SALLY BOWREY: Our top story today is the bushfire emergency unfolding across the state. More than 90 fires are burning right now, a staggering 14 at emergency watch level. Something that has not been seen before … CHRIS REASON: … as you say, this is unprecedented stuff — 96 active fire zones around the state at the moment. And I'm being told by RFS that they’re jumping up the number of emergency level fires to 16 now and, as you say, that is unprecedented. - Seven Afternoon News, 8 November, 2019

Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.

And since that report on the New South Wales bushfires two weeks ago, Australia’s fire emergency has spread to five states and destroyed more than 630 homes.

And in the meantime our political leaders have been doing their best to avoid addressing the role of climate change in making those bushfires more severe:

SCOTT MORRISON: My only thoughts today are with those who’ve lost their lives … - ABC News, 9 November, 2019

GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN: … I certainly don’t think it’s appropriate to get into political argument … - ABC News Breakfast, 11 November, 2019

JOHN BARILARO: … I tell you this, I’m not gonna cop it, and if that’s the rest of this interview, well you’ve lost me for the morning. - Sky News, 11 November, 2019

But 11 days ago, after four people died in those New South Wales fires, former fire chiefs of Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania tackled the issue head on:

LEE JOHNSON: So there’s something going on and certainly climate change is exacerbating the very, very dry conditions that we’re all experiencing. NEIL BIBBY: Bushfires are a symptom of climate change. MIKE BROWN: I’ve had 39 years of Tasmanian Fire Service and I didn’t see too many dry lightning strikes earlier on in my career but now, and due to climate change, we’re seeing this as a regular event. - NewsDay, Sky News, 14 November, 2019

But leading the charge was a former New South Wales fire boss, Greg Mullins, who said in multiple interviews that a warmer climate was making it harder to fight our bushfires and reducing our ability to prepare for them:

GREG MULLINS: … look, it’s very clear, any fire service will tell you, that the windows for hazard reduction through the winter are getting narrower and narrower. Now, a slight lift in temperature overall, average temperature, means the extremes are more extreme. The scientists are very clear, the numbers are very clear, more days of very high fire danger and above. - The Project, Channel Ten, 11 November, 2019

But some powerful media commentators are convinced that they know better. Like shock jock Alan Jones in this full-page column in News Corp’s Daily Telegraph:

The ABC were at it again last week, fawning over 23 former fire and emergency leaders who commented, outside their area of expertise, about an alleged relationship between bushfires and climate change. - The Daily Telegraph, 19 November, 2019

And that was just the start of it, because Jones was also assuring readers:

It is worth asking how the non-expert views of such people are even newsworthy. - The Daily Telegraph, 19 November, 2019

Yep, according to Jones, 23 former fire and emergency chiefs are not worth listening to when comes to bushfires. Unlike him, who’s paid millions of dollars to tell us, on repeat, that man-made global warming is a hoax.

But Jones is not the only one to rubbish or ignore the fire chiefs’ warning.

2GB’s news bulletins that day barely gave them a mention, even as the stations’s talk-show hosts, like Ray Hadley, had a crack at fireman Mullins with barbs like this:

RAY HADLEY: He’s not an economist and that’s quite evident by his rantings just at the moment, Greg Mullins. - The Ray Hadley Morning Show, 2GB, 14 November, 2019

And 2GB’s Steve Price was even more scathing:

STEVE PRICE: … Greg Mullins reckons he had a crystal ball, that he wanted to warn the government about what was coming ... But if you listen carefully to his words you find his real game here — climate change ... He’s now a fully-fledged member of the climate change hysteria brigade ... - The Steve Price Show, 2GB, 14 November, 2019

Price’s guest, Peter Gleeson, who’s employed as a commentator by Sky and The Courier-Mail to tell us what’s what, also got into Mullins — a firefighter with 39 years experience — to declare:

PETER GLEESON: … he’s joined a cult. He’s been brainwashed ... - The Steve Price Show, 2GB, 14 November, 2019

And predictably, several other News Corp columnists and TV hosts were singing from the same song sheet, either attacking Mullins and his fellow chiefs or denying that climate change is making the bushfires worse.

