Letter From Australia (About Nothing to See Here)

A Word or Two About Truth

TIM BLAIR
The Daily Telegraph
January 06, 2014 12:00AM

BY now, we're all familiar with the media ritual that follows your standard Islamic bombing, massacre, shooting or beheading. First there is the incident itself. Some mad-for-martyrdom devotee of Muhammad decides it's time to hit the jihadi switch and kill a few infidels, frequently howling Islamic oaths or otherwise informing everybody about his holy motivation. 
 
And then the media pretends not to notice anything Islamic, or otherwise downplays any evidence suggesting that a devoted son of Allah might have been involved. It can be quite a spectacle, if you're into ducking and dodging and general hot-footed evasion.


Forget the elephant in the room. When it comes to Islamic terrorism, some in the media could weave their way through a pantry packed with pachyderms.
  Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hasan, for example, actually began his 2009 shooting spree in Texas by screaming "Allahu Akbar". That wasn't solid enough evidence for the Guardian's Michael Tomasky, however, who offered this calm dismissal: "My understanding is that it's something Arab people often shout before doing something or other. It's used in many different situations."  The Australian Broadcasting Corporation ("ABC") managed to get through an entire eight-minute bulletin on the slaughter without mentioning any religious component.

After last year's Woolwich murder in the UK, killer Michael Adebolajo held the weapons he'd used to virtually decapitate soldier Lee Rigby while telling a witness's video phone: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. You people will never be safe."  The ABC's London reporter didn't hear him. "What happened was clear," the correspondent said. "The motivation, less so."  After I mentioned during a radio interview the ABC's reluctance to identify the killer's background, this email arrived from an ABC staffer: "Where is your primary and official source that these crimes were carried out in the name of Islam?"

Earlier in 2013, after I observed online that the then-unsolved Boston Marathon bombing employed the routine Islamic terror tactic of multiple blasts, the ABC's Jonathan Green accused me of "islamophobing as usual. We have only circumstantial evidence. None of us have a clue why this happened".  When it subsequently emerged that a pair of Islamic brothers were in fact responsible - a family member said one was "angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion" - Green tweeted: "I have nothing to apologise for." Well, of course not. Apart from being completely wrong. Again.

Green and his ABC comrades are a bunch of no no cats (Google it). Talk about denialism. And now we see that climate change activism is another sacred subject, only ever to be mentioned by the ABC and others in a serious and affirming way.

Late last year, University of NSW professor of climate change Chris Turney left for Antarctica on a voyage that aimed to "investigate the impact of changing climate" and to "use the subantarctic islands as thermometers of climatic change". As Daily Telegraph readers will be aware, the primary change observed by Turney and his team of climate activists was a massive increase in Antarctic ice that trapped the scientists on their ship for several days.

Elsewhere, a significant change took place in media coverage of the voyage. Prior to the MV Akademik Shokalskiy's departure, the ABC reported that Professor Turney and his crew would "try to answer questions about how climate change in the frozen continent might be already shifting weather patterns in Australia." Then the ice happened, at which point the ABC altered its tone. Now the Akademik Shokalskiy became merely "a Russian ship stuck in sea ice in Antarctica".

Here's a report from the ABC's Tony Eastley, just a few days into the great ice debacle:

The Australian operation to rescue passengers from a Russian cruise ship stuck in thick Antarctic sea ice, is continuing this morning, but it's slow going. The Aurora Australis ice-breaker is the third vessel to try to help the stricken expedition ship, which has been trapped since Christmas Eve. Authorities say the scientists and tourists on board the Russian vessel are packed and ready to go.

These "scientists" you speak of, Tony. Any idea of their particular field? And the "expedition" they were on. What was its purpose? Anything to do with climate change, perhaps?  The New York Times, among many other media outlets, decided to drop Chris Turney's full title. Instead of "professor of climate change", he became merely a generic "professor", like the nerdy guy on Gilligan's Island.

Annoyed by sacrilegious online mockery, the Guardian fumed about "climate sceptics who have taken to social media sites in recent days to attack the scientific consensus on climate change". No! Not the great and holy consensus! Blasphemy!

The curious thing is, many of the same media types who fret about climate change killing people in few hundred years are also the least inclined to worry about extreme Islamism killing people right now.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the day a Muslim terrorist hijacks an Antarctic climate research ship. You won't read a word about it.