Michael Crichton Wins Journalism Award From Petroleum Association

[norml]

Michael Crichton Wins Journalism Award From Petroleum Association

This is the only news article I could find on the web that mentions this.


snip


Another favorite of climate change skeptics is the author Michael Crichton. Crichton penned the novel State of Fear, which uses a load of discredited and fallacious arguments to attempt to disprove the reality of climate change, but which only succeeds in convincing this reader that his best work was written in the 1960s. What do you do when a fictional work takes a position you like? Call it journalism, of course! That's what the American Association of Petroleum Geologists have done. The AAPG have given Crichton their journalism award this year:

"It is fiction," conceded Larry Nation, communications director for the association. "But it has the absolute ring of truth."

That sounds like truthiness to me.

More after the jump


Unlike the AAPG, who are hardly going to be the most objective bunch when it comes to this topic, State of Fear is widely reviled amongst the rest of the scientific community:
The book is "demonstrably garbage," Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford climatologist, said in an interview yesterday. Petroleum geologists may like it, he said, but only because "they are ideologically connected to their product, which fills up the gas tanks of Hummers."

Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who directs the Harvard University Center for the Environment, called the award "a total embarrassment" that he said "reflects the politics of the oil industry and a lack of professionalism" on the association's part.

As for the book, he added, "I think it is unfortunate when somebody who has the audience that Crichton has shows such profound ignorance."


snip


http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2006/2/9/2815

[tatertop]

1. evil bastard

[progdonkey]

2. mentioned on Daily Show about a week ago...

I read a lot of Michael Crichton when I was in middle school, which probably says more about his books than about me! :evilgrin:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. Journalism??!! HE'S A FICTION WRITER

OMG!!!

[bluestateguy]

4. They won't admit they are wrong until it's too late

Then they'll just cheerfully say "oops!", and get mad at us for playing the blame game.

[punpirate]

5. First of all...

... how does a work of fiction qualify for a "journalism award?"

Sure, many novels, especially historical ones, require research. But, still, writing fiction is not journalism, in any sense of term.

Second, does the petroleum industry understand that its endorsement of poorly researched fiction only reinforces the growing public notion that the oil companies--and the Bush administration--are downplaying global warming for the sake of profit and are increasingly seen as actively interfering with the science showing them not to be good corporate stewards of the public interest and the marketplace (as if they ever were)?

More than likely, they simply don't care, because any effort to reduce CO2 emissions means a drop in profits for these companies, and they will fight that with every tool available to them. They have captive consumers, and profits only increase, in real terms, by making more--that's the fundamental self-interest in what the oil companies promote. Crichton's book is no exception. If Crichton had, instead, sold a best-selling work of fiction about the same subject, but in keeping with current research, the PR arm of the oil companies would not have found it nearly so appetizing, as fiction or as "journalism."

[drm604]

6. Why is the AAPG giving out journalism awards?

They have every right to, of course, but why? Why does the AAPG have this intense interest in journalism?

Does the Pulitzer Committee give awards for petroleum geology? Would anyone take it the least bit seriously if they did?

(Yes, I know the answer is obvious. I just felt like throwing out some smart ass rhetorical questions.)

[BR_Parkway]

7. And what have they given that award to previously? if ever

[phantom power]

8. I just threw up in my mouth.

:puke:

[IDemo]

9. Here's the AAPG's pick for "Green Vehicle of the Year" ==>>