Meet the Climate Inquisition, Courtesy of Legacy Media's 'Climate Journalism Network'

Actions speak louder than words, and the Climate Inquisition points more and more towards totalitarianism

Editorial comment: for a German version, see here.

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Earlier this year, in spring 2023, representatives of legacy media adopted a series of reporting ‘guidelines’ from the so-called ‘Climate Journalism Network’ (Netzwerk Klimajournalismus), which received comparatively little attention. Here you will find their Austrian web presence, but the handwriting of its German ‘big brother’ is unmistakable. According to the latter website, there exists a similar ‘partnership’ with the Swiss counterpart.

Networks and Their Work ‘in progress’

After all, the homepage of the Austrian network contains names and references (which are not without a certain auto-referentiality), which raise doubts at first glance.

First of all, there are references to journalistic activities at, among others, left-woke, partially socialist-funded falter (K. Kropshofer), German left-liberal taz and Moment Magazin (L. Bayer), the Austrian state broadcaster ORF (M. Saidi), or Austria’s leading left-woke daily Der Standard (A. Prager). So far, so obvious—after all, they are flaunting your convictions and ideological blinders for the world to see.

Some of these things are, well, too absurd to ignore, especially in light of the repeated calls to just follow ‘the science™’ or trust ‘the experts™’.

It is particularly telling that, for example, Veronika Winter, one of the co-founders of the network, is listed as an ‘expert on climate education’ (Klimabildung). What that means is—nothing less than Ms. Winter being a member of the ‘Austrian Competence Center for Didactics of Biology’. But it also means nothing else other than that she is a doctoral student at the ‘Center for Teacher Education at the University of Vienna’. What exactly Ms. Winter—or the network—may have in terms of expertise and/or specialist knowledge on ‘climate change’ or the like is, well, an open question for the time being.

First of all, here is the major aim of the ‘Climate Journalism Network’:

Together with the colleagues from the network climate journalism Germany we have created a climate charter. Our goal is to make journalism in German-speaking countries fit for the climate crisis.

P-L-U-C-C explains the “climate crisis”

For a better classification of these aims, we turn to an article in the Standard by Marlene Erhart (Aug. 21, 2023; source), which contains some information as regards ‘climate journalism’.

Illustrated with images of tobacco products—especially to point out the similarities in the ‘denial’ of facts by both the tobacco industry and ‘climate deniers’—the following reference is found:

Disinformation Smoke Machine

In political discourse, scientific facts are often deliberately misrepresented. The networks Skeptical Sciene and Klimafakten.de have summarised particularly common strategies in the PLURV formula.

• Pseudo-experts: unqualified individuals or institutions are presented as a safe source for relevant arguments or objections.

• Logical fallacies: arguments are put forward that turn out to be illogical, for example by drawing incorrect conclusions from correct information.

• Unfulfillable expectations: science, for example, demands a degree of certainty that cannot be achieved.

• Conspiracy myths: it is assumed that evidence on climate change is deliberately falsified.

• Cherry picking: incomplete information is chosen to support one’s position.

[Editorial comment: P-L-U-R-V derives from the German version of these bold terms; hence, for this translation, I have used its English equivalents, which result in: P-L-U-C-C]

Now it would be easy to go through the website of the ‘Climate Journalism Network’ again to enumerate these P-L-U-C-C points based on one or the other personal information.

But this makes ‘more’ sense (sic) to do so with respect to the so-called ‘Climate Charter for Appropriate Climate Reporting in Austria’, which the ‘Climate Journalism Network’ presented in spring 2023..

But what is the ‘Climate Charter’ about? (translation and emphases mine)?

An accurate choice of words and illustrations, the distinction from activism, and the distinction between opinion and facts, as well as the provision of appropriate resources and structures within editorial offices are the central points of the climate chater…

The guidelines are not binding, which means that there is no interference with editorial independence. Responsibility remains with the editors. However, a five-person panel can identify violations and encourage errors to be corrected .

Reports on the presentation of the climate code included Der Standard, the Austria Press Agency (APA), legacy media outlets Horizont and Journalistin, Heute, Falter and the Wiener Zeitung. In addition, Der Standard, [state broadcaster] ORF , APA , Horizont, the Wiener Zeitung, and News reported on the Charter in November 2022.

So far, so good, eh?

Self-Control is—Power

We also note that the ‘Concordia Press Club’ (the news industry’s self-packed ‘watchdog’ where the presentation took place in May 2023) is just such a body set up by legacy media to engage in ‘self-control’.

In a pertinent article in Der Standard (May 24, 2023; source; emphases mine) it is held, among other things, that

awareness of the climate crisis has increased. ‘But there is still room for improvement’. There is also still potential for development with regard to the media companies that have signed the Charter. ‘Basically, we have received a lot of positive feedback. Most of the editors are also behind it’, said the spokeswoman for the climate journalism network [Verena Mischitz]...

