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Editor’s Note: Readers had comments about Al Gore, his Nobel Peace Prize, his viability as a presidential candidate and his treatment by the U.S. and British news media. Here is a selection:

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

MEDIA ALERT: “RED HERRING” - Al Gore, The Climate Sceptics And The BBC

On October 10, the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News led with the story that a  High Court Judge had found nine “errors” in Al Gore’s climate film, ‘An  Inconvenient Truth’, which the UK government has been sending to  schools around the country. As a result, by way of “balance”, the  government will now be required to include “guidance notes” with the  film. (BBC news online, ‘Gore climate film's “nine errors”,’ October  11, 2007; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm)

The case had been brought by Stuart Dimmock, a lorry driver and school
governor who says he objects to the film’s “brainwashing” of schoolchildren. Although Dimmock’s lawyers branded the judgement a “landmark victory”, they failed in their attempt to ban the film from  secondary schools. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm)

Also on October 10, BBC Radio 4’s ‘The World Tonight’ featured an extended report on the story including an interview with Dimmock. The following exchange was of particular interest:

Stuart Dimmock (SD): It’s a political shockumentary, it’s not a scientific documentary.

BBC presenter Robin Lustig (RL): But you’re not a scientist yourself,  are you?

SD: No.

RL: Some people might wonder why you felt so strongly about this that  you were prepared to take it all the way to the High Court, whether you  have an agenda of some kind – do you?

SD: I have two young children. In my mind it’s wrong that we push  politics into the classroom.

RL: Could I ask you one other question, Mr Dimmock? It’s not cheap  taking a case to the High Court [The case cost £200,000].

SD: No, it’s not.

RL: Were you helped financially to do this?

SD: The government have been ordered to pay my costs. [Unclear] £60,000 
upfront payment.

RL: But you didn’t know that that was going to be the order until  today, did you?

SD: No, I didn’t.

RL: Who took the risk?

SD: [Long, five-second pause]. Mmmm, I’ve had pledges of support.

RL: May I ask you from whom?

SD: You can ask from whom but I’m sorry I can’t tell you because I  haven’t got the names of the people that have pledged their support.  It’s through a website. (BBC R4 ‘The World Tonight’, October 10, 2007,  our transcript; whole item can be heard here: 
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/9/11/214131/BBC%20Radio4%20-
%20An%20Inconvenient%20Truth.mp3)

Although Dimmock claimed not to know who had provided financial  support, the website of the New Party, of which he is a member, had  declared two weeks earlier, on September 27:

“The New Party is backing a legal challenge by one of its members  against a government decision to circulate Al Gore's film, An  Inconvenient Truth, to all 3,850 English secondary schools.” 
(http://www.newparty.co.uk/news/september2007/high-court-to-judge-al-
gore-film.html)

Perhaps the backing was moral rather than financial.

The BBC’s Robin Lustig did not press the issue further: Which website?
Who was funding it? Instead, he moved on to discuss the issue with BBC
environment reporter Roger Harrabin. In ‘balanced’ BBC fashion,  Harrabin declared of the Al Gore film: “it was not made to show to  children and I think, you know, fair cop”.

Also remarkable in ‘balanced’ news coverage, the BBC’s framing of the  judicial process and decision suggested that it was entirely reasonable  for a judge to sit in judgement on climate science. It was left to  Oxford climate scientist Myles Allen to point out to the BBC: "The  judge has set himself to adjudicate on the scientific consensus," the  implication being that this was questionable (Allen, The World Tonight,  op. cit.). In our view the adjudication was as absurd as the idea that  a judge should pronounce on whether a journalist's report was 
“unfounded”, as happened in the 2003-2004 Hutton Inquiry.

