From the Heartland Institute. Her’s a case where the alarmist side of the debate automatically seems to think it is “big oil” central, until such time they have to admit to their mistakes.
Washington Post Corrects Lies About Heartland Institute, Prints Rebuttal
Guest post by Jim Lakely*
A week or so ago, The Washington Post ran an err0r-filled, old-news hit piece against The Heartland Institute titled, “Climate skeptic group works to reverse renewable energy mandates.” Reporter Juliet Eilperin and I exchanged a few emails several days before the story ran, yet she somehow managed to print this lie:
The Heartland Institute received more than $7.3 million from Exxon Mobil between 1998 and 2010, and nearly $14.4 million between 1986 and 2010 from foundations affiliated with Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch.
Eilperin was only off by a factor of 10 regarding Exxon (putting aside Heartland hasn’t received a dime from Exxon since 2006), and off by a factor of at 400 regarding the Kochs. (Our first gift from them in a decade was $25,000 for health care work, not climate).
I say “somehow,” but I know where she got it: from the lies printed at DeSmog Blog. In fact, it was at least a double fail on Eilperin’s part. She grabbed a lie wrapped in a mistake, and printed that as fact — without even calling or emailing me to ask if, say, it’s true that Heartland has been the beneficiary of some $21 million from Exxon and the Kochs in the last decade or so.
That’s a pretty significant sum of money, no? Perhaps something a reporter might check — or an editor might insist be checked. Alas, for The Washington Post — as it is for all of the corrupt mainstream media — the idea that Heartland is lighting cigars with endless hundred dollar bills from “Big Oil” is a “fact” too good to check.
The Post did correct its story, but it was too late for the purpose of truth and responsible reporting. The lies and errors are now permanent online, and were repeated in papers around the world. (The Boston Globe ran the uncorrected story on December 2, one week after a “correction” moved over the Post’s wire service. Funny how that happened.)
The unbearable embarrassment of The Washington Post publishing a correction and rebuttal written by The Heartland Institute could have all been avoided with a simple email, phone call, or text from Eilperin to me — a contact within an organization that has never gotten a fair shake from the MSM, but a contact who will freely and honestly communicate with any reporter.
It’s not easy to resist the temptation to tell the MSM to pound sand, but I used to work among them. So I still deal with the MSM on honest terms: I don’t lie, so I expect the same — not sympathetic coverage, but honest reporting. Sadly (for our republic), that is not the standard of today’s MSM. (Full disclosure: Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.)
That’s enough background. Here’s the unedited letter from Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast, submitted to The Washington Post and published (almost in its entirety) in their newspaper on December 1. Any references to Al Gore, I was told by The Post, were removed for “space reasons”:
They say truth is the first casualty of war. In the war of words over global warming (aka “climate change”) that is plainly the case.
Last week the Washington Post ran a news article that falsely claimed my organization, The Heartland Institute, received millions of dollars from Exxon Mobil and foundations affiliated with Charles G. and David H. Koch [“Climate skeptic group works to reverse renewable energy mandates,” by Juliet Eilperin, Nov. 24].
Not true. ExxonMobil over the course of a decade gave less than a tenth of the amount reported, never amounting to even 5 percent of our annual receipts. The reported level of support from the Kochs was even more egregiously wrong: Except for a gift of $25,000 last year for our work on health care reform, the Kochs hadn’t donated a dime since 1998.
The Washington Post ran a correction on its web site, but the damage was done. The article has been reprinted without correction in scores and perhaps hundreds of newspapers throughout the country. It adds to the false narrative that the only persons and organizations that question the dogma of man-made global warming are shills for the oil industry.
We aren’t. We have more than 5,000 donors, receive only a small fraction of our support from the fossil fuel industry (and always have), and we work with hundreds of highly qualified scientists to simply speak the truth about climate change.
Where do we go to get our reputation back?
The article misrepresented our work as well as our funding. The Heartland Institute is not “critical of climate change science.” We are one of its leading supporters, having hosted seven international conferences (with an eighth one taking place in Munich this week) and published a comprehensive survey of the scientific literature in two volumes, with a third volume on its way.
We spend more supporting climate science than all but a handful of public policy think tanks.
Eilperin reports we ran a billboard “comparing those who believe in global warming to domestic terrorist Theodore J. Kaczynski.” Also untrue. The billboard simply reported the fact that the infamous Unabomber still believes in man-made global warming, despite the mounting scientific case against it, and asked viewers if they do, too. If you doubt the veracity of the billboard, just Google “Al Gore and the Unabomber” and take a quiz to see if you can tell their positions on global warming apart.
It’s been a long time since the Washington Post ran an article that was anything other than dismissive or worse on the efforts of sincere and hard-working scientists and organizations that say the case hasn’t been made that man-made global warming is a threat to either public health or the environment. That’s a disservice to the newspaper’s readers, and because of the paper’s stature, to the nation.
