Why did PBS FRONTLINE electronically alter the signature of one of the world's most distinguished Physicists in their report "Climate of Doubt'?

UPDATE: PBS admits to this as being a mistake, see below – Anthony

Tuesday night as I watched the program, one of the documents on display during the interview with Dr. Fred Singer (who reporter John Hockenberry treated quite poorly with some editing tricks) caught my eye, because I saw it had been altered by post production video techniques.

I recognized the document, because I’d seen it before, but I could not be sure until I was able to compare the video and the original document side by side. I made a note and promised myself I’d revisit it when/if the full video report became available to check.

Late yesterday “Climate of Doubt” was posted on YouTube, and I was able to review it. Turns out I was right; PBS had altered the document electronically to make the name of one of the world’s most distinguished physicists illegible during their broadcast. Here is what I found.

First, here is the YouTube Video of the “Climate of Doubt” report: 

I direct your attention to the 19:30 mark where Hockenberry segues from the NAS report to an interview with Dr. Singer.

At 20:12 there’s an abrupt audio edit, with the camera on Hockenberry blurting out “Oregon Petition” which sure looks like Singers statement was cut off. That’s stock in trade of aggressive agenda driven editing to make the point of your video report, but what followed was far more egregious.

At 20:15 Hockenberry narrates with this in voice over:

The 14 year old petition is not exactly an exclusive club, a bachelor of science degree is all it takes to get you on the list. This document skeptics claim counters the scientific consensus on global warming.

While this graphic is displayed in slow zoom:

Note at 20:29 how the signature is electronically blurred, while other text and the writing “PHYSICS” is quite readable.

I’d seen that document before, and last night, I located it:

The signature is that of Dr. Edward Teller, from the signature card he turned in which can be seen on the very top of the Oregon Petition Project web page here. Clearly, Hockenberry was familiar with the project, citing it, and showing web pages linking to it. With that background at his disposal, there’s simply no way he could not have known that this was anybody but Dr. Teller on that card.

For those who don’t know, Dr. Edward Teller, often listed as the “father of the hydrogen bomb” was described in the PBS report “Race for the Superbomb” this way:

Of all the scientists who worked on the U.S. nuclear weapons program none have led more controversial a career than Edward Teller. Described by one Nobel Prize winner in physics as “one of the most thoughtful statesmen of science,” and by another as “a danger to all that’s important,” Teller was recognized by most of his colleagues as being one of the most imaginative and creative physicists alive.

He worked on the Manhattan project, was director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Among the honors he received were the Albert Einstein Award, the Enrico Fermi Award, the Corvin Chain and the National Medal of Science. He was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush less than two months before his death in 2003, and yes, he is a signatory of the Oregon Petition.

Hockenberry simply printed the graphic of the signature card above on a B&W laser printer, did a camera zoom over it, and used the electronic blur effect on the signature in post production.

The question is, why? Why would he need to obscure Dr. Teller’s signature?

Dr. Teller is deceased, so it can’t be to protect his identity or career. It is publicly well known and listed in Wikipedia that he is a signatory, and Dr. Teller has never disputed it as it was widely circulated when he signed on.

I think the key in understanding this is in Hockenberry’s voice over:

The 14 year old petition is not exactly an exclusive club, a bachelor of science degree is all it takes to get you on the list. This document skeptics claim counters the scientific consensus on global warming.

Quite clearly, he’s trying to diminish the impact of the Oregon Petition by making it seem just about anyone could sign on, not only with the way he was editing Dr. Singer’s response, but also with purposeful obfuscation of Dr. Teller’s signature to prevent recognition of it by viewers like you.

You might ask, “why did he use that signature card, and then go to the effort to obfuscate it?”. The answer there lies in finding other usable examples. You see, being in television and radio news myself for 25 years, I’ve seen many situations like this.

Reporters under a deadline need to get story elements “in the bag” and they often don’t have enough time. It sometimes limits their ability to dig deep, and sometimes makes them desperate when deadlines loom. Missing deadlines is a career ender, bending the truth when nobody notices, not so much. And, since there was this petition card document easily available on the front page of the petition website, the reporter could easily make a request to the post production editor to blur the signature and do no additional work himself. I’m betting that is what happened. It freed him to work on other things than additional research, plus when blurred it fit his narrative, which in my opinion was that “skeptics were bad people doing bad things“.

Watch the video from 20:30 to 20:50 and you’ll see what I mean. Here’s the voice over after the next hatchet job on Dr. Singer’s responses:

It a time-honored tactic by the skeptics, authentic looking documents and reports that don’t stand up to independent scrutiny.

I call bullshit on that, especially when the PBS report purposely alters the documents to prevent most viewers unfamiliar with the issue of figuring out they’ve been lied to by the reporter. It’s PBS journalistic ethics that don’t stand up to scrutiny here.

It makes you wonder what else Hockenberry may have purposely altered in post production.

It is clear to me that Hockenberry simply didn’t want viewers to know that such a prominent and world-renowned physicist had signed on saying he had “doubt” about global warming. That would dilute Hockenberry’s message.

This is beyond slimy jounalistic tactics akin to the sort of thing like NBC News rigging gas tanks on pickups trucks with model rocket engines so they will catch fire, viewers couldn’t tell, but experts did, and NBC paid the price.

Mr. Hockenberry should be reprimanded for his purposeful obfuscation and biased journalism tactics and I encourage readers to complain to PBS about this issue to ask it be investigated.

One final note, if you do a Google image search for “Oregon Petition signature card” you find Dr. Teller’s signature card and one other:

Yes, that’s Freeman J. Dyson, theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering.

Hockenberry likely couldn’t use that one either without blurring it.

Heartland’s Jim Lakely discusses many other issues with the quality of the reporting in “Climate of Doubt”.

UPDATE: Dr. Roy Spencer has similar complaints about how he was portrayed via editing:

From 0:18 to 0:21 in this trailer for the show “A Climate of Doubt”, I am seen talking about the U.S. government funding only research which supports global warming alarmism:…yet, the viewer of the entire show will come away with the mistaken impression that I was instead talking about skeptics of manmade global warming being funded by shady organizations.

UPDATE: Here are two messages placed side by side from the live chat (today at PBS website) showing that PBS has reacted to my point about Dr. Edward Teller’s signature. Catherine Upin is a co-writer of the program:

No mention as to the rationale of the “late stage production decision” only that it was a mistake.