It was also left to Dr. Allen to point out that some of the judge's  nine assertions of ‘error’ were “just plain wrong". Unfortunately, as  far as we are aware, the BBC headline reports had no balancing quotes  from climate scientists disputing the judge’s claims. (Note: Judge  Burton‘s judgement actually has the word “error” in quote marks,  recognising that there might indeed be scientific justification for  these arguments - a subtle but vital point missed by the media)

Later, in an online piece, Roger Harrabin did take a somewhat more  sceptical view of the judge’s findings. On Arctic melting, which is  proceeding faster than the most recent IPCC report had expected,  Harrabin noted, “the judge is on slightly more contentious ground”.  (Harrabin, BBC news online, ‘The heat and light in global warming,’ 
October 11, 2007; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7040370.stm)

Of Dimmock, the lorry driver who brought the case to court, Harrabin  noted in a single tantalising, but ultimately mysterious, sentence:
“Mr Dimmock is a member of the ‘New Party’, apparently funded by a businessman with a strong dislike of environmentalists and drink-drive
laws.”

Fascinating, but what did this signify? The reader was left dangling at
the end of this one sentence, to wait in vain for further  clarification.

Hidden Links - “A Red Herring”?

There was worse to come from the BBC. The day after the High Court
decision, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the UN’s  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore. Suddenly to be
seen making multiple appearances in BBC studios was Martin Livermore,
director of a group called the Scientific Alliance.

Livermore was interviewed on BBC R4’s ‘The World At One’ by presenter
Shaun Ley, who asserted that the Scientific Alliance “campaigns to  improve the quality of debate about science”. (The World At One, BBC  R4, Friday, October 12, 2007). Livermore proceeded to lampoon efforts  to combat climate change as a “fashionable cause”, and expressed “concern” that the Nobel award “will tend to close down the debate even  further”. He added:

“There is a view from a lot of people that this is such a serious issue  that even though things are uncertain we shouldn't allow a debate, we  should push ahead with trying to do something about it, and that any  person who questions the perceived wisdom should actually be censored,  effectively. So I think this will push us further down that path, which  is not healthy.”

Contrary to the BBC’s naive description, the Scientific Alliance was  founded with the financial backing of wealthy businessman Robert  Durward, who owns Cloburn Quarry in Lanarkshire and is director of the  British Aggregates Association which defends the interests of the  quarrying industry. The Scientific Alliance also has deep links to a  network that has long been pursuing a “sceptical” agenda on  environmental issues. Livermore, for example, was the “scientific  consultant” behind Martin Durkin’s deeply flawed and much criticised  Channel 4 ‘documentary’, ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’. (George  Marshall, 'The Great Channel 4 Swindle,' March 9, 2007; 
http://climatedenial.org/2007/03/09/the-great-channel-four-swindle)

Durward is also a financial backer and member of the National Policy  Committee of the New Party, a group so right-wing that Scottish Tories  described them as “fascist”. On its website, the New Party states:

“The National Policy Committee (NPC) consists of ordinary people from all walks of life and is in overall charge of the creation and  development of our policies.”

Committee members include Alex Black, “a self employed Road Transport 
Contractor”; Mike Clarke, “for most of his career he applied his  knowledge of chemistry in oilfield systems, working, training and  advising on corrosion management and chemical treatments in the North  Sea and many overseas count [sic]”; Robert Durward, “involved in the  agricultural, haulage, plant and minerals industries“, and so on. Just “ordinary people from all walks of life”, in other words.  (http://www.newparty.co.uk/about/nationalcommittee.html)

Both the New Party and Scientific Alliance work closely with the PR  company Foresight Communications founded by Mark Adams OBE, who was a  private secretary for parliamentary affairs at No. 10 for nearly four  years. He also worked as private secretary to Tony Blair for six months  after the 1997 election. Adams set up the Scientific Alliance with  Durward in 2001.

The jigsaw pieces fall into place when we recall that Stuart Dimmock,  who brought the High Court Case, is also a member of the New Party.  Rather than being a solitary ‘David’ fighting the government ‘Goliath’,  it appears Dimmock fought the case with considerable business backing.

