mainstream media

He is not 'guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements' and is owed a correction by the NYT

I will examine here the February 24 New York Times article by Andy Revkin to show that Al Gore is not "guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements," as he was accused.

Part 1 detailed how Roger Pielke, Jr. started