Media Watch ‘just skimmed my report’: researcher
The Australian
Sonia Kohlbacher
16 February 2015
A SCIENTIFIC researcher whose groundbreaking study into the impact of wind turbines on nearby residents has criticised the ABC’s Media Watch program, saying its journalist hounded his company about alleged media misrepresentations without reading or understanding his report.
The study by acoustics expert Steven Cooper measured the sensations felt by a group of residents who had complained of health concerns, and matched their diary records with the wind farm operations. The study found a correlation between severe sensations experienced by the small group of residents studied and the power output of the turbines at Cape Bridgewater in Victoria.
The Cooper report has been hailed internationally as representing a breakthrough in the study of wind turbines and possible impacts.
The Australian’s environment editor Graham Lloyd has extensively reported on the findings of the study after they were released last month and has been the subject of inquiries by Media Watch journalist Flint Duxfield.
Media Watch has asked The Australian to justify the prominent coverage it gave to the study.
Mr Cooper was critical of Duxfield when contacted by The Australian yesterday, and said the journalist had failed to properly read his report before making inquiries into its fair and accurate representation in the media.
Mr Cooper said he was appalled by the ABC’s attempts to contact his office, which he said was “hounded” by hourly calls over a four-day period.
“In the end I spoke to them to answer questions and I wasn’t overly impressed,” he said.
“They were after Channel Seven and Graham Lloyd, and in the end his inquiries were about people not reading and reporting incorrect information.
“It got to a point where he was asking questions and I said, ‘You haven’t read the report’, to which he replied, ‘Oh, I’ve skimmed the report’, and I said, ‘Well that’s a problem, you’re here about talking about people misrepresenting but you haven’t read the report’.
“He just tried to talk about people misrepresenting. I did tell him that what Graham Lloyd had presented was correct.”
Media Watch host Paul Barry, responding on behalf of Duxfield, said he was not party to the conversation, “but I can tell you that he is always unfailingly courteous and never hounds anyone — and yes, Flint has read the report”.
Barry claimed that “some eminent Australian scientists” had concerns about The Australian’s coverage of the Cooper report.
Lloyd said the issue was about making sure minority rights were properly respected. “This is not about ideology,” he said. “The absence of high-quality research, as evidenced by the National Health and Medical Research Council’s latest statement, is astonishing.”
The Australian
In Australia, the ABC’s “Media Watch” represents the front line for the Green-blob’s Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” (see our post here); which, on a weekly basis, attacks any journalist with the temerity to question hard green-left shibboleths; such as imminent global incineration; or its other favourite, the wind industry (see our posts here and here).
STT has already covered the rampant institutional bias of Australia’s so-called “National broadcaster” (see our posts here and here).
The latter story involved cutie-pie political commentator, Annabel Crabb, referring to Pac Hydro’s (now well and truly vindicated) victims at Cape Bridgewater as “dick brains”, during a 45 minute diatribe on the ABC’s radio science show.
The audio and transcript of Annabel’s “dick brain” outburst can be found on the ABC’s website here. However, to avoid the need to listen to (or trawl through reams of transcript of) almost an hour of tedious and nauseating ‘green’ group-think, we’ve extracted the relevant parts of the transcript, which is available here.
Most of that broadcast was devoted to the “wonders” of wind power; and denigrating anybody with the hide to raise the issue of the harm caused to wind farm neighbours, or with the sense to question the merits of backing a technology which was abandoned in the 19th century, for obvious reasons (see our post here).
Crabb went on to say that she was in the market for a home right next to a wind farm. Well Annabel, there are several up for grabs at Cape Bridgewater (which their owners have had to abandon), so why not put in a bid?
Given Crabb’s long-winded, nausea inducing rant (on what is supposed to be a serious scientific radio programme); and the continual stream of wind industry goons, parasites and spruikers trotted out on the ABC’s green-left love-in, The Drum, it seems more than just a little rich for Media Watch to challenge The Australian about “the prominent coverage it gave to” Steven Cooper’s groundbreaking study.
But the ABC’s Ministry of Truth, is not so much concerned about “the prominent coverage” given to Steven Cooper’s study, Graham Lloyd’s ‘crime’ against the Party was to have published anything about the study at all.
So too, Channel Seven, when it went to air with its piece on Cooper’s study on its current affairs show, Today Tonight: – available here.
The Media Watch attack dogs were released in response to a direction from Pac Hydro – which is (as a consequence of Cooper’s work) now squarely in the gun, facing $millions in damages claims from its victims at Cape Bridgewater.
