Misleading reporting from Fiona Harvey of the Financial Times

Ah but Tim,

Didn't you notice that later commenters queried the use of 'red ink' over parts of the article that should have been green? TB ignored this.

Moreover the published article appears to be somewhat different to that from CNN.

Methinks you're trying to manufacture storms in teacups.

Rattus Norvegicus, frequent blog commenter says that Steve Goddard lacks both credibility and competence.

TBH Rattus it matters not whether you think or say that. It's simply a fact of life, an incontvertible inevitability, like taxes and death.

By the way, this illustrates something we should all be thinking about, as it is very effective, i.e., the colr-coded highlights.

As an example, I recommend Deep Climate's latest "Wegman Report update, part 1: More dubious scholarship in full colour."

In particular this use of color coding shows:
cyan: words extracted *exactly* as is from a source, i.e., identical (ID).
yellow: Trivial Changes

Just as TB's color codes make one aspect clear, DC's make another aspect clear. In particular, when someone copies many words, the *changes* leap off the page, because the cyan says "ignore this", allowing focus on the changes.
DC has a table that points to the original side-by-sides he did, with them all redone in the new style. Take a look and see what a difference it makes.

My forthcoming tome on Wegman report uses a similar style, although with slighting more restrictive algorithm for marking identical. (he counts moves, I require locally in-order). We generally end up with about same approximations of total Striking Similarity (legal term used for alleged plagiarism).

People may be interested to know that ~35 of pages of the 91-page Wegman Report are mostly SS, in rough terms, say 80% SS, and 50% ID. DC's newest describes about 10... the other 25 are will show up in the near future, along with other things.

Rattus Norvegicus, frequent blog commenter says that Steve Goddard lacks both credibility and competence.

I'd be willing to say that while hooked up to a polygraph ...

Hey kids how many errors can you spot in this paragraph?

Some scientists hailed the study as a refutation of the claims made by climate skeptics during the "Climategate" saga. Those scandals involved accusations -- some since proven correct -- of flaws in the IPCC's landmark 2007 report, and the release of hundreds of emails from climate scientists that appeared to show them distorting certain data

The one who comes up with the wrong answer wins a dinner for two with Steve Goddard. The first correct entry probably adjusted the data and is ergo a fraud and consonantly will be immediately disqualified.

I know Fiona well, and if there is one thing she is absolutely not it is lazy. Another thing she is absolutely not is the editor of the Financial Times. If you want to attack the false balance of the FT then you should perhaps set your sights a little higher...

Interesting metric.

Another metric is the positioning of the truth in an article and the lies.

Many tabloids will start an article with bullcrud and put the details that explain that the headline and start were actually completely wrong right at the end of the article.

Or in other words they try and get the readers blood boiling initially, then assume most people will not read the rest.
Hence many will be left in a rage having had there prejudices confirmed.

Those that do read the full article, eg those that don't agree with the initial premise and read the article to the end to see if the initial premise was really true, also get their prejudices confirmed, realising that the paper is a pile of crap, just as they always thought it was.

Actually adding to my previous post. It looks like the FT article conforms to the model I outlined!
eg. the start is red and the end is green.

I don't know Fiona, but I'm with David (5) on this one. I've familiar enough with her work to get the sense that this story is not representative of her.

Also, Tim, as I commented to Things Break at his site, let me point out that this story still contains the necessary criteria for approval by the headmaster--Joe Romm. What do I mean by that? Joe has previously written that most readers merely glance at stories, reading only the headline and the first paragraph or two, at most.

Now read the story again by those standards and tell me if you still find fault with it.

Mind you, I think a story should be judged on its whole, but I hope you see what I mean.

The only way this issue of "faux balance" could be resolved would be if journalists themselves took the bull by the horns and made a case for more appropriate reporting. The irony is that a probably sincere attempt to give voice to minority views usually ends up as giving too much weight to ill informed opinion, and lays the reporting process open to abuse by vested interests. I'm sure, in the US's case, that this was never the intent of the First Amendment, and the irony is that it seems to be contravening the freedom of the press and causing journalists to passively waive their right to both that and free speech.
Jefferson et al (1791) must be spinning in their graves.

kkloor:

> Now read the story again by those standards and tell me if you still find fault with it.

