The Poynter Institute is a journalism college that owns the Tampa Bay Times and is involved in many aspects of news analysis and fact checking. Its influence on journalism may not be as significant as its educational role but it is a key part of the media approach to the "science" of climate change, This article is an example of its usual take on the subject. The safety of journalists that present the mainstream account of CAGW is compromised by crazies who threaten them. Evidently, these are not the same crazies that glue themselves to busy highways or splash ketchup on valuable art in protest of fossil fuel use. Somehow the public must be made aware of a global existential threat without producing an existential threat to a small group that's dedicated to disseminating truthful, valuable information.
The media is the second step in the climate disaster journey. First, of course, is academia. The research colleges, recipients of many millions in government and other funding, acquire that funding by supplying the media with horror stories of a world consumed by heat, rising sea levels and dead polar bears. The media uses this non-information to generate income and its consumers, who are the public and government employees that have the capability of creating executive branch agency subdivisions apparently at will. Government money, essentially as imaginary as the problem, is distributed to entreprenurial contractors to build the renewable energy infrastructure needed to put the climate back on an even keel while abandoning reliable fossil fuels, at a cost that will eventually be in the trillions.
Any thinking person, or even one with a minimal grasp of physics or economics, will realize upon reflection that the goal of those with climate anxiety, a stasis climate, can't be achieved by any means. It might be time for the media to tell this to their consumers.
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