Now, with that in mind, it’s no surprise to see Pac Hydro’s goons attacking Steven Cooper directly through the media, as well as attacking two of the most respected and qualified acoustic experts from the US, Dr PaulSchomer and George Hessler. For a taste of their highly relevant qualifications and experience why not check out their thumping CVs here:Schomer and Hessler; and both of them were involved in another proper piece of investigation into the adverse impacts of turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound on neighbours at Shirley, Wisconsin back in 2012 (see this article and our post here).
Dr Schomer and Mr Hessler in their peer review of Cooper’s study, not only endorsed it, but found that the data itself proves a causal relationship between the operation of the wind turbines and the adverse health effects recorded by all of those people who took part in the study (see our post here).
When Graham Lloyd fronted Pac Hydro about the peer review produced by Dr Schomer and Mr Hessler, its spin doctors simply went to ground and refused to comment; a move entirely consistent with stock standard wind industry strategy: lie, cover up the facts and, when all else fails, run and hide (see our post here).
And, further, it’s no surprise at all to see Pac Hydro directing traffic at the ABC and Media Watch, in particular.
While always pitching from the “holier than thou” journalistic moral high ground, Media Watch ain’t afraid to pull its punches, when it’s out to ensure that the wind industry’s narrative is never threatened.
And so it was, getting its “researcher”, Flint Duxfield to repeatedly hound Steven Cooper about media misrepresentation of the study, in circumstances where he clearly hadn’t even bothered to read it. Hmmm. Oh, the irony.
Where Media Watch’s Paul Barry – clearly in damage control – asserts that “Flint [Duxfield] has read the report”, he simply raises two questions: when did he read it? And, if he read it, was he capable of understanding it?
STT’s betting that Duxfield’s efforts went no further than a cursory perusal (the whole thing runs to over 800 pages – the report is available in our post here), but even if we fail to collect on that wager, there is absolutely no chance that he understood it.
No, instead, as with all of the media parrots used by the wind industry, it’s an odds-on bet that Duxfield was simply relying upon the press releases issued by Pac Hydro, in which it’s sought to downplay the significance of the work (which it paid for, and set the limitations on, by the way) and is using in its efforts at serious corporate “damage control”.
STT notes Barry’s claim that “some eminent Australian scientists” had “concerns” with the coverage. No doubt the shills in the employ of the wind industry are deeply troubled by the facts that have emerged at Cape Bridgewater. They’ll have to work overtime from here on to bury them, lie, and otherwise distort and misrepresent them.
And who were these “eminent Australian scientists”?
Why, none other than a former tobacco advertising guru; a “scientist” who has no acoustic training or qualifications; who is not a legally qualified medical practitioner; who was used to front up struggling Danish fan maker, Vesta’s laughable Act on Facts campaign (see our post here); and who has received scathing criticism in Australia’s Federal Parliament on more than one occasion (see our posts here and here). And it must only add to his sense of moral superiority to find himself as the front man for an outfit run by crooks and fraudsters (see our post here).
No, this is all about media manipulation, using the same band of pseudo-scientists, spin doctors and the tactics of ridicule, denigration and personal attack to advance an ideological position in keeping with the Party line.
Not one of the people who they trot out as “eminent scientists” or “experts” have ever bothered to go out in the field; gather any real data; or even speak, in person (ie in the same room at the same time) to the people suffering the known and obvious adverse health effects caused by incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound.
That, of course, would cause them to confront the “problems” face-to-face and eye-to-eye. Much easier to sit in the coward’s castles of sandstone universities and ABC studios, where they will never have to face the wind industry’s victims; or the facts.
And, even where these so-called “researchers” pretend to investigate the issue, they hold no relevant qualifications; such as the wind industry’s latest mouthpiece, Jacqui Hoepner (who’s been flat out running the “nocebo” nonsense on the ABC and elsewhere this week). Jacqui is, surprise, surprise, equipped with nothing more than a degree in journalism and politics (check out her bio here). Hmmmm, how very “Ministry of Truth” …
STT hears, however, that the Ministry of Truth’s attack on Graham Lloyd, The Australian and Channel 7 is about to backfire in spectacular fashion. What’s that saying about keeping your mouth shut when you’re in it up to your neck?
Expect to hear a whole lot more about Steven Cooper’s study, and Pac Hydro’s victims at Cape Bridgewater, over the coming weeks and months.
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