When challenged by Media Lens on his radio programme’s failure to  explore these connections, Marc Settle, the editor of BBC R4’s ‘The  World At One’, responded:

“I agree that the programme could have been clearer about the  connection between the New Party and the Scientific Alliance, and in  future I will ensure that editions I am involved with will make the  relationship clear.” (Settle, Email, October 14, 2007)

Andy Rowell, author of ‘Green Backlash’ and co-editor of SpinWatch.org,
put the BBC to shame by publishing a powerful blog exposing these links
the day after the court decision. (‘Revealed: The hidden agenda behind  Gore film attack,’ October 11, 2007; 
http://priceofoil.org/2007/10/11/revealed-the-hidden-agenda-behind-al-
gore-film-attack/)

We communicated some of Rowell’s findings to the BBC’s Roger Harrabin.
This was vital material, was it not? No, Harrabin replied, the network  of links was “a red herring”. After Rowell discussed the issues with  him in a telephone conversation, Harrabin told us he was pursuing the  links and that we should “watch this space” with regard to that day’s  Ten O’Clock News (Friday, October 12, 2007).

We watched that “space” - a climate-related item by Harrabin which  appeared on the “Ten” about Gore sharing the Nobel Prize with the IPCC.  Harrabin even had an interview with the near-ubiquitous Martin  Livermore of the Scientific Alliance. But of the links between that  group, the New Party, Martin Durkin, and wealthy businessman Robert  Durward, there was not a word.

A number of newspapers have since reported that financial support for 
Dimmock’s case was provided by Lord Monckton, who wrote the New Party‘s
manifesto. Last year, Monckton argued that the IPCC had grossly  exaggerated the danger of climate change in articles published by the  Sunday Telegraph. Monckton wrote:

“This week, I'll show how the UN undervalued the sun's effects on  historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse  effect, overstated the past century's temperature increase, repealed a  fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect.”  (Christopher Monckton, ‘Don’t believe it!’ Sunday Telegraph, November  5, 2006)

The articles - decidedly Durkin-esque in theme and content - were  subsequently demolished by climate scientists. Environmental campaigner  George Monbiot commented wryly of Monckton:

“He is trying to take on the global scientific establishment on the  strength of a classics degree from Cambridge.” (Jonathan Leake, ‘Please, sir - Gore’s got warming wrong,’ The Times, October 14, 2007)

Monckton is now behind moves to have copies of Durkin’s documentary, ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’, sent to 3,400 UK secondary schools “to counter Gore’s flagrant propaganda”. It is hoped that the package  will feature a new film called ‘Apocalypse No!’, a slideshow of Lord  Monckton challenging Gore’s arguments.

The irony of this initiative is clear when we consider that Monckton  backed Dimmock’s court case and that, as noted above, Dimmock insists: “In my mind it’s wrong that we push politics into the classroom.”

The website promoting Dimmock’s campaign declares its aims:

“1. To research and monitor examples of partisan political content  being introduced into schools.
2. To support those campaigning to keep education free from political bias.
3. To promote fair and honest teaching.” 
(http://www.straightteaching.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=27)

And it turns out, in a further twist, that Monckton’s schools  initiative is being funded by a right-wing American think-tank, the innocently named Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI). (Michael McCarthy, ‘Climate deniers to send film to British schools,’ The  Independent, October 15, 2007)

Rather like the Scientific Alliance, the good folk at SPPI “support the  advancement of sensible public policies for energy and the environment  rooted in rational science and economics”. 
(http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/our_mission.html)

As anyone who has studied the corporate green backlash will know, “sensible public policies” are actually policies that recklessly  subordinate people and planet to short-term profit for the people  promoting them (See Andy Rowell, Green Backlash, Routledge, 1996).

