Friday
Feb122016
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Squawk
Feb 12, 2016 Media ;)
Further to yesterday's post, it seems that the Independent will be ending its print editions in just a few weeks' time. Leo Hickman helpfully reminds us what we'll be missing.
The Independent, esp under @simon_kelner, did many striking frontpages about climate change. Here's a selection... pic.twitter.com/j6MZDUMH2Q
— Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman) February 12, 2016
Reader Comments (62)
Presumably, it hasn't yet occurred to Leo that there may be a connection...
People are getting bored stiff with climate scare stories whilst the real scares of pension planning and debt risk are rapidly rising as we face a possible further halving of share price in a new Global Depression.
jamesp has it in one!
When media present absurd hysteria as normal they can't be surprised if the public decline to take them seriously. I always remembered Steve Connor's efforts in 'environment' as being absurd almost every time. They're now seeing the consequences of their activism.
I thought The Independent was a breath of fresh air when it was launched, and bought it as first choice for many years. Then it went unacceptably preachy and then, worse, global-warming. I think it was around the time of the second gulf-war when Kelner was editor. I wasn't watching closely, as I was living abroad at the time.
It is a shame, but it was already dead for some years. The bad news, for them, is that the website is often an annoying one to use. When I start reading a story on a website and the page suddenly shifts up or down after a few seconds, probably due to an advert finishing loading, then it is incredibly disruptive for the reader. Not even Bob Ward could blame that on global warming or skeptics, could he?
Am impressed, rather I am aghast, that one of those front pages is trying to create an impression that 22C at an arctic location is evidence of global warming/climate change. Obviously no-one at the "independent" bothered to check figures for Barrow, Murmansk or Yakutsk to name only a few places where summer temperatures are quite often above 22C.
But the disinformation campaign continues online - because young and impressionable people don't buy newspapers and the lies can be disseminated so much faster electronically.
jamesp, 1:43, yes there is a connection, but is it correlation or causation?
Guardian next?
What must I do to have a permanent electronic copy of its famous "there will be no more snow" story?
Independant to end it's print run
Booooooo
It's only a pause in its print editions.
Online only - up against Arianna
Stassinopoulos'Huffpo weapons grade PR pump clickbait - even the electronic version is only going to last a couple of years at most. One bout of ad fraud will bury them.Just desserts imho
Robert Christopher 3.02
97% pause.
GC, 2:45pm:
I was just watching the BBC news channel. The journo talking (didn't catch his name) was predicting the Gruan would be the next to go.
chris moffatt
Indeed, when looking into polar amplification, I noticed temps up to 37C in Siberia.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/arctic-amplification/
O dear, children just aren't going to know what The Independent was
Ahem...it says in Wikipedia that "On the day of the 2015 General Election, the i declared that it would not be suggesting to readers how they vote, similarly to the Independent on Sunday but in contrast to The Independent which expressed a preference for the Conservative/Liberal coalition to continue."
So not lefty but Liberal at most, or perhaps even actually independent. All things being equal you'd expect an independent mind to trust the majority of scientists not to lie. The trouble is that all other things are not equal; there is no funding for finding no problem. At least the i will continue. I prefer my journalism free of partisan politics of any hue and containing actual news.
Salopian @ 3:27 re BBC predicting end of Grauniad:
What - the BBC are getting rid of their in-house newspaper?
Print is on the way out. This is only the beginning, most papers and periodicals are losing readers. We may be permitted a bisschen schadenfreude but if you are reading this on an electronic device, that's why.
Re: rhoda
> reading this on an electronic device, that's why
What non-electronic devices can I read this on? :)
Its a shame the Independent is closing the print version. I have 9 copies of the Independent which I bought purely to keep their stupid front page CAGW bollocks for posterity and to show my Grandchildren how stupid people can believe anything. Several of the copies I have are included in the Leo Hickman montage. Headlines include:
The following is quite noteworthy for invoking the utterly debunked Greenpeace 'lungs of the planet' nonsense from the 1980's (blue green algae anyone?):
And my two personal favourites:
and, for the best self-contradiction ever, the winner has to be:
for trying to construct an argument that climate change must be real because the US were enduring a drought which is the worst since....the Great Depression. Which was natural. And worse.
Plonkers. RIP.
Nobody has yet mentioned explicitly the most famous example.
Global warming causes closure of The Independent!
We owe Leo a bit of respect for collating those front pages for us. The first 5 are examples of gross irresponsibility. The sixth highlights one of the shocking consequences when that infects legislators - the fact that it is not condemned by the imaginatively named 'Independent' adds to their shame. I for one am not sorry to learn of their departure from print.
Children just aren't going to know what a print edition of the Independent is.
dearieme What must I do to have a permanent electronic copy of its famous "there will be no more snow" story?
(find and 'save page')
IIRC The 'totaly' Independent did what is now in vogue in the on-line universe and attempted to delete their own history (disk space costing what it does :^} these days).
It can still be found at eg thewaybackmachine however. No longer at 'The Independent' though...
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past
By Charles Onians
Monday, 20 March 2000
Unlike 'chip wrappers', on the net your history is preserved for posterity (and easily accessible by any future historian).
Under the heading "most viewed" at the "snowfalls are a thing of the past" story the top story is 'Mini ice age' coming in next fifteen years, new model of the sun's cycle shows.
The irony.
The classified product of skeptic project X54 strikes yet gain, mowing down the alarmist ranks.
Secret weapon
Pointman
"All pupils to be given lessons in climate change"
"All indie 'journos' to be given harsh lesson in economics".
I would love to feel some kind of sympathy for them but they really ... Should have lived up to the name of the 'paper'?
