I nominate Dr. Peter Gleick for the first annual Walter Duranty award

Roger L. Simon writes on PJ Media:

Starting this year, PJ Media, in conjunction with our good friends at The New Criterion, will be awarding the first annual Walter Duranty Prize for Journalistic Mendacity.

Walter Duranty – it will be recalled — was the New York Times’ Moscow correspondent in the 1920s and 1930s who whitewashed Joseph Stalin’s forced mass starvation of the Ukrainians (the Holodomor) and many other aspects of Soviet oppression.

Duranty was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his efforts.

Despite numerous attempts by Ukrainian organizations and others, the prize has never been revoked. Duranty’s photograph remains in its honored place on the New York Times’ wall along with the newspaper’s other Pulitzer winners.

The first annual Duranty Prize will be given for what our readers consider the most egregious example of dishonest reporting for the fiscal year 2011-2012 (July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012).

We will be officially accepting nominations from PJM and TNC readers starting May 1, 2012, at Duranty@pjmedia.com (but if you want to go ahead now, no one’s going to stop you – the email address is functioning).

A Duranty Prize Committee of seven journalists and writers will then sift the nominations and decide the winner (or winners) to be announced at a ceremony in New York in the Fall.

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While I considered Dr. Michael Mann for his recent book contributions, it seemed inappropriate since this was about dishonest journalism, not delusional self-promotion.

That of course leaves Dr. Peter Gleick, of the Pacific Institute and his “Fakegate” crimes, duping reporters at Newspapers and other media (Guardian and BBC, plus Revkin at NYT for example) that should have known better, into reporting a trumped up story based on Gleick’s self admitted deception to steal documents from the Heartland Institute, plus a “fake” document, to give an otherwise mundane set of documents “legs” for a compliant press.

Leo Hickman, Suzanne Goldenberg, and company at the Guardian, plus Richard Black at the BBC thought they had a bona fide leak of incriminating information on the funding of climate skeptics by the Heartland Institute. Turns out they were played for fools by Gleick and when he was cornered by skeptics following the evidence, admitted to his phishing and dishonest impersonation to create a false news story, in a Huffington Post confession here.

I doing so, Gleick has broken both state and Federal Laws. I’m told that actions are pending.

Here’s a review of some salient points:

Some notes on the Heartland Leak

Notes on the faked Heartland document

If the sceptics’ conspiracy was real, why fake the evidence?

BREAKING: Gleick Confesses

NCSE accepts Gleick’s resignation

Dr. Peter Gleick may have run afoul of a new cyber-impersonation law in California

Gleick removed from AGU Task Force on Scientific Ethics page

Heartland Institute Releases Peter Gleick Emails Detailing Fraud, Identity Theft

Peter Gleick requests leave of absence from Pacific Institute

Koch takes the NYT and Revkin to task

Gleick declares in Mann’s book review (after phishing Heartland) – “there IS a war on”

Gleick and America’s Dumbest Criminals

Gleick and Federal Law 18 U.S.C. 1343

Gleick and the HP “Pretexting” Scandal

Forensic analysis of the fake Heartland ‘Climate Strategy Memo’ concludes Peter Gleick is the likely forger

Gleick and the Watergate Burglars

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Given the uproar and that journalistic train wrecks Dr. Gleick has spawned with his dishonesty, and since he has played the role of science journalist in the past, writing for Forbes, Huffington Post, as well as other opinion pieces in science magazines and journals, I think he more than qualifies for the first annual Walter Duranty award.

For those that may think Gleick doesn’t qualifies as a journalist, I add this update from his Wikipedia Page, which shows him acting in that capacity:

Gleick is the editor of the biennial series on the state of the world’s water, called The World’s Water,^[4] published by Island Press, Washington, D.C., regularly provides testimony to the United States Congress and state legislatures, and has published many scientific articles. He serves as a major source of information on water and climate issues for the media, and has been featured on CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fresh Air with Terry Gross ^[18], NPR, in articles in The New Yorker,^[19] and many other outlets. He has also been featured in a wide range of water-related documentary films, including Jim Thebaut’s documentary “Running Dry”^[20], Irena Salina‘s feature documentary Flow: For Love of Water,^[21], accepted for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and and Jessica Yu and Elise Pearlstein’s 2011 feature documentary Last Call at the Oasis from Participant Media.^[22] In 2010 his book Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water was published by Island Press.^[23] He served on the scientific advisory boards of Thirst, Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, and other water-related films.

And let’s not forget his numerous articles on Forbes and Huffington Post.

As PJ Media says in their posting:

We will be officially accepting nominations from PJM and TNC readers starting May 1, 2012, at Duranty@pjmedia.com (but if you want to go ahead now, no one’s going to stop you – the email address is functioning).

I’ve sent in mine, WUWT readers are of course welcome to second that nomination.

h/t to WUWT reader Kelly Haughton