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:
Joe Romm at Climate Progress 11/21/2009:
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.
Joe Romm at Climate Progress 12/15/2010:
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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If you want some fun go read the comments at Huffpo. Take extra blood-pressure meds before you start reading.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/post_1436_b_797323.html
Did you know that you can’t even call a good looking woman a “Fox” now without incurring the wrath of leftists? What is the world coming to?
Romm notes “the anti-earth folks at Fox News.”
Really. How much denser can he get?
So they have a problem because they found proof that Fox executives are requiring Fox to be “fair and balanced”? And the problem is……?
and this from Gore that locks reporters out, all reporters…….
In the topsy turvy world of AGW true believers, skeptics are evil and telling both sides of a story is wickedness through and through.
Does anyone wonder why Romm is rightfully considered the biggest jerk in the blogosphere?
REPLY: Actually your comment is misplaced, I know from experience there are far worse people. – Anthony
To me this shows how scared the warmists are of what is happening and that is very encouraging.
If you object, criticise and spin against what are correct and proper editorial instructions to journalists to report objectively then in doing so, as Al Gore and Joe Romm have done, it is a tacit admission that there is much you want to hide and don’t want anyone to see.
If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear – and they seem to fear simple truth and fact.
Who’s Al Gore?
Yeah, no way do they want fair and balanced. Hell, no. They have had it all their way with the media for decades. I expect they will tout this as an example of the “denialist misinformation campaign”.
h/t to Bill Sammon for pointing out to his team what every one of them should have already been practicing for years. I hope other media bosses are doing likewise.
Okay Al, get an Interview with say, Greta Van Sustren in NYC on January 20th,
Prepare for Kennedy and LaGurardia to be shut down and the city shut due to snow….
How is a modern-day journalist supposed to report differing viewpoints on the same subject! Its just so much more efficient to stick with one view, the ‘crusade’ view— http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/environment/copenhagensummit/article/735124–star-joins-global-climate-crusade
What’s new? That’s how totalitarian green ideologues behave.
No debate but dictate = dictatorship
http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/14/silence-of-the-greens/
OT but these are worth looking at:
http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=164226&catid=49
Water, winds encase Lake Erie lighthouse in ice
I see this as sign that the CAGW scam is now going into its death throes.
Anthony, thanks for the consistency and the razor wit with which you skewer all those who cannot permit scientific unknowns and scientific discussions. Our world is safer and more truthful because of your efforts. Health and best wishes to you and your family.
My comment on Climate Progress in case it gets lost:
Apparently we overlooked these “Fox” beings.
Coordinates please.
The Borg
A few days ago NPR used accurate and objective phrasing in a report on the Cancun failure. It caught my attention and switched on my mental tape-recorder because the even-handed phrase was so completely unexpected:
“…once it became clear that there would be no overarching deal to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that have been linked to global warming.”
The standard media template would have been “…gases that cause global warming.”
Will Algore now attack NPR for following Fox? I doubt it.
I don’t know why Fox gets so much static anyway. Most of its people are hard-line Greenies. Shep Smith is just as screechy as Joe Romm on the subject.
Fox News “endorsed” by Gore and Romm. Works for me.
[snip, as much as I got a chuckle out of your labeling of the two, I’d be just as bad as they are if I allowed such an ad hominen comment – Anthony]
The post sums it up well: AGW doesn’t want both sides of the story told.
Why?
Because when both sides of the story is told…AGW loses.
Heh. This is good, actually. Let the world see Media Matters spew its “bombshell” e-mail to show the world how totally insane the whole global warming mania has become. And there is no better person than Al “Chokra” Gore to go to bat for Media Matters [double heh]!
Meanwhile, here in western New Hampshire, it’s about 10 F with snow on the ground, and I have my CO2 belching pellet stove going full blast keeping me and my family warm. Ahhh…life is good…
Truth, it’s what science needs these days more than anything else. And what about that old saw, seek the truth…
I guess it’s best if you start out to tell lies, you hide the truth.
Sheesh what has happened to science.
When presenting both sides of an issue and promoting impartiality and factual reporting is considered evil, what does that make the clowns who think so? They simply cannot be cast in a good light.
So since when is going to sources and uncovering and reporting the actual facts and not blatantly misleading “controversy” not objective?
If I’m reporting on a resurgence of measles must I try to achieve “balance” by reporting that “controversy exists with respect to the validity of claims that the MMR vaccine may be among the causes of autism”?
If I’m reporting on fossil remains from, say, 100,000 BCE must I report that “controversy exists with respect to the actual age of the the fossils with some citing their interpretation of evidence indicating the Earth’s age cannot be more than about 6,000 years?”
With respect to hypocrisy this characteristic does not look good on anyone. It doesn’t look good on Romm when he uncritically publishes and pushes stolen or hacked Fox News emails having bemoaned the publication of the CRU emails, nor does it look good on skeptics who ludicrously take a phrase such as “it’s a travesty that we don’t” to imply that scientists secretly know that warming has stopped and then cry when Romm takes the quote above to imply that Fox is trying to hide the fact of a warming planet.
Rob Ryan
Reading Romm’s sputtering post on the Sammon matter is all one needs to know about the utter bankruptcy of Climate Progress as a source of science commentary. Romm, who in Alinsky-esque rants continually attacks our host and us as “anti-science” and a threat to the planet cannot stand the time-tested maxims of science never being “settled” and the fact that consensus is a non sequitur in the sphere of science investigation. He is a non-person in my book and should be ignored. Al Gore is not worthy of mention.