The stated policy of New Zealand’s Fairfax newspaper group to discard all views and data that dissents with the chain’s own collectively-held opinion that climate change is an existential threat and is manmade is a challenge to science according to a local government figure, Rick Long.

Even more serious believes Mr Long (pictured) remains the subsequent decision of the nation’s news-content arbitrator, the Media Council, to uphold the Australian-owned chain’s decision.

Fairfax is now part of Australia’s Channel Nine Network.

Mr Long’s contention is that the decision to outlaw dissenting information by Fairfax, with the support of the Media Council, was particularly significant in terms of the mainstream media’s accepted role.

This is because the Fairfax chain controls the only daily newspapers in New Zealand’s chief scientific research centres, notably those in and around Christchurch, Nelson, Wellington, Palmerston North, and Hamilton.

Mr Long said that the public understanding was that greenhouse gas estimates were detected by atmospheric sensors.

In fact, he stated, they are estimates based on computer modelling, and differed widely, especially in New Zealand

The New Zealand publicly-disseminated hypothesis focussed on the animal contribution, he said.

It omitted component elements such as volcanic activity and water vapour, all contributors to the greenhouse gas syndrome.

This in turn remains further distorted because New Zealand media reports only events supporting its warming theory such as heatwaves while ignoring all icy weather and freezes to the contrary.

Mr Long explained to MSC Newswire, the National Press Club’s associated news site, that his main worry centred in fact on the active support given to Fairfax by the industry’s own arbitrator of content, the Media Council.

It was this support that gave the “proudly” proclaimed Fairfax auto-censorship on climate-dissenting information its sinister undertone, he noted.

He claimed that there was a “book burning” aura to the Media Council’s upholding of Fairfax’s announced policy.

This was because an arbitrating and at face value official and impartial referee board, the Media Council, had given its seal of approval to the Fairfax stated policy of reporting only one side of what the chain itself conceded was one of the central issues of the era.

Mr Long for many years has been involved as an elected official in Wellington and Central Districts regional, municipal, and health roles.....

To see Mr Long’s original letter to the National Press Club in full go to: www.nationalpressclub.org.nz