Joseph L. Bast is president of The Heartland Institute, a national nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois.
* Only the section of the post in italics above was written by Bast, the remainder in Jim Lakely. The attribution in the header has been corrected.
In the UK, the print media have been in the news themselves a lot this year due to their methods and low standards. Not many people are holding their breath in expectation of any great improvement.
“Honest reporting” is an oxymoron. Usually the lies are by omission rather than commission. Since telling the MSM to “pound sand” is unproductive, at least remind them of their malfeasance in this case at the beginning and end of every interview you give from now on until they’re beyond sick of hearing it. The only hope of fair treatment is to shame/annoy them into it.
“is a fact too good to check.”
Beautiful, says it all, and I’ll be using it whenever I can crowbar it into a conversation.
Well done Joe, but unfortunately they got the headline first. It is always that first headline that seems to stick in the public’s mind which is why we so often see science by press release. No matter how thoroughly the debunking is that damned headline is what sticks. That is what happens when you have collusion between the media and the CAGW gang and it’s just plain unfair.
” (Full disclosure: Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.) ”
Worthless. Certainly worth far, far less than the back-slapping, congratulations and jollity in the editor’s suite. That, for the Eilperin’s of the modern world, is priceless.
Oldest trick in the book, BBC did it with the Hillsborough (football) disaster – reported that the fans were at fault and that the police were the injured party. It took over 20 years before the truth came out, after several court cases, that the police lied. It is almost impossible to backtrack from an initial lie, unless you have lots of power and money to force it. I wonder how many years it will take before the biggest lie of them all is exposed?
WaPo, another smear in a long line of smears and outright lies and apology not accepted because: the seed has been planted.
Still, a scant and small consolation – the Doha gabfest replete with interfering anti science meddlers, is as usual so up its own fundament. A merry-go-round of; third world despots entreating handouts, NGOs and bogus charities, anti science bureaucrats all with a God complex, the whirr is manic.
But…….they’ve not realised Kyoto is fast fading to dust but the tactics have changed.
Agenda 21 is alive and kicking, Obama is still forcing the carbon emissions levy and CAGW has not gone away in the bureaucrats minds, tho’ mamma nature may [does] have other ideas. Be prepared for a cold, long and harsh winter – we are in Europe.
Charle H. says:
December 5, 2012 at 6:06 am
Oldest trick in the book, BBC did it with the Hillsborough (football) disaster – reported that the fans were at fault and that the police were the injured party.
People in Liverpool related to the victims blame Murdoch’s Sun newspaper for the Hillsborough lies, rather than the BBC. The BBC has been heavily criticised over recent false allegations of paedophilia against a former government minister.
*Juliet Eilperin expressed her deepest apologies to me for screwing up, for what that’s worth.*
Not much, is what that’s worth. She apologizes in order to minimize the threat of possible legal action, but her sense of rage against Heartland, and desire to ‘expose’ them has probably redoubled.
Before anyone screams BIG OIL! compare and contrast.
[My bold] These are staggering sums. It clearly shows a well funded denialist machine. Now let’s take a look at a tiny fraction of the funding for the truth tellers.
and this:
Very tiny sums as you can see. I could go on and on but I think you get the picture. Its called Big Oil Money for Me, But Not for Thee
Did I mention that Pachauri set up a residual oil extraction technology company some years back?
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=27919769
Well, it’s as start. A small one, but a start.
Or an anomoly, take your pick. 🙂
About that apology, so she realized her whole article was slanted and regrets her blind ideological devotion in writing it in the first place? Or is her regret that her article was so easily, quickly, profoundly and publicly discredited? And is she still glad that it got around the world uncorrected – doing the world the “good” she intended? What’s she doing to correct the harm – writing a different article?
Well down under the usual suspects and doom and gloom merchants came crawling out of the woodwoork and sandstones to frighten the children at bedtime over the latest COP-ulater knees up for catastrophists and silly mask wearers- http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/putting_the_doh_into_doha/
Their shooting star was in the ascendancy when Oz was in the grip of a long general drought, busily building extravagant desal plants for their predicted permanent lack of runoff and rivers and dams that would never fill again. You make calamitous predictions and then the floods come and you just look stupid along with your computer modelling. ‘The main challenge is mental’ alright with these sad sacks –
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/five-tips-for-living-on-the-unrecognisable-earth-of-the-future-20121203-2aqmk.html#ixzz2DyrmguOf
(hat tip Andrew Bolt)
As the population increasingly turns off to their doomsaying drivel they just become more frenetic, shrill and embarassing. The cultural cringe factor must be devastating for any real climate science out there now, which is the real tragedy.
Keep in mind that much of the corporate “donations” to tax-deductable groups are in the form of matching employee giving. If you look you will find the same corporations also donations to Greenpeace, WWF, etc. All deductable giving must be reported, whether it is a direct gift/grant from the corporation or simply a match of employee giving. In the summary reports it all looks the same.