APA editor-in-chief Johannes Bruckenberger said that what was formulated in the Climate Charter is already being lived. For example, a cross-departmental climate team was set up in the editorial office of the Austria Press Agency. Because: ‘The topic reaches everywhere.’ The output of climate reports has recently been increased to an average of 15 articles per day. And the effort is rewarded: ‘Climate reports have the highest adoption rate of all topics. It is particularly popular with the young target group’, says Bruckenberger. It is important to also offer solution-oriented reports so that readers do not turn away from the topic.

Anita Malli, Sustainability Officer at [state broadcaster] ORF, agreed. ‘The great art is to narrate [erzählen] these topics in such a way that they relate the human interest angle. Good narratives keep people hooked’, she said. The topic is not only found in the news on the ORF. You can also put it elsewhere ‘wherever it sticks’ [liberal translation of ‘in der Fläche’]’.

Two little things come to mind: do these statements by the APA editor-in-chief already fall under ‘activism’ as defined in the ‘Climate Chater’? And what about the required ‘distinction between opinion and facts’ in the ‘narrative’ espoused by sustainability officer Malli talking about ‘good narratives…where [they] fit’, to say nothing about the literal distance from the espoused aims of incontrovertible ‘expertise’.

Note that these artificial lakes are often done in suburban residential settings to increase property prices; if there is a few weeks of less rain in summer, images like this one are often used by legacy media to drive home activist points—while omitting declining groundwater levels due to, say, intensive agriculture.

Last but not least, reference should be made to the—admittedly almost proverbially stupid—absurdity of the illustrations in the Standard piece: it shows an artificially created swimming pond with the caption ‘Dried out lake near Wiener Neustadt’ to drive home…well, what exactly?

So we note that the reporting in legacy media itself is, perhaps ironically, far from the self-controlled standards approved by the ‘experts’ (sic).

Who is Actually Watching the Watchmen?

Incidentally—a telling detail, so to speak—the following ownership structures in the Austrian media landscape should be pointed out at this point. The Standard explains:

The Climate Charter has already been signed by the Austria Press Agency, Heute, Regionalmedien, Wiener Zeitung, Datum, Moment, Die Chefredaktion, andererseits, and tag eins.

However, the following fact remains unmentioned :

The APA is owned by Austrian daily newspapers and the ORF.

So we note here: the APA and its associated legacy media have committed themselves to a ‘Climate Charter’ which is monitored by a ‘Climate Journalism Network’ modeled after the industry-staffed ‘watchdog’ (sic) ‘Presseclub Concordia’—whereby their ‘Climate Charter’ crafters are employed as ‘journalists’ by precisely those members of legacy media.

You could call this ‘circular reasoning’, but I think ‘climate inquisitors’ is probably more appropriate.

Epilogue: Climate Inquisition and P-L-U-C-C

In almost every single one of the P-L-U-C-C points mentioned above, the ladies and gentlemen of the ‘Climate Journalism Network’ are wrong—or hit the bullseye:

Ms. Winter may identify as an ‘expert in climate education’, but as a doctoral student in education, she probably falls into the category of ‘pseudo-expert’, i.e., ‘an unqualified person or institution is presented as a reliable source for relevant objections’.

‘Arguments are put forward that turn out to be illogical, for example by drawing the wrong conclusions from correct information’ is, in my opinion, an excellent description of the logical fallacy of industry self-monitoring through exclusion of dissenting voices; there are a number of reasons for the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary as a principle under the rule of law, all notions that are deliberately omitted here.

Talking about unfulfillable expectations in the context of ‘the science™’ and at the same time ‘demanding [a] degree of certainty that is not attainable’ is not only illogical or circular reasoning again, but it also allows the climate inquisitors both to reject any dissent with the doldrum of ‘97% of researchers agree’ while, if ‘the science™’ change, they, too, may change their minds without ever having to shoulder any responsibility.

Now it would seem obvious to move the ‘climate journalism network’ to the rank of conspiracy myths, for example, by ‘assuming that evidence on climate change is deliberately falsified’. Yet, that’s exactly what happened with ‘Climate Gate’.

Oh, by the way, German legacy media are full with the current ‘hype’ about melting glaciers (e.g., here via the Austrian Academy of Sciences), although the Alps were ice-free around Ötzi's time, as PD Dr. Andrea Fischer—who is currently attracting attention everywhere with scaremongering (e.g. here on ORF)—actually knows about, as she co-authored a Nature-published study about this recently.

Alps were Ice-Free around 3,350 Years Ago, According to the Peer-Reviewed Literature Published in 'Nature'

Incidentally, something similar can also be seen in Norway, where Lars Pilø and colleagues found a large number of artefacts on a mountain pass at almost 2,000m above sea level , which are now emerging from the glacier melt. To me this looks like cherry-picking in both cases, i.e., ‘incomplete information is chosen to support one’s position’.

I rest my case.