The other day Andrew Dessler and I wrote about a piece of climate skeptic hoo-ha that somehow got published on Huffington Post. There was nothing particularly notable about the piece itself — just the usual recycled confusions and distortions — but it was somewhat remarkable that it appeared on a progressive news site whose proprietor has strongly criticized mainstream journalism for its pathological and misleading "balance" even on settled issues of fact.
Now, via email, Arianna Huffington clarifies:
Harold Ambler reached out to me about posting a critical piece on Al Gore and the environment. We are always open to posts that present opinions contrary to HuffPost’s editorial view — and have welcomed many conservative voices, such as David Frum, Tony Blankley, Michael Smerconish, Bob Barr, Joe Scarborough, Jim Talent, etc., to the site. We have featured also countless posts from the leading lights of the Green movement, including Robert Redford, Laurie David, Carl Pope, Van Jones, David Roberts, and many others — and I myself have written extensively about the global warming crisis, and have been highly critical of those who refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence.
When Ambler sent his post, I forwarded it to one of our associate blog editors to evaluate, not having read it. I get literally hundreds of posts a week submitted like this and obviously can’t read them all — which is why we have an editorial process in place. The associate blog editor published the post. It was an error in judgment. I would not have posted it. Although HuffPost welcomes a vigorous debate on many subjects, I am a firm believer that there are not two sides to every issue, and that on some issues the jury is no longer out. The climate crisis is one of these issues.
This, shall we say, casts a new light on a comment that Ambler left on our piece over on HuffPo:
Again, my full response will be a couple of weeks from now. In the meantime, there is a second factual error in your piece regarding how I got posted on HuffPo. My only contact with the site prior to being published was Arianna Huffington herself, who read my piece, accepted it, and directed her staff to post it.
Sure she did, Harold.
Anyway, kudos to Huffington for taking responsibility and clarifying her site’s editorial approach.
Now we can all get on with our lives … until the next skeptic fruitcake resurrects the same zombie lies on some other unsuspecting site. Then we start all over again. It never gets old!