Thus for any large corporation which does employee gift matching you will see gifts reported to groups on both sides of every controversial issue. My employer for example, will report a 2012 donation to the Heartland Institute matching a gift I made. Both are no doubt dwarfed by employee matching gifts to pro-AGW groups.
So it is wrong to attribute any corporate direction to the mere fact they report gifts to various groups. You have to separate out the actual grants/gifts from the corporation from just matching gifts.
Any journalist should know this.
Thanks for reporting this story here, Mr Bast. As a UK citizen, many of these things can slip past. I can only imagine how difficult the fight is for you against the combined forces of your national media – none of whom, it seems, are ever interested in hearing the arguments of CAGW skeptics. It’s much the same here in the the UK; national broadsheets such as The Guardian and The Independent act pretty much as poster boys for the pro-CAGW cause, whilst the BBC is now little more than a publicly-funded CAGW propaganda machine, choosing (by its own clumsy admission) to ‘screen out’ (aka ‘censor’) the voices of any who take issue with the CAGW bandwagon.
Keep up the good fight at Heartland. You guys are doing a wonderful job in fighting against this relentless bullying from (very well funded) climate zealots and you have fans all over the world, of which I am one. I look forward to reading the news coming out of your latest conference.
“Any references to Al Gore, I was told by The Post, were removed for ‘space reasons'”
Yes, Al Gore has gained weight. Instead of his nose growing, Al’s growing all over.
I can’t wait for Greenpeace and WWF to disclose how much oil money they get so they can be accused of being paid shills for the oil companys.
mrsean2k says:
December 5, 2012 at 5:49 am
“is a fact too good to check.”
Beautiful, says it all, and I’ll be using it whenever I can crowbar it into a conversation.
======================================================
Dang! Beat me to it, mrsean2k. I’m adding that turn of phrase to my vocabulary, too. It really sums up the mindset – not the competence – of today’s MSM.
‘Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.’ (from The Idler, 1758)
And so it goes. (Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five)
Not the first time this exact same sort of thing happened. The following is from Fred Singer after the publication of a 1997 book that insinuated he was on the payroll of ‘big coal & oil’: “We have yet to catch a glimpse of Gelbspan here at SEPP. In gathering material for his book, he never visited our offices, spoke to no one on staff, and never contacted Fred Singer for an interview to cover point-by-point the claims he later made in his book. He has had no contact with the Project whatsoever….” http://web.archive.org/web/19980710220020/http://sepp.org/controv/gelbspan.html
Ross Gelbspan (around which Desmogblog was formed, as Joe Romm told us in 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/01/07/202254/kudos-to-desmogblog/?mobile=nc ) has every appearance of being what I call the epicenter of the long-term smear of skeptic climate scientists, and was the subject of my February article about another attack on the Heartland Institute, “Fakegate Opens a Door: More than meets the eye in the Heartland controversy” http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/fakegate_opens_a_door.html
I’d like to know where the Heartland Institute stands in the issue of fossil fuel subsidies. You know, being non-Big Oil and all…
Fact checking newspaper articles has gone the way of checking climate models against ground truth data.
It is actually a planned endeavor. Getting the lie out there will then become a “sourced” fact, regardless of the retraction. Just another Stalinist tactic by the Alarmists.
When the expressed goal of the UN and other Statist schemers is to use CAGW to alarm emotionally and change the filtering perception of each person, this kind of “mistake” is unlikely to be an accident. The crisis is needed to justify the socio-economic transformation. So it is important that groups like the Heartland Institute questioning the self-serving modelling and its variance with demonstrable facts have their reputations tainted from the get-go.
So the criticisms and pernicious facts never make it through the carefully constructed Mindset believing the imminence of Catastrophe.
I hate to be so cynical but I have been rereading a dissertation on using Systems Thinking to change the prevailing World-view to a cultural/ecological Mindset and away from the mechanistic socio-technological view from the Enlightenment. Now in the scheming documents the planners will admit systems thinking is just a useful metaphor for realizing political and economic change in the future. When they give professional development seminars though, the participants are led to believe systems thinking reflects factual reality.
And that is supposedly how we get to fundamental global Transformative Change. And the Heartland Institute and Anthony and Jo Nova are all in the way.
@Alexandre 7.47am
Statement before the Senate Finance Committee
Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure March 27, 2012
FY2010 Electricity Production Subsidies and Support per megawatt-hour
(year 2010 dollars)
Natural Gas, Petroleum Liquids 0.63
Coal (pulverized) 0.64
Hydroelectric 0.84
Biomass 2.00
Nuclear 3.10
Geothermal 12.50
Wind 52.48
Solar 968.00
So subsidies per MWh to Wind and Solar are 100 – 1500 times the cost of subsidies to the Big oil. You didn’t really think your question through did you?