ROWAN DEAN: Unprecedented bushfires? Unprecedented drought? No, this Australian summer has been the summer of unprecedented stupidity. Never before have we had to suffer such idiocy in public debate and political commentary, nationally and internationally, in relation to two of the most common and predictable occurrences in Australia’s climate cycle, drought and bushfires. - Outsiders, Sky News, 26 January, 2020

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

And welcome to Groundhog Day, where the loudest voices at News Corp are adamant that the summer’s terrifying bushfires have nothing to do with climate change.

Or, if they have, there’s nothing we can do about it.

And, as always, welcome back to News Corp’s team of hand-picked, highly-paid columnists and TV hosts on Sky, who are leading the chorus:

PETA CREDLIN: So, let me deal with the issue head on. Does climate change cause these fires? No. - Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020

CHRIS KENNY: … So that’s the key. The drought. And if drought can’t be blamed on climate change you can’t blame the fires on climate change, especially when so many are deliberately lit ... - The Kenny Report, Sky News, 11 December, 2019

ALAN JONES: What’s burning in Victoria are eucalypts. What’s burning in South Australia are eucalypts ... When are we going to wake up and stop using this as an excuse to justify the climate change hoax? - Richo & Jones, Sky News, 29 January, 2019

Passionate denial that the bushfires should make us act on climate change runs right across the Murdoch media in this country reaching an audience of millions.

But it’s also echoed by Murdoch’s Fox News in the US, as two former Prime Ministers noted last month:

MALCOLM TURNBULL: If you go to any of the right-wing think tanks or you read the Murdoch press, it's just full of climate denialism and it’s, it is designed to deflect from the real objective which has to be to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions … - BBC News, 22 January, 2020

KEVIN RUDD: … the politics of fear around, let’s call it the cost of climate change action, has been well mobilised by the conservatives and Murdoch in Australia just as it’s been well mobilised in the United States by the conservatives through the echo chamber of Fox News. - Fareed Zakaria GPS, CNN, 17 January, 2020

So why are Murdoch’s men and women so passionate in their protests? And what would it take to change their tune? Or, as Malcolm Turnbull asked the BBC:

MALCOLM TURNBULL: You know, how many more lives and homes have to be lost before the climate change deniers acknowledge they are wrong? - BBC News, 22 January, 2020

It is a fair question. And it’s one that’s hard to answer.

But News Corp’s deniers claim, remarkably, that science is on their side:

PETA CREDLIN: In this debate, like few others, fact is often replaced with misinformation, analysis with hysteria, evidence-based assessments with mere anecdote, or lectures from teenagers. And balance and sober discussions: they’re long dead. - Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020

It’s hard to disagree. But most bushfire experts would level that charge of ignoring the facts at Peta Credlin and her fellow climate sceptics, as this group of former fire chiefs made clear in November:

LEE JOHNSON: ... 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

The Bureau of Meteorology has also warned that climate change is making our fires worse, and made its verdict clear last month:

Hottest, driest year on record led to extreme bushfire season - Bureau of Meteorology, press release, Annual Climate Statement 2019, 9 January, 2020

And three weeks ago, the Australian Academy of Science piped up with a similar conclusion:

The scientific evidence base shows that as the world warms due to human induced climate change, we experience an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. - The Australian Academy of Science, 10 January, 2020

Countless climate scientists say the same.

Whether they’re at NASA or the Royal Society.

Or at Britain’s Met Office and the CSIRO, which have just reviewed 57 scientific studies on climate change and reached the same conclusion.

But no amount of expert opinion is enough to convince the know-it-alls on Sky and 2GB and in the News Corp papers who argue tirelessly that climate change isn’t happening, or isn’t to blame, and/or this summer’s fires are nothing new:

ALAN JONES: From Black Saturday in 2009 to Ash Wednesday in 1983, Black Tuesday in 1967, Black Friday in 1939, Black Thursday in 1851. Millions of hectares were burnt … … let me assure you, this is a long way from our worst-ever fire season. - Jones & Credlin, Sky News, 28 January, 2020

PETA CREDLIN: … tragic, yes. Unprecedented, sadly no. - Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020

The argument that we’ve seen it all before was laid out in The Australian on New Year’s Eve, just before the fires went nuclear on the New South Wales South Coast.

And it is that grass fires across remote Australia in 74 -75 burnt a far larger area, while 2009’s Black Saturday fires in Victoria killed far more people.

But did either really match the impact of what we’ve seen this year?

Mass evacuations, homes and businesses destroyed, 1 billion animals dead, an area 1.5 times the size of Tasmania burnt to ashes, our big cities choking with smoke and fires still raging.

