News Corp Australia Promises To Keep Publishing Denier Bullshit As It "Goes Green" Pre-Glasgow

[hatrack]

Last edited Sun Sep 12, 2021, 11:21 AM - Edit history (1)

News Corp Australia has confirmed it will ramp up its company-wide coverage of climate change next month but says its stable of commentators won’t be “muzzled”. The executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, says the mastheads will cover “all views” and “not just the popular ones”, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial and ridicule towards climate action.

“All our commentators and columnists will be encouraged to participate, and their views will not be muzzled,” Miller told staff on Friday, several days after a report in the Nine papers claimed News was going to end its longstanding editorial hostility towards carbon reduction policies. Miller denied Nine’s claim that conservative commentators would be expected to tone down and reframe their political arguments. The Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt, who describes global warming as a “cult of the elites”, and the Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair, who says the climate emergency is “bogus”, will apparently be free to continue to undermine the science.

EDIT

Two years ago the News Corp executive chairman, Rupert Murdoch, said “there are no climate change deniers around I can assure you”, after he was asked at the corporation’s AGM why his company gives them “so much airtime” in Australia. But the declaration from the top did little to change the tone of the editorial coverage. An op-ed by Prof Ian Plimer published in 2019 in The Australian was condemned as blatantly false by climate scientists. It was later found to have breached standards by the Australian Press Council.

Titled ‘Let’s not pollute minds with carbon fears’ it argued that there “are no carbon emissions. If there were, we could not see because most carbon is black. Such terms are deliberately misleading, as are many claims.” Sky News Australia’s chief executive, Paul Whittaker, told a parliamentary hearing this week that the channel’s contribution to the editorial campaign would be a documentary on net zero. Miller said the coverage would feature “leaders in the field, as well as a diverse range of perspectives”. “I am personally supportive of a net zero target and I would like to reiterate that News Corp recognises climate change and acknowledges that it is having an impact,” he said.

OFFS

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/11/news-corp-australia-wont-muzzle-commentators-as-it-ramps-up-climate-coverage

[Mickju]

1. I accidentally overheard a little Fox News the other day.

A woman referred to climate change as "not even a thing"