I think it's evident that the CRU needed better communications resources from the University of East Anglia. It's just sensible.

Obviously better communications resources would have helped the CRU deal with incompetent media coverage! My point is that competent media coverage would have made this unnecessary. If you're going to do a show on Climate Science and the Media then it might be worth pointing out where the media failed.

Look at it this way: the scientists did good science and bad communication. But they're scientists; they ought to be judged on their science. Journalists did bad science and bad communication, but this is somehow played off as the scientists' fault.

No. I'm holding the scientists to the same standard as anyone else subject to FOI/OIA. Those laws don't say you can frustrate requests because you think the people making them are idiots.

Here's the gullible journalist problem again. The requests were denied for legitimate reasons. But because one side's focussing on PR while the other side is busy doing science, you're tricked into propagating denialist misinformation.

I'm not disagreeing with you. But the reality is that someone should have realised the CRU was not equipped to deal with what was going on. The FOI requests were vexatious, but that doesn't mean the solution was to actively frustrate them.

"What was going on" was a media climate where every insignificant and incorrect contrarian talking point was exaggerated into a falsification of global warming.

The CRU wouldn't have needed to be "equipped to deal" with that if journalists were doing their job properly.

You're holding different groups to different standards. Denialists are allowed to be mendacious, journalists are allowed to be incompetent, but scientists have to be paragons?

Here, the customary styles are reversed. The RealClimate writers aren't shy of invective, and are frequently accused of quashing awkward comments. McIntyre is, on the other hand, quite measured and specifically forbids ad-hominen argument on his site.

I take it you haven't read much of McIntyre's site. If you know what to look for, every post is packed with passive-aggressive accusations. He does them all with read-between-the-lines insinuations so he can maintain plausible deniability, but it's pretty clear that his commenters can hear the dogwhistles.

A group of statisticians reviewing McIntyre's paper for the US Congress found its contentions "valid and compelling".

A group of statisticians handpicked by a denialist Republican representative's staffers reviewing McIntyre's paper for the US Congress Energy and Commerce Committee found its contentions "valid and compelling".

More info here.

A small group that has been making climate measurements and conducting research for two decades increasingly found itself at the sharp end of a big argument and frankly did not cope ... The CRU chief, Phil Jones, put up the shutters, doesn't seem to have delegated well. His university didn't provide the communications resources the situation demanded.

An uncritical media is hoodwinked by denialist PR, and of course blames the scientists for having poor communication. What about the role of gullible journalists in putting scientists in the position where every insignificant error is magnified into the collapse of climate science?