One entry title on the SPPI website reads: ‘Greenhouse Warming? What  Greenhouse Warming?’ (August 22, 2007; http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/
greenhouse_warming_what_greenhouse_warming_.html)

The author? “Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monkton of Brenchley”, 

listed as Chief Policy Adviser at SPPI.  (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/personnel.html)

In one of his Telegraph articles, Monckton wrote:

“The Royal Society says there's a worldwide scientific consensus. It  brands Apocalypse-deniers as paid lackeys of coal and oil corporations.  I declare my interest: I once took the taxpayer's shilling and advised  Margaret Thatcher, FRS, on scientific scams and scares. Alas, not a red  cent from Exxon.” (Monckton, op.cit.)

The same, alas, cannot be said of Craig Idso, the Science Adviser and  Chairman of the Board at SPPI where Monckton is Chief Policy Advisor.
Idso is listed on Greenpeace’s Exxonsecrets.org webpage documenting
“Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change sceptics.” 
(http://exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15)

We are deceived if we imagine climate scepticism is the product of a  few wealthy eccentrics with too much time and money on their hands.  Phil Lesley, author of a handbook on public relations and  communications, clarifies the bottom line goal for industry:

“People generally do not favour action on a non-alarming situation when
arguments seem to be balanced on both sides and there is a clear doubt.
The weight of impressions on the public must be balanced so people will  have doubts and lack motivation to take action. Accordingly, means are  needed to get balancing information into the stream from sources that  the public will find credible. There is no need for a clear-cut ‘victory’... Nurturing public doubts by demonstrating that this is not  a clear-cut situation in support of the opponents usually is all that  is necessary.” (Lesly, 'Coping with Opposition Groups,' Public  Relations Review 18, 1992, p.331)

With the world teetering on the brink of an environmental abyss - and,  perhaps, already sinking into that abyss - industry’s hall of crazy  mirrors with their “balancing information” is bigger and more active  than ever. It might seem insane, but the infinite, insatiable nature of  the corporate profit drive has always been just that.

This is the price we pay when society is dominated by unrestrained  greed, and by the blindness that greed brings.

USEFUL RESOURCES

For further details of the Scientific Alliance, go to: 
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Scientific_Alliance

Also see Andy Rowell, ‘The Alliance of Science’, Guardian, March 26, 
2003; http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,921537,00.html

Professor John Shepherd of the National Oceanography Centre,  Southampton, has written a critique of Judge Barton’s remarks: 
http://www.medialens.org/articles/Al_Gore_judgement_evaluation.pdf

See: 'Surviving Climate Change: The Struggle to Avert Global  Catastrophe', edited by David Cromwell and Mark Levene, which has just  been published by Pluto Books (London, 2007).

For further analysis and resources, please go here:
http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8988#8988

Submitted by reader Sarah Meyer

--

The main point you make is correct: mainstream journalists are just as guilty of engaging in a relentless campaign to demean Al Gore as are right-wing ideologues. Indeed, their behavior is worse than that of the ultra-right media, in that, we EXPECT the right-wing to trash Gore, but the MSM is supposed to be, well, mainstream. Alas, they aren't.

And that's the point I think you miss, or at least fail to address head-on. The media stance vis a vis Gore was firmly in place in 2000. It has been entirely consistent ever since. Later events have not had a significant impact on this, as you seem to imply. This bias remains firmly entrenched today, Nobel Prize be damned.

In 2000, it was obvious that the MSM favored Bush - - they wanted him to be President, not Gore. Why is this? It seems to reflect, in particular, the following factors: 1) the huge multinational corporations that own the MSM, and the ultra-wealthy layers that control these corporations, almost unanimously wanted Bush in the White House; 2) media figures, themselves have, over the last few decades, become highly compensated "celebrity" figures, increasingly distant in their insular interests and concerns from the mass of the populace.

They have also been the object of a relentless winnowing process, whereby those who are too incisive and probing in the "wrong" directions are shunted aside, while those who aren't - - and can thus be "trusted" - - are promoted and paid enormous sums. These layers, too, largely favored Bush. Those few who favored Gore bent over backwards to appear "trustworthy" - - often by demeaning Gore. Go back and re-read columns by the likes of Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and Hendrik Hertzberg (especially those from during the post-election controversy) and you'll see what I mean.

