Posted on December 15, 2010 by Anthony Watts
Fox News Channel
Joe Romm and Al Gore share one thing in common besides being paid for blogging, writing, and making opinions on climate to scare the dickens out of people: they don’t understand what journalism is supposed to be about. Not only that, Joe shows his own bias and hyprocrisy compared to how he dealt with Climategate emails a year ago:
Note: No, I’m not thrilled with reprinting part of an illegally stolen e-mail, but this was in Wired and has been confirmed by the author and actually deals with the science.
Kudos to Media Matters for unearthing this story from the anti-earth folks at Fox News. See also the Politico story, “Fox editor urged climate skepticism.”
He seems thrilled to publish such a “stolen email” now, when it suits his cause. And of course, he puts the Fox News email front and center, but you won’t find him doing that for any of the climategate emails, lest he scare the flock.
And here’s what he’s all bent out of shape about, this passage from the Fox News “illegally obtained” email, bold mine.
…we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.
Gore writes on his blog today:
“Fox News has consistently delivered false and misleading information to its viewers about the climate crisis. The leaked emails now suggest that this bias comes directly from the executives responsible for their news coverage.
Heh, a year ago Gore wouldn’t even read the emails from CRU, and got caught with his foot in his mouth: Al Gore can’t tell time – thinks most recent Climategate email is more than 10 years old
Of course, there’s no mention of his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, being hauled into court in Britain and found to be “false and misleading”.
There’s also no mention of the CRU emails on Gore’s blog, the entire month of November last year, even after major media outlets such as the New York Times had reported on it. He was sure to wish everyone a “happy Thanksgiving” though. In fact it took Gore a full month, until Dec 18th, 2009 to make any mention of it at all, and then it was only a sideways glance, by reporting on a favorable story (for him) in Politico.
And let’s not forget this story, where Al locks our reporters from his presentation, and is even bold enough to put up a sign to that effect: Gore to press: Stay Out!
It seems to be a pattern with Mr. Gore: Journalists pan Gore secrecy
Neither Al or Joe seem to get what journalism is supposed to be about. Here’s a clue.
The Encyclopedia of American journalism, By Stephen L. Vaughn, page 38, says:
A “core journalistic value”.
As Lachlan Markay at Newsbusters writes:
So Sammon instructed staff to incorporate the most basic tenets of science and journalism – skepticism and political neutrality, respectively – into their reporting on contentious scientific issues with tremendous political implications. And this is a problem?
Only if you are MediaMatters, Joe Romm, or Al Gore.
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