Inventive documentarians Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer have done it again, turning a story of interest to just left and right hard-liners into a national sensation.
After successes in bringing the horrors of fracking, the case against abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and the sordid Hunter Biden tale to theaters, they are producing a daily podcast on the D.C. Superior Court trial of the 12-year battle between climate change advocate Michael Mann and two who have questioned his science, Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg.
Mann is known for his “hockey stick” graph that he says shows climate change spiking from the industrial revolution to today. Steyn and Simberg mocked it years ago in the National Review and on the Competitive Enterprise Institute website, getting sued by Mann for defamation.
Now, the case has made it to a trial that continues next week.
The court does not allow cameras, so McElhinney and McAleer are producing Climate Change on Trial, a podcast that reenacts the day’s arguments. It soared up the Chartable ratings in just a few days.
“So far, we have been the No. 6 most-listened-to science podcast on the planet. I think we will be the No. 1 science podcast before the end,” bragged McAleer of the conservative Irish couple’s project available on Apple, Spotify, Google, and other podcast sites.
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He told Secrets that the case has put both climate change and free speech on trial. “It’s probably the most important free speech trial of the century,” McAleer said.
For their project, they take a transcript from the day’s trial and, overnight, have voice actors reenact key moments.
“The reenactments are performed in Los Angeles from the transcripts. We record in Washington, D.C., close to the courthouse, and it is edited overnight in Europe. So, people have the best of the courtroom drama in the inbox in the morning,” McAleer said.
He thinks they’ve landed on their latest documentary-style invention. “We have created a new genre for the podcast age — the verbatim podcast. This brings court cases to people in an accessible and entertaining way,” he said.
They have recorded nine episodes tracking the trial, with the highlight being Steyn and his lawyers questioning Mann about his science and claims to be a Nobel Prize winner.
“I think it’s incredibly popular because there is such an interest in the truth. People could smell there was something wrong with climate change alarmism, but the mainstream media wasn’t bringing them the truth,” McAleer said.
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He added that the best place to test that is a court. “A courtroom is still a place where you are not allowed political slogans or fake alarmism. Everything has to be based on evidence or documentation. And climate scientists have to swear under oath and produce real evidence,” he said.
So far, he added, “When asked for that evidence, it just isn’t there.”