All of this was especially obvious after election day, as the winner of the election - - Gore - - was subjected to a non-stop barrage of criticism, invective and ridicule. Recall that there was virtually no support for Gore from any quarter of the MSM during this period and in the aftermath of the Supreme Court intervention - - not even "liberals" would dare stand up for democratic rights, let alone for Gore.

The blatantly false media coverage of the Florida recount was not due to 9-11 -- this was, at best, an excuse that could be muttered in an attempt at explanation (or, perhaps, justification). From the morning after the Supreme Court's soft coup d'etat, the media were NEVER going to deal honestly with what had occurred.

Were Gore to run for President again (as you have urged him to do), he would face this same wall of media disdain. The reason is the same as in 2000: the powers-that-be don't want Al Gore to be President.

Just as with elite media “journalists”, a relentless winnowing process now applies with respect to national candidates: those who have shown that they can be trusted are showered with cash and afforded "gravitas" by the media. Those who haven't are derided, denied money, and shunted aside.

This is not, precisely, about favoring Republicans over Democrats - - it may, in fact, be the case that this year the MSM will tacitly favor (or at least, forego active sliming of) Hillary Clinton or even Barack Obama. For, they have shown themselves to be trustworthy - - on Iraq, on future military adventures, on tax and regulatory policies, on all of the things that the people who rule this country want, but that go against the interests of the large majority.

Al Gore, during the last seven years, has only grown LESS trustworthy - - and for precisely the reasons you (and Krugman) cite with admiration -- his public opposition to the Iraq war BEFORE it began, his championing of environmental concerns (implicitly at the expense of endless economic growth and the corporate bottom line), his call for all elements in society to show responsibility.

In 2008, if this country is to avert catastrophe, we need a new FDR or JFK as our leader. The key characteristic these men exhibited was an essential fairness and sense of responsibility, of "commonwealth", that gave them the courage to take on entrenched and extremely powerful interests in an effort to benefit the populace (and the nation) as a whole.

For this, these men were uniquely beloved by the mass of the populace, and bitterly and almost unanimously hated by elites. Al Gore (especially the "new" Al Gore following the 2000 debacle) shows promise of being this sort of figure. It is for this reason above all others that the MSM will work relentlessly (and, alas, almost certainly successfully) to insure that Gore gets nowhere near the Presidency in 2008.

Andrew Nimelman

--

I am annoyed by the American lore that "losers" must never try again. However, I think that Mr. Gore is not the kind of president we need to clean up the tonnage of mess left behind by the current occupant of the White House.

Dieter Heymann

--

In light of everything you know about the Bush/Cheney cabal, do you really expect them to relinquish power peaceably? And do you think enough average Americans will much care if they don’t? Thanks for your excellent work.

Rick

--

Do you remember when Al Gore and Ross Perot appeared on the Larry King show and Mr. Gore stuck a picture of Mr Smoot and Mr Hawley in front of Mr. Perot?

Gore seemed to be trying to make the point that Mr. Perot was just a later day protectionist?  Smoot and Hawley, in 1931, raised tariffs on several thousand import products by a factor of as much as four. The record seems to show that their action did not help the country.

But, what Mr. Gore chose to ignore was that Mr. Perot was working against shipping our "jobs" to Mexico and elsewhere - a practice now call "Offshoring."  Offshoring is now seen to be a disaster for America. Perot was right and was not talking about protectionist tariffs.

So, if Mr. Gore is all that you say he is, why did he need to cheap-shot Ross Perot?  Did Gore not understand offshoring and its consequences?  Did Gore not understand that offshoring is not "free trade"?

When Gore apologizes to Perot for this cute political stunt, we will consider him as a potential candidate.

Dan Fritz

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