Amen.

This is insightful. In some ways mass media and truth are opposites. The extreme speed, and the short snippets of information requires a very simplified version of reality to be communicated.

On the other hand - there is no way democracy can work without mass media… Maybe the most important role of media is not to spread information, but to keep a discussion going… don’t know.

Domen, are you kidding me? Mass media are fuelling the “scandal”?

In the Czech Republic the mass media have not reported it at all. The main news channel http://www.ct24.cz allows online vieweing of its past news. Until now they have not informed the public about Climategate.

The journalists of course know about Climategate. But they are hiding it from the public.

If it were not for internet and bloggers, we would know nothing… If you do not want to call it censorship, please invent some more euphemistic name.

Again, Vitezslav, you show a leninist disregard of the meaning of words.

Censorship does not mean simply that journalists do not write about something. It means that a non-media authority, usually the state, reads and decides what to published and what not.

See Marrian Webster for a definition.

Like Vitezslav I have seen very little coverage in my local main stream media. For once it seems they have taken the right choice The blogosphere however…

C’mon, Benno, what do you mean the right choice? News is news, should be reported. It just depends on a journalist to present it in an intelligent or a stupid way.

And Domen, sure, I agree that some people use media to search for a confirmation of their views, also true that journalists often pursue scandals but I guess it is just a personal choice how you use media. You can certainly come up with heuristics that will enable you to assess information and their validity, at least by checking sources.

And what seems to be a religious-like battle for me is the one between believers in a theory of anthropogenic source of climate change and the sceptiks. New religion contra new heretics… And I don’t assess the beliefs and ideas that stand behind these two groups, rather strategies of stigmatization and silencing of the opponent.

News is not just news. There are very relevant news, less relevant news, scandalous news, boring news… Journalists filter through it every day, take choices on what to deliver.

I just found this article on Wired: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/11/st_essay_globalwarming and in a way, I strongly agree with this part:

“There are lots of reasons to avoid shifting the focus to adaptation. For starters, “We… See More’re toast” is nobody’s idea of a call to arms. But in fact, an honest accounting of where we stand ought to be the jumping-off place for a more important (and way more interesting) discussion. The real question is not how we can keep things the way they are but how we’ll survive, and maybe even thrive, on a hotter planet. Yes, we should still work on cutting carbon. But we need to be realistic about what that can accomplish and what it can’t.”

Agreed?

@ Daniel and Mr. Webster:

1) Censorship: media are owned by somebody. Usually Rupert Murdoch (hi, Rupert, if you are reading this). The media do not publish things, which Rupert does not want to be published. Instead they report about car accidents and lost kittens to mask the vacuum.

2) Auto-censorship: Journalists are selected according to their beliefs. They learn to believe the Ruling Paradigm. Then they provide biased one-sided info as true believers.

Climategate is a much bigger scandal than Watergate. With worldwide repercussions for whole cap-n-trade and everything. Why do the Mainstream media keep it silent?

When our prime minister shows the “Fuck-finger” in public, we hear about it for weeks. And about Climategate… nothing.

If you think this silence is normal and natural, well, then your psychiatrist has heaps of work to do… You should pay him some bonus for the extra work.

So you as a libertarian think that Rubert Murdoch censors media? There is some truth in this, but it sounds more like something Naomi Klein would say.

Anyway, monopolized ownership and censorship are two different problems. Since you lived through socialism you should have an idea about the difference.

If you know anyone who tried to write under socialism, they can also tell you some things about the difference in self-censorship because you want to get your article sold/published and self-censorship because you are afraid of getting punished by the state.

Climategate haven’t made any difference for me, the weather that is plus 15 in the last day of November in Austria is making difference ..

Daniel, I am just stating facts. Mass media are not reporting about the greatest scandal in world history of science. Compare this to the tiny scandal when the Korean scientist falsely claimed to be successful in cloning… And I am trying to come up with some explanation.

Got an alternative explanation, Daniel? Please tell me.

Aija, if there is anything like climategate it is surely not about temperatures… it is about economic policies that stem from it. And they make a real difference to the pockets.

Media didn’t say anything about this here. For the time being they’re all busy with presidential elections and nothing else is covered.

And although I agree with you up to a point - many seem to pick one side or the other (devils or saints ), the truth stands somewhere in between.

Of course, once the shit hit the fan, everybody`s jumping.
I was literally rolling on the floor laughing. xD

As for the rest, excellent post, Domen.

Perhaps ... it is a lesson of freedom!
Do you think not?
In that debate, we must not forget freedom because a lot have died to have it!