Yes, because the first paragraph is bullshit.

It reads as if "Climategate" had shaken the very foundations of climate science, which were only rescued by the State of the Climate report.

Which is absolutely false. "Climategate" was a PR event hyped up by die-hard climate contrarians -- including yourself -- which had nothing to do with science.

Keith, I might have known that you would turn the story into a slam on Joe Romm. I don't think that Romm said that only thing that matters is the headline.

"I know Fiona well, and if there is one thing she is absolutely not it is lazy."

Available evidence gives the lie to that statement.

Can anyone seriously imagine this approach being taken to other topics?

Would the FT run an article on the release of a technical report from the US Federal Reserve that gives almost as many column inches to the opinions of unrelated think tanks, bloggers and an "amatuer" who follows the Federal Reserve "as a hobby"?

Sure.

I'll have to disagree with Tim on one point - there's no way Fiona Harvey is lazy. She laboured mightily to get some crank POV in to 'balance' the science.

By the way, is this some sort of weird attempt to resurrect the dead non-scandal that is "Climategate"?

Maybe "Climategate" will go the way of Lenin's body during the Soviet era: it must be brought up every time global warming is mentioned, just to keep the memory of it alive.

Based on Fiona's past reporting on climate, I'll have to agree with David's assessment. I think the Poe-like Herro quote is evidence that she may not have been happy with the editorial direction.

A related incident involving the FT occurred a few days ago when a transcript of an interview with Steve Chu made it appear that he was making some sort of judgement about the "Climategate" scientists when he clearly was not. Fiona wasn't involved in that one. I was willing to write it off as a simple mistake, but now with this new article I'm not so sure.

This could be a cascade, if it becomes a trend:

Murdoch buys the WSJ, makes its "news" content more like its editorial page, and the atmosphere in business news changes a bit. Not sure FT endorsement of Tories lately was that, per se, since the latest election was such a scrambled mess.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/business/media/14carr.html?_r=1&partn…

But there are growing indications that Mr. Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, doesnât just want to cover politics, he wants to play them as well.

A little over a year ago, Robert Thomson, The Journalâs top editor, picked Gerard Baker, a columnist for The Times of London, as his deputy managing editor. Mr. Baker is a former Washington bureau chief of The Financial Times with a great deal of expertise in the Beltway. The two men came of age in the more partisan milieu of British journalism.

According to several former members of the Washington bureau and two current ones, the two men have had a big impact on the paperâs Washington coverage, adopting a more conservative tone, and editing and headlining articles to reflect a chronic skepticism of the current administration. And given that the paperâs circulation continues to grow, albeit helped along by some discounts, thereâs nothing to suggest that The Journalâs readers donât approve.

Mr. Baker, a neoconservative columnist of acute political views, has been especially active in managing coverage in Washington, creating significant grumbling, if not resistance, from the staff there. Reporters say the coverage of the Obama administration is reflexively critical, the health care debate is generally framed in terms of costs rather than benefits â âhealth care reformâ is a generally forbidden phrase â and global warming skeptics have gotten a steady ride. (Of course, objectivity is in the eyes of the reader.)

The pro-business, antigovernment shift in the news pages has broken into plain view in the last year. On Aug. 12, a fairly straight down the middle front page article on President Obamaâs management style ended up with the provocative headline, âA President as Micromanager: How Much Detail Is Enough?â The original article included a contrast between President Jimmy Carterâs tendency to go deep in the weeds of every issue with President George W. Bushâs predilection for minimal involvement, according to someone who saw the draft. By the time the article ran, it included only the swipe at Mr. Carter

I think Fiona has been struggling with editors for some time. Climategate possibly had more of an effect on editors than it did on environment reporters.

We don't know how much was edited out. But the inclusion of Myron Ebell and someone who followed climate science "as a hobby" is pretty weird. Be interested to find out background. Did anyone ask her?

[You wouldn't read about it: climate scientists right](http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/you-wouldnt…).