New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer (2/2/12) accurately reports how Republicans want to frame the disputed over the Keystone XL pipeline. But she does almost nothing to challenge that framing. Under the headline, "For GOP, Pipeline Is Central to Agenda," Steinhauer explains: Republicans are framing Keystone as an urgent jobs and energy project at a time of high unemployment and creeping gasoline prices, and trying to portray Mr. Obama as giving in to hard-left environmentalists in an election year at the expense of addressing both. Instead of challenging that narrative, the Times bolstered it, alluding to what Republican presidential candidates [...]
Jan
03
2012
WaPo and Keystone False Balance
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Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel has a column in the Washington Post today (1/3/12) outlining the three important election issues to watch–and one of them is about how the press covers the process: Third, the media's obsession with false equivalence: How the election is covered will almost certainly have a measurable impact on its outcome. The New York Times' Paul Krugman describes what he's witnessing as "post-truth politics," in which right-leaning candidates can feel free to say whatever they want without being held accountable by the press. There may be instances in which a candidate is called out for saying [...]
Aug
30
2011
Hurricanes and Climate Change? Close That Door!
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In case you were wondering whether Irene sparked any discussions of climate change, here's a moment from the panel discussion on ABC's This Week (8/30/11): RON BROWNSTEIN (National Journal): Do we want to get into a global warming and a hurricanes discussion? DONNA BRAZILE (Democratic Strategist): No. BROWNSTEIN: I mean, I don't know if we want to open that door. Let that serve as a reminder to read Neil deMause's piece from the last issue of Extra! This was a laugh line, so I guess take it for what it's worth. On the other hand, Cokie Roberts seemed to be [...]
Jun
10
2011
To WaPo, Planet's Fate Is a 'Second-Tier Issue'
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The Washington Post had a piece yesterday (6/9/11) on Mitt Romney's views on global warming. It serves as a reminder that Republican political candidates are under enormous pressure from the right-wing base of the party on this issue–any politician who's ever suggested that climate change is a problem, or backed efforts to address it, is in trouble. This is an important thing to point out. But that doesn't mean the Post thinks climate change is important. See the article's lead sentence: It seemed like a straightforward question on a second-tier issue: Would Mitt Romney disavow the science behind global warming? [...]
May
10
2011
Renewable Energy? That's Not News (Here)
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I was intrigued to see this headline at the Guardian's website yesterday: Renewable Energy Can Power the World, Says Landmark IPCC Study UN's climate change science body says renewables supply, particularly solar power, can meet global demand This was one of the points Miranda Spencer raised in an excellent piece in the last issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!. Her point was that in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, media rarely brought up renewable energy like solar, wind or geothermal. A respected scientific body like the IPCC is weighing in now–so that's got to be news, right? Sure doesn't seem [...]
Oct
27
2010
Is Scientific American Running Away From Science on Climate Change?
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Has Scientific American jumped the shark on climate change? That's the contention of Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm (10/26/10), who accuses the magazine of treating human-caused global climate change as an open question. Romm points to an article by Michael Lemonick (11/10) about Judith Curry, a climate scientist whose critiques of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are often cited by non-climate scientists who (unlike Curry herself) deny that people are dangerously warming the Earth. The articles seems to leave the impression that the truth on climate change is somewhere in the middle: Climate scientists feel embattled by a politically [...]
Sep
14
2010
PBS Ombud's Trust in Nova Only Goes So Far
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PBS ombud Michael Getler has thankfully expanded on his "I trust Nova" response to concerns that public TV's leading science program might be influenced by its climate change-denying funders (FAIR Blog, 9/8/10). In a more extensive response to those who thought they detected the fingerprints of oil tycoon David Koch (and industry giant ExxonMobil) in a Nova broadcast, Getler (9/13/10) suggests that those critics might have reason to be suspicious. Getler points to the interconnection of Koch's gifts to Nova and to the Smithsonian museum, which has a David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins that portrays climate change as [...]
Sep
08
2010
Is Nova Catering to Its Anti-Science Sugar Daddy?
By 45 Comments
PBS's Nova is taking money from one of the biggest bankrollers of climate change denial–and, surprise surprise, the resulting programming tells viewers not to worry about climate change. But PBS's ombud doesn't see this as a conflict of interest–because Nova is a "consistently first-rate program," and he trusts it. Nova's conflict of interest was highlighted out by Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm (9/7/10), who had previously caught the Smithsonian promoting strange climate science after getting a grant from oil billionaire David Koch (Climate Progress, 4/1/10). Koch, who's a major funder of propaganda rejecting the science of climate change, is also [...]
Jun
01
2010
Newsweek Still Pushing Phony Climate Controversy
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Newsweek's "environmental issue" has an article (5/28/10) by correspondent Stefan Theil declaring climate change to be "Uncertain Science." Giving the Reader's Digest condensed version of the denialist case, Theil refers to "e-mails and documents suggesting that researchers cherry-picked data and suppressed rival studies to play up global warming"–without mentioning that after sensationalistic media stories suggested a scientific conspiracy, subsequent academic investigations cleared the researchers of wrongdoing (Extra!, 2/10 ; FAIR Blog, 4/19/10). He talks about a U.S. scientist "under investigation for allegedly using exaggerated climate data to obtain public funds"–without mentioning that the scientist, Michael Mann, is being investigated by [...]
May
03
2010
NYT: Drill, Baby, Drill
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The New York Times' May 2 Week in Review section leads with a piece from Jad Mouawad headlined "The Spill vs. a Need to Drill." You get a sense of the tone of the piece early on: Readers learn that "emotions are running high" as the disaster gets worse. And this has led to predictable consequences: Beyond railing at BP, the company that owns the well now spewing oil, some environmental groups have demanded an end to offshore exploration. If someone's "emotion"-based argument is reduced to "railing," it's obviously not to be taken seriously. The Times states its position pretty [...]
Apr
19
2010
NYT Applauds Cassandra, but Isn't Taking Her Calls on Climate Change
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I find it very peculiar that the New York Times can publish an editorial observer piece about unheeded warnings–"Cassandra, the Ignored Prophet of Doom, Is a Woman for Our Times," by Adam Cohen (4/19/10)–without once mentioning climate change. The piece cites various foretold disasters–Bernie Madoff, sexual abuse by priests, the financial meltdown, September 11, New Orleans–without mentioning the looming catastrophe whose impact seems likely to eclipse all of these. (One of China's top economic planners recently predicted that the economic disruption caused by global warming "would be equivalent to that of the two world wars and the Great Depression combined.") [...]
