Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

Is the tide starting to turn for the traditional news media, as more and more people turn to the internet and 'new media' to expand their information sources?

Newspapers, radio, and television can still choose whether or not to report a particular news story, but now the public have the ability to access that information themselves, turning to a wide range of sources to get a mix of opinions.

Earlier tonight, TV One's Close Up current affairs show ran a primetime television debate on global warming, between climate alarmist Gareth Morgan and climate skeptic Ian Wishart.

While the debate was relatively brief considering the topic, it was a rare chance for viewers to hear arguments as to why they should question the theory of man-made climate change, and why the common line "the science is settled" is so untrue.

Viewers were encouraged to register their vote as to whose views on climate change they believed... 77% supported Ian Wishart's view that climate change is not man made, while just 23% of voters believed Gareth Morgan's view that the IPCC party line is correct.

The arguments by the warmists have had a generous airing across all media outlets in recent weeks, but an overwhelming majority of viewers voting in this poll are clearly unmoved. And that's despite the heavily alarmist and emotional stories carried by both major tv networks earlier in the evening on the start of the Copenhagen talks.

Ian Wishart believes the credibility of the climate science community has been damaged by the Climategate leaked emails scandal, which revealed evidence of data tampering and the rejection of any alternate viewpoints.

The massive growth in blogs, along with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, is now putting real pressure on the increasingly mis-named "mainstream media".

The Climategate scandal was broken online by bloggers, it was spread quickly across the world by bloggers (plus Twitterers and Facebookers), until it was finally picked by major print and broadcast media outlets around the world.

The media do their absolute darndest to ensure the Green movement get only positive publicity, and as much as possible. The time honoured theory of media balance (as in canvassing the opinions of both sides) does not to be as important, if that story has anything to do with green or liberal issues.

The initial (albeit begrudging) coverage of "Climate-gate" by the msm has since grown into genuine commentary and investigative research, as some of the world's top reporters look into the scale of coverups by the climate change brigade.

Ian Wishart himself sums up the situation well... "The poll illustrates that with nearly 90% of the population wired online now, mainstream media can no longer assume that just because they refuse to cover a story, nobody will hear about it."

* TBR.cc - Bombshell Poll on Climate Change – 77% don’t believe!