Or claiming that increased Australian action to fight global warming is pointless:

PETA CREDLIN: … climate change isn’t the cause of these bushfires. But there’s no doubt, and I’m not alone here, that two decades plus of climate change activism is making them worse. - Credlin, Sky News, 12 November, 2019

CHRIS KENNY: … the bushfire and climate change debate. It’s dumb, it’s reckless, it’s offensive, we know that, but the Greens and others, so many cheerleaders in the media, are still doubling down on this stuff. - Kenny on Sunday, Sky News, 17 November, 2019

ANDREW BOLT: There are, for instance, the retired fire chiefs today who actually claimed, actually claimed, forget blaming the fierceness of the fires on the fact that not enough burning off was done to keep fuel levels in the bush under control, no no no no. The real problem, it seems, was that the Morrison government hadn’t magically turned down the world’s temperature by cutting Australia’s tiny emissions. - The Bolt Report, Sky News, 14 November, 2019

And in the Herald Sun, veteran business columnist Terry McCrann went even further, by accusing the non-News Corp media of, quote, “dishonesty, distortion and hysteria”:

It has been unremitting, unrelenting, wall-to-wall coverage ... The fact none of these bushfires were in any way extraordinary compared to not just the last 50 years but indeed the last 150 years was an ‘inconvenient truth’ ... - The Herald Sun, 18 November, 2019

So, what is the truth? And is it actually inconvenient for all those know-it-alls?

Well, it’s certainly true that fires have devastated Australia since time began. But the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, fire chiefs and climate scientists all tell us the fires are getting worse.

The season’s growing longer, the fires are more extreme and what’s really unprecedented is so many are burning at the same time:

SHANE FITZSIMMONS: Never before have we had 17 concurrent emergency warning fires burning at once, all competing desperately for resources, desperately for support, desperately for assistance. The reality is we simply couldn’t get to every individual. - ABC News Channel, 10 November, 2019

Last Thursday, the ABC was running emergency broadcasts for fires in South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland, and we’re told that’s a record.

But what’s unfolding now is what we’ve all been warned of for years.

In 2007, the ABC reported on research from the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, which predicted:

TANYA NOLAN: Within the next 12 years, the number of extreme days of fire danger — that's the highest risk rating — could grow by more than 60 per cent. - The World Today, ABC Radio, 26 September, 2007

And three years before that, in 2004, the National Inquiry on Bushfire Management had warned state and federal governments that fires would become larger and more intense as rainfall patterns changed:

The projected hotter, drier, windier conditions associated with climate change caused by greenhouse warming would extend the period of fuel drying and increase rates of fire spread. - National Inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management, COAG Report, 31 March, 2004

And the latest advice from the CSIRO, updated this month, confirms that’s already happening and will get worse:

Over recent decades, we've seen an increase in the frequency and severity of fire weather in Australia. We predict that many regions will see a significant increase in the probability of the highest levels of fire danger in the years ahead. - Bushfire Research, CSIRO, 6 November, 2019

And, to cap it all, according to Professor Ross Bradstock from Wollongong University’s Bushfire Research Centre, it’s all coming faster than expected:

These unprecedented fires are an indication that a much-feared future under climate change may have arrived earlier than predicted. - The Conversation, 11 November, 2019

So, will this make any difference to the doubters and denialists? Almost certainly not.

If they can call the media’s acceptance of expert opinion “dishonest, reckless and offensive”, it’s likely no amount of science or fires or drought will ever make them change their tune.

So, what does the man who employs so many of these crusaders against the science have to say?

Last week, at News Corp’s AGM in New York, a proxy for Australian shareholder activist Stephen Mayne asked Rupert Murdoch this question:

JESSICA CRAIG: If you do believe in climate change, Mr Mayne is interested to hear why News Corp gives climate deniers like Andrew Bolt and Terry McCrann so much airtime in Australia. - News Corp AGM, 20 November, 2019

And after detailing a 25 per cent reduction in the company’s carbon footprint, Rupert replied:

RUPERT MURDOCH: There are no climate change deniers around, I can assure you. - News Corp AGM, 20 November, 2019

Rupert Murdoch is renowned for knowing what his papers and commentators are saying all across the world.

Seems he’s also adept at claiming black is white. Because denial is what News Corp’s campaign against the facts and the experts on climate change amounts to.

And two days after Rupert spoke came another example, from Ian Plimer in The Australian, urging us not to “pollute minds with carbon fears”, telling us:

There are no carbon emissions. If there were, we could not see because most carbon is black. - The Australian, 22 November, 2019

Hard to believe, isn’t it?

