Peter Hadfield (journalist)

Peter Hadfield speaking on "TV Tricks of the Trade" at the 2014 Australian Skeptics' Convention.

Peter Hadfield is a British journalist and author, trained as a geologist,[1] who currently runs the YouTube channel Potholer54, which has over 100,000 subscribers.[2][3]

Career as writer/print journalist

Hadfield was the Sunday Times correspondent in Tokyo from 1988 to 1990, then wrote a regular column for the Daily Mail on life in Japan. Later he became Tokyo correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph and U.S. News & World Report. He was also the Tokyo correspondent for New Scientist for 14 years.[4] Hadfield wrote a weekly humour column for The Mainichi Daily News (the English edition of the Japanese-language Mainichi Shimbun) while living in Japan.[2][5] His writing has appeared in other publications, such as The Guardian,[6] USA Today, The Independent on Sunday, The South China Morning Post and The Lancet. As a broadcaster, Hadfield has reported from the Far East for CBC, CNN and the BBC.

Hadfield's book, "Sixty Seconds that Will Change the World," about the potential implications of an earthquake in Tokyo, was published by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1991. A second revised edition was published by Tuttle in 1995 after the Kobe earthquake.[7][8]

Career as a broadcast journalist

In 1991 Hadfield became Far East correspondent for Monitor Radio, and reported throughout East Asia for Monitor Radio and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).[9] He also contributed regularly to CNN, NPR, BBC radio programme Science in Action, The World Tonight, Outlook and East Asia Today, as well as the ABC's Science Show.[4][10]

Career in video/blogging, debate on scientific topics

Hadfield, known on YouTube as "Potholer54" and "Potholer54debunks", has become well known for making videos about various scientific topics, such as the science behind global warming, age of the earth and arguments used by young earth creationists to claim the earth and/or universe are young, and for videos on how tricks of the trade in journalism can be used to fool viewers. For example, his video about how climate change skeptics have claimed that the earth has been cooling since 1998 has been featured on Boing Boing, where Maggie Koerth-Baker has called it "true skepticism at its best."[11] Hadfield is also well known for making videos debunking the claims made by comic artist Neal Adams,[12] proponent of the Expanding Earth theory, and Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley about climate change science in public presentations; Hadfield's series on this topic is entitled "Monckton Bunkum."[13] A back-and-forth ensued, in which Monckton responded to Hadfield's video series about him on Watts Up With That?, whereupon Hadfield replied in turn.

Hadfield has stated that both sides in the global warming debate have made erroneous statements, saying, "while skeptics like Christopher Monckton and Martin Durkin fabricate a lot of their facts, many environmental activists tend to exaggerate theirs."

September 2013, Hadfield has made a video debunking the misleading claims made in an article in the Daily Mail regarding the increase in sea ice in the Arctic as measured in September 2012.[14]

As an example of his style of debunking, in June 2013 Hadfield revealed that a photo that was provided as evidence for a link between HAARP and the 2004 Tsunami in the first episode of the television show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, was purchased from a commercial photographer's website.[15] The photo was introduced by the TV-show's lead investigator Raheem as a picture of the Aurora borealis. Hadfield uncovered that the photo instead was advertised by the photographer as a photo of the Aurora Australis.[16]

References

  1. ↑ Evelyn (14 May 2011). "Earthquakes and End-of-the-World Nonsense". Skepchick. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  2. 1 2 Hadfield, Peter (29 March 2010). "How my YouTube channel is converting climate change sceptics". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  3. ↑ "YouTube channel belonging to Peter Hadfield – YouTube username "potholer54"".
  4. 1 2
  5. ↑ MacLaren, Don, "Pros and cons of Japan-bashing" The Mainichi Daily News, 31 October 1998
  6. ↑ Hadfield, Peter. "Japan's earthquake will create a global financial aftershock" The Guardian, 15 March 2011
  7. ↑ Hadfield, Peter. "Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World: Coming Tokyo Earthquake" Amazon.com, Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World: Coming Tokyo Earthquake, Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 1991
  8. ↑ Hadfield, Peter. "The Coming Tokyo Earthquake – Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World" Amazon.com, The Coming Tokyo Earthquake – Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World, Tuttle, 1995
  9. ↑
  10. ↑
  11. ↑ Koerth-Baker, Maggie (4 November 2010). "Where climate myths come from". Boing Boing. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
  12. ↑ potholer54. "Expanding earth my ass". YouTube. Retrieved 25 Dec 2015.
  13. ↑ Readfearn, Graham (1 November 2012). "Climate Science Denialist Lord Monckton's IPCC "Appointment" That Wasn't". DeSmogBlog. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  14. ↑ Mulvaney, Kieran (20 September 2013). "Arctic Sea Ice Reaches Year's Minimum". Discovery News. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  15. ↑ potholer54. "Conspiracy theories conspiracy". YouTube. Retrieved 25 Dec 2015.
  16. ↑ Aurora Australis by David Miller. Posters-wanted.com, visited on 14 June 2014

External links

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