McKewon 'shocked' to see McLean comment piece published



UTS.

A full-page article published recently in the Melbourne Age calling into question the scientific authenticity of climate change has itself been seriously questioned.

The article was the work of a John McLean who passed himself off as an credible author of such a piece, claiming he was a climate data analyst, a member of the International Climate Science Coalition (that’s correct) and he had written peer reviewed papers on the climate and was an expert reviewer of the IPCC report.

McLean’s claims were accurate, but didn’t stand up to close examination.

The Melbourne Age, along with its sister Sydney paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, had only recently announced (last October) that it would not publish letters from climate change deniers that misrepresented the facts.

Writing on Crickey in a story headed: “The Big Oil-backed climate denier who hoodwinked Fairfax”, a PhD candidate in journalism at Sydney’s University of Technology, Elaine McKewon, said she was “shocked” to see the opinion piece.