – canellos@globe.com

Kevin Whitmer, Star-Ledger (NJ) – kwhitmer@starledger.com

Julia Wallace, Atlanta Journal-Constitution – jdwallace@ajc.com

Carroll, Nicole, Arizona Republic – nicole.carroll@arizonarepublic.com

Debby Krenek, Newsday (NY) – editor@newsday.com

Stephen Proctor, SF Chronicle – sproctor@sfchronicle.com

Susan Goldberg,Cleveland Plain Dealer – sgoldberg@plaind.com


Wire:

Associated Press Headquarters – info@ap.org

Reuters Washington Bureau (Headquarters) – editor@reuters.com

Magazines:

Newsweek – letters@newsweek.com

Time – letters@time.com

U.S. News & World Report – letters@usnews.com

Editorial Board Editor Mortimer Zuckerman – mzuckerman@usnews.com


Television:


ABC – comments@abcnews.go.com

DC Bureau Chief Robin Sproul – robin.sproul@abc.go.com

World News Tonight – http://abcnews.go.com/WN/mailform?id=10691207

Executive Producer Paul Friedman – paul.friedman@abc.go.com

Nightline – nightline@abc.go.com

Executive Producer Tom Bettag – tom.bettag@abc.go.com

20/20 – 2020@abc.go.com

Good Morning America - netaudr@abc.go.com

CBS Evening News – evening@cbsnews.com

60 Minutes – 60m@cbsnews.com

CNN Headquarters – community@cnn.com

Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer – http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?21

Executive Producer Sam Feist – sam.feist@cnn.com

Reliable Sources – reliable@cnn.com

Anchors Howard Kurtz – kurtzh@washpost.com

Meet the Press – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6872152/

Nightly News – nightly@nbc.com

Executive Producer David Corvo – david.corvo@nbc.com

Today Show - today@nbc.com

Executive Producer Jeff Zucker – jeff.zucker@nbc.com

Dateline NBC – dateline@nbc.com

MSNBC – letters@msnbc.com

Hardball w Chris Matthews – hardball@msnbc.com

Rachel Maddow Show – Rachel@msnbc.com

Countdown with Keith Olbermann – countdown@msnbc.com

CNBC World – cnbcworld@cnbc.com

FOX News Watch – newswatch@foxnews.com



Public Broadcasting :

National Public Radio – yourturn@npr.org

Diane Rehm Show – drshow@wamu.org

On The Media – onthemedia@wnyc.org

News Hour with Jim Lehrer – newshour@pbs.org



Written by Scott Mandia

July 18, 2010 at 6:39 am

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Also worth contacting:

America's foremost interviewer Terry Gross at Fresh Air
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/freshair/

The Young Turks on YouTube:
http://www.theyoungturks.com
theyoungturks@googlegroups.com


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Thank you Professor Scott Mandia for being one of the Professors/Scientist stepping up to defend the integrity of science.

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