Picking a side means that you have to fight. The fence makes you an easy target for both sides. Being Switzerland means that you are at the mercy of the 'victor' come the end of the war...
'Nowhere to run to baby ... Nowhere to hide" comes to mind.
Just a (very) casual perusing of those few preposterously lurid front pages leaves an acrid, rank bad taste in the mouth - the Indy....Britain's print version of the National Enquirer - like a hole in the head.... whose going to miss it?
I wonder when, Hickman's Socialist peddling malignancy and **** bandits - are for the chop, soon, very soon: I do hope.
Not sure why people buy newspapers anymore.
"Not sure why people buy newspapers anymore."
I can think of one reason. Ideally, they can be tangible records that are not quite as easy to delete as the electronic ones.
Andrew
They will all go online eventually. Print has had its day. Main buyers are 60+
Bad Andrew.
They are great for lighting fires too.
"They are great for lighting fires too."
Steven
AND they make great tablecloths when you carve your Jack-O'-Lantern.
Andrew
Most of the print run went to Hotels and the like as freebies anyway. Does that mean we're getting the Grauniad instead?
'The Independent' was very dependent on this little sweetie: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lebedev
johnbuk Most of the print run went to Hotels and the like as freebies anyway. Does that mean we're getting the Grauniad instead?
No, they're next. Another "Shot by both sides" publication that chooses internet anonymity over death (in the short term).
If the Grunyard can't sell itself without, BBC/Uni common rooms/local council, mandatory government support then guess how much I will mourn its passing.
Remind me when the collective funeral is to take place so I can swill a Guinness or two in their memory.
Squawk indeed. Parrots are going to have to find a new floor covering for their cages.
Oh noes. What will the Yazz Monster do now?
Bruce of Newcastle Squawk indeed. Parrots are going to have to find a new floor covering for their cages.
It's not dead (no MP Parrot sketch here) it's just 'resting' amongst the rest of 'The Net'. I'll be real interested to watch its 'net' presence decline rapidly too. The rise and fall of 'click bait' journalism.
I would encourage people to look at the links they are about to 'click' before they do. Every Grun page view is used, by the Grun management, to justify their 'popularity' on the net. The fact that you might go there to 'take the p**s doesn't get registered. Grun gets cash for your visit.
I’ve noticed that over the past couple of years the comments under Independent climate change articles have changed from being Guardian-like in support of the cause to almost majority sceptical. I used to waste time commenting there. Now many climate change articles there seem to attract hardly any comments at all, e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-will-unleash-increasingly-devastating-floods-in-coming-years-scientists-warn-a6847471.html
luckily there is still Al Quardian for islamists and bolsheviks to go to and peddle their lies.
Doug Brodie Now many climate change articles there seem to attract hardly any comments at all, e.g. http://www.indep[...]
Stop promoting them here and elsewhere and they will soon get NO attention at at all. Then they go out of business and we can all rejoice.
"Check before you click'" should be another HMG 'net' campaign aimed at adults. Every time you 'look' at a Grun/Indie link you give them some revenue. They quickly become click bait traps. Their sole objective is to write something you hate in order for you to (click) head over there to 'comment' upon their latest nonsense.
Idiots ... Stop the rot ... don't go to places that you don't wish to support! Every page view and comment is formulated into cash for any click baiter.
Meanwhile, The Mail is running with sunspot activity says cooling on way. WUWT data pages get a link.
Clearly a capitalist lacky running dog mouthpiece.
For me, the truly greatest Independent front page was this one, after the Iraq War Hutton Enquiry:
"Whitewash - The Hutton Report". I put it in my front window for a couple of weeks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry#/media/File:Whitewash_Independent.jpg
Shame about their climate change crap.
Salopian 3:27pm
Ten green blobbies, hanging on the wall,
etc etc
and if one green blobby, should accidently fall.......
Spot on, 3x2. Traffic, and where it comes from, does matter.
Which is partly why aTTP (Ken Rice) comes trolling at BH, and why he set up a blog that sounded much like WUWT, but wasn't. Trolling for traffic.
People like Raff and Entropic Man sometimes also like to do the same when citing, and I prefer to decline the opportunity and generally invite to actually post the arguments here, if they wish to discuss them here instead of generating traffic and 'neurological links' to somewhere else. (That way, you also often find out how little they may know or read about the topic.)
And if I refer here to "the blog that cannot be named", many people will know exactly what/who is being talked about. They get a lot of their important traffic these days via skeptics, but I won't help them if I can help it. I went there some years ago until I quickly found how even replies in a polite discussion would be quickly 'edited' down to zero if they didn't like the cut of your jib.
A blog like Real Climate, however, I will mention by name even though it has people like Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann on the bridge, if not at the helm 24/7. I think it did try to be honest, once, and probably has some people who still think it is.
Then, finally, we have poor old VWWVussell, who likes to cite himself at his own blog, but hasn't yet learned how to give a working click-link. I'm no savant in this area, and actually learned some of the rudimentary basics very late too, but then I'm not trying to self-promote a blog in the 'enemy's camp'.
How predictable it is that the BBC mourn the passing of this failed rag with the reverential sorrow of pained grief. May the Guardian be sucked down the same black hole, relativity speaking.
michael hart, it is the funding of some of these climatrollogists, that merits further investigation, particularly if it is taxpayer funded via their University.
"Outreach work" is currently the preferred euphemism.
Arctic temperature 22C. Imagine worrying your head about this.
With regards to linking you can use archive.is and then link from the archive. It's a good way to see the info without the page running active content.
Or getting link juice.