Larvatus Prodeo

Drum Editor Jonathan Green appears to have capitulated to braying demands for a false balance.

Next week: The Drum-Unleashed will feature a series of pieces commissioned from noted writers on the sceptic side of the climate science debate. Included will be Alan Moran, Tom Switzer, Mark Hendriks, Bob Carter and Jo Nova.

My questions to him are these:

Will the commissions be drawn against the ABC’s editorial policies that demand information be factually accurate?

Or will he give these already widely published writers a pass and allow them to disseminate their speculative theories without them having been drawn against the scientific facts for accuracy prior to publication?

Will this opinion at the Drum defy gravity; somehow exempt from objective fact?

Update I: Alan Moran is first cab off the rank and sure enough there is at least one big misrepresentation. A total misquote of Phil Jones’ position on the pace of warming.

Warming itself has appeared to have stopped, perhaps temporarily, a fact that even the defrocked high priest of the rising temperature trend, CRU’s Professor Phil Jones, has been forced to concede.

Moran cops a hammering from the smarter commenters but the usual denialist trolls come out to play, and Green cynically gets what he wants, with 498 comments to date.

Update II: John Quiggin gives us a whole post centered around Phil Jones’ quote. Another reason why Green should pull Moran’s post and abandon his misguided “project balance”.

Update: [by Mark] Bernard Keane takes aim at the ABC’s “balance without judgement” and rebuts Moran and Tom Switzer’s Drum post today.