I don’t have much time today unfortunately, but there was a minor kerfuffel in the news about a study (a term very loosely used) which according to the media reporters (also loosely used) shows that Fox news watchers are being tricked by Fox into “distrust” of climate scientists. The study, which I read, is available on line but before you click on it, IT WILL COST YOU IQ POINTS! I accept no responsibility for neurological damage caused by individual failure to follow my warning.
Some headlines:
Fox News and conservative US media blamed for ‘decreasing trust’ in global warming denial
The Five Ways Conservative Media Keep Trying to Trick Us About Climate Change
Conservative Media Cultivates Distrust of Science in Right-Wingers
You can see the basic conclusions from the title, it is also interesting how many media outlets covered the story considering that only ONE has bothered to cover this little gem:
IRS official who oversaw Cincinatti exempt operations office during scandal gets promotion — Liberalism does breed corruption folks. How many times do we need to see government power repeated before we catch on.
Problems from the core hypotheses assumptions of the study:
H1: Conservative media use will be negatively related to certainty that global warming is happening.
H2: Non-conservative media use will be positively related to certainty that global warming is happening.
H3: Conservative media use will be negatively related to trust in scientists.
H4: Non-conservative media use will be positively related to trust in scientists.
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Ok, so I think from the basic hypotheses we have ‘learnt’ that there is only conservative bias and ‘the rest’. Even MSNBC is specifically named as the “rest” in the paper.
For example, several content analyses have revealed that Fox News and conservative radio programs (e.g.The Rush Limbaugh Show) cover issues and events – from the Iraq War to the campaign for the US presidency – in a way that is more supportive of conservative and Republican interests than CNN, MSNBC, and the national network news programs.
“the national network news programs” – Don’t we all enjoy proper Vulcanesque clarity of unbiased climate science.
Of everything in the paper, this quote makes me warm:
Consistent with previous research (see Boykoff, 2012; Nisbet, 2011), our results show that global warming continues to receive a moderate amount of media coverage, with spikes occurring around important events (e.g. the December 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark).”
AKA CLIMATEGATE!
Why are these people paid to write papers you ask? Simply look to the donor list. I looked up every single one, and their connections to government. If you take your own time, you might find a few interesting connections yourself:
Rest assured that none of the funding came from extreme “non-conservative” associations having any indirect relationship to our current presidential administration.
No, we will not spend any time at this blog deconstructing any of their statistics. We have limited time and this one doesn’t make the cut.