Once again, a so-called “fact checker” has been caught lying through its teeth. It should surprise absolutely no-one that it was Australia’s ABC.
These guys have woeful form, so much so that even their own colleagues have felt compelled to call them out. Now, they’ve peddled a whopper so egregious that their own watchdog, normally about as toothless as Joe Biden gumming a toddler’s scalp, has ripped them a new one.
The ABC ombudsman has delivered a scathing assessment of the RMIT ABC Fact Check unit in the wake of its botched report about businessman Dick Smith’s on-air comments on nuclear and renewable energy.
The ABC received 11 complaints about the fact check titled, “Can a country run entirely on renewable energy?”, published on March 22, that delved into Mr Smith’s public statements on energy including renewables and nuclear.
Before proceeding, let’s see what Smith actually said — in full:
“This claim by the CSIRO that you can run a whole country on solar and wind is simply a lie. No country has ever been able to run entirely on renewables. That’s impossible.”
Smith’s statement was entirely correct, but devastating to the green-left’s deluded conviction that 100% renewable energy is just around the corner. Naturally, the “fact checker” lied.
Their first response was a “fact checker’s” go-to gambit: lie by misdirection. In this case, the ABC asserted that several countries use mostly hydro power, with a small amount of wind or solar, to produce all their electricity. A single country uses roughly 90% solar power to produce electricity — the tiny island state of Tokelau.
But — did you catch the bait-and-switch?
The ABC is talking about electricity alone. Not total energy use. In fact, electricity is a small percentage of global energy use. Especially residential use. Three-quarters of global energy use is by industry and transport — and almost all of that is coal and oil. Of course, that is a global total, and some countries will use less for industry than others, but the fact remains that, while a very few countries, mostly either very small or with abundant hydro resources, mostly produce electricity by “renewables”, no country relies entirely on them for its total energy use.
But the ABC went even further than that in its bid to smear Smith.
The ABC fact check report, edited by Ellen McCutchan and approved by editorial lead Matt Martino, claimed Mr Smith supported calls to introduce nuclear energy in Australia but rejected “renewable-led electricity generation”.
This, too, is a lie.
[ABC ombudsman Fiona Cameron] found this was false.
“Mr Smith is a renowned and long-time supporter of renewable energy with many public statements confirming that fact,” she said in her report.
“While he has expressed support for nuclear power generation in the current debate around that issue, he is also on the record arguing about the need for a hybrid mix of energy sources.”
The ABC also failed to contact Smith and give him a right of reply.
Yet, the ABC’s “fact checker” tried to stand by its obvious lies — at least, until Dick Smith threatened to lawyer up.
Finally – in an embarrassing backdown – the unit made numerous amendments to its analysis in the fact-checking report and apologised to Mr Smith.
The Australian
This might all be just another entry in the sorry ledger of media lies and manipulations, were it not that, firstly, Australians are being stiffed north of a billion dollars for the ABC. More importantly, though, it highlights just what an Orwellian level of official deceit we’ve arrived at.
Reporters, governments and big tech companies deliberately use fact checking and anti-disinformation laws to enforce false narratives.
In Australia, the ABC is the worst example, but globally the trend follows the financial success that mainstream media organisations such as The New York Times have had in building audiences who want to read journalism that damages former US President Donald Trump […]
An ABC apology to entrepreneur Dick Smith this week proved its fact check unit is just as ready as US media to twist its reporting to hurt conservative political causes.
The Australian
When the media-political class wave their arms and shriek about “dangerous misinformation and disinformation”, what they neglect to say is that it’s them doing it.
And that’s ten times more damaging than some rando on Facebook who totally just reckons there’s lizard people running 5G chemtrails on the Moon.