It’s no wonder the Australian Academy of Science concludes -- for reasons you can read on our website:

The scale of these bushfires is unprecedented anywhere in the world. - Australian Academy of Science, 10 January, 2020

Meanwhile, fire ecologist David Bowman told Media Watch that the scale, reach, duration and impact of this season’s inferno makes it like no other:

… there has never been a fire event that has affected the forested rim of Australia stretching down from southeast Queensland to NSW to Victoria, some parts of South Australia and parts of Western Australia and Tasmania ... - Phone interview, Professor David Bowman, University of Tasmania, 30 January, 2020

Once again most bushfire experts agree.

Yet once again, the News Corp choir insists it knows better:

CHRIS KENNY: … climate change exaggeration, alarmism and hysteria ... - The Kenny Report, Sky News, 22 January, 2020

PETA CREDLIN: … hysteria or worse ... - Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020

ALAN JONES: … hysteria … - Jones & Credlin, Sky News, 28 January, 2020

ROWAN DEAN: … the loonies in the climate cult ... - Outsiders, Sky News, 26 January, 2020

ANDREW BOLT: Lunatic stuff. - The Bolt Report, Sky News, 27 January, 2020

News Corp’s ridicule of climate science is not unprecedented.

And Media Watch has ripped into its columnists and reporters many times.

But it’s been so bad this summer that insiders have condemned it too, like Rupert Murdoch’s son James and his wife Kathryn, who issued this public statement three weeks ago:

“Kathryn and James’ views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known,” … “They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary.” - Daily Beast, 14 January, 2020

Note the word ‘denial’ coming from a Murdoch and director of News Corp. An extraordinary public rebuke.

So what was News Corp’s reaction?

Total silence. Until today, as far as we can see, the group’s Australian papers had not even mentioned it.

But Rupert’s son wasn’t the only one. A few days earlier, outgoing finance manager at The Australian, Emily Townsend, sent this damning email, in which she told News Corp chairman Michael Miller:

“I find it unconscionable to continue working for this company, knowing I am contributing to the spread of climate change denial and lies. The reporting I have witnessed in the Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun is not only irresponsible, but dangerous and damaging to our communities …” - The Guardian, 10 January, 2020

Townsend received huge support from colleagues for taking that stand. We’ve seen several of the messages.

But Michael Miller responded in a statement that News does not ‘deny climate change’ or its threat, and is proud of its journalists and columnists:

“Our coverage has recognised that Australia is having a serious conversation about climate change and how to respond to it. However, it has also reflected there are a variety of views and opinions about the current fire crisis.” - The Guardian, 10 January, 2020

But the main variety News has offered has been in new angles on denial. Such as this news story in The Australian -- featuring favourite sceptic Jennifer Marohasy -- claiming the weatherman is lying to us:

Bureau of Meteorology ‘cooling the past to declare record heat’ - The Australian, 20 December, 2019

Yes, seriously. The Australian is happy to suggest that the BOM is part of a huge conspiracy.

But if that was peak stupid, News Corp’s front-line columnists have offered more of the same. And with this line-up, who could be surprised?

Sky’s big stars, featured in this ad in the Telegraph, Peta Credlin, Andrew Bolt, Paul Murray, Chris Kenny, and Alan Jones spread a similar message on man-made global warming and they don’t mince their words:

ANDREW BOLT: The bottom line, global warming may actually not be all bad, at all. - The Bolt Report, Sky News, 27 January, 2020

ALAN JONES: … apparently now there’s a pile-on on Scott Morrison, it’s all his fault, and it’s climate change. I mean these people deserve to be buried. It’s just appalling. - Richo & Jones, Sky News, 29 January, 2020

All these Sky hosts also write columns for the News Corp papers where like-minded souls like Miranda Devine and Piers Akerman sing a similar tune.

Their key theme this summer has been to blame the fires on the Greens and lack of hazard reduction to reduce the fuel load.

And on Sky and 2GB Alan Jones has pushed that line too:

ALAN JONES: There’s one reason above all others for the fire catastrophe. You can’t start a fire without fuel. - Jones & Credlin, Sky News, 28 January, 2020

Greater hazard reduction must certainly be looked at but New South Wales Rural Fire Chief Shane Fitzsimmons insists it’s no panacea and has said publicly that this year’s fires have been so fierce it would have hardly held them back:

SHANE FITZSIMMONS: … hazard reduction has a place and is a valuable tool for day-to-day fires, for normal seasons, but when you’ve got a really tough season, when you’ve got awful fire-weather conditions, so when you’re running fires under severe, extreme or worse conditions, hazard reduction has very little effect at all.... - ABC News Breakfast, 8 January, 2020

Another key argument sparked by a story in The Australian has been that arson is to blame:

Firebugs fuelling crisis as arson arrest toll hits 183 - The Australian, 7 January, 2020

That claim in early January, with the inferno at its height, was picked up by the Murdochs’ London Sun, tweeted in America by Donald Trump Jr, rehashed by the Murdochs’ Fox News star Sean Hannity on his website and promoted on Fox as the real cause of the fires:

TOMI LAHREN: … So I hate to break it to the Greta Thunbergs of the world ... ...the fact of the matter is this: Australia has an arson problem you can’t pin on global warming, climate change, or whatever title you’re giving your environmental boogeyman these days. - Final Thought with Tomi Lahren, Fox Nation, 10 January, 2020

Arson is a part of the bushfire story, of course, but the key issue is not what started the fires but why they’ve burned so fiercely.

And The Australian’s figures were wrong, because not all of those 183 arrests were for arson. Many included offences like breaching a fire ban or tossing a cigarette.

And 43 of the arrests came before the bushfire season started.

But there was plenty more online.

Like this Facebook post from PragerU, a conservative American video producer, which used the original Australian article to claim that 200 arsonists had been arrested and that arson was responsible for 50 per cent of the fires.

Those claims were wrong and the video’s now been flagged as false by Facebook.

But not before it was seen by 2 million people.

So, who is PragerU? It was set up 11 years ago by a conservative talk-show host, with funding from two Texan, evangelical, fracking billionaires. It now spends millions of dollars a year to spread conservative information, or in this case misinformation.

But the arson beat up was not just on Facebook, it was also trending on Twitter where the hashtag #arsonemergency was being spread by an army of bots, as the BBC explains:

ROS ATKINS: One researcher analysed over 300 accounts using this hashtag. He found a third of them displayed highly-automated and inauthentic behaviour, meaning they could be bots or trolls and he concluded: ‘The conspiracy theories going around, (including arson as the main cause of the fires) reflect an increased distrust in expertise and scepticism in the media. - BBC Outside Source, 9 January, 2020

So who is commanding this bot army?

QUT’s Professor Tim Graham, told Media Watch there was no evidence of them being run by a single controller, but their aim was clear:

… the evidence indicates that (fringe) right-wing accounts around the globe have ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ to push and promote the narrative of #ArsonEmergency to counter the #ClimateEmergency narrative. - Email, Professor Tim Graham, Queensland University of Technology, 23 January, 2020

So was arson actually responsible for any of the big fires?

On 9 January, Victorian Police said no:

“… there is no intelligence to indicate that the fires in East Gippsland and north-east Victoria have been caused by arson or any other suspicious behaviour”... - The Age, 9 January, 2020

And according to the ABC, which crunched the numbers in mid-January:

Only about 1 per cent of the land burnt in NSW this bushfire season can be officially attributed to arson … - ABC News, 18 January, 2020

Adding:

NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Inspector Ben Shepherd said earlier this week lightning was predominantly responsible for the bushfire crisis. - ABC News, 18 January, 2020

Despite that, The Australian’s firebug beat up remains on its website with the headline virtually unchanged.

But as the political storm over the fires continues, News Corp is perhaps showing small signs of movement.

After James Murdoch’s criticism, the NT News declared on its front page:

Now is the time to discuss climate change. - NT News, 16 January, 2020

And a few days earlier, The Australian conceded in this editorial:

More intense fires are an observed reality consistent with the predictions of climate change science. - The Weekend Australian, 11 January, 2020

And even Andrew Bolt has flirted with that idea, telling viewers last week:

ANDREW BOLT: I can understand some people saying, ‘Oh look I think global warming did play a big role in these fires’. I don’t personally believe it, or I think the role is minor if anything, but I can believe it. - The Bolt Report, 29 January, 2020

Is that real change or just lip service? We’ll have to wait and see.

There’s no doubt that climate change activists across the world think the fires should be a tipping point.

And many Australians agree, with 72 per cent of respondents to an Australia Institute poll last month saying the fires should be a wake-up call to the world.

January’s IPSOS Monitor also shows a huge spike in concern over the environment, with it showing as the most important issue for the first time ever.

Add to that, last week, climate protests in Sydney by a couple of hundred so-called Quiet Australians.

And more than twice that number of people lying outside News Corp, with banners saying, News Corp lies all the time so it’s OK for us to lie here.

So, what’s News Corp’s answer to this chorus of criticism? It told us in a statement:

We publish hundreds of columnists across multiple mastheads and magazines, websites and television and other platforms. These represent a wide range of views, opinions and positions on a range of topics. You identify a handful of columnists to suit your own agenda. To suggest, as Media Watch is doing, that on major issues in Australia there cannot be many opinions aired across media platforms is contrary to the role of free and open media. - Email, News Corp Australia spokesperson, 3 February, 2020

We don’t suggest that for a moment.

Our point is that News Corp’s star columnists, whom the group heavily promotes, all sing from the same song sheet on climate change.

And that matters. Because it stops the debate from moving on.

The Science Media Centre told Media Watch that having influential voices which do not reflect the science:

… creates confusion, uncertainty and apathy among the public, even when the science is quite clear. - Email, The Australian Science Media Centre, 30 January, 2020

Rupert Murdoch assured shareholders last year there are no climate change deniers at News Corp.

But sadly, that is just not true.

And here in Australia its most strident voices show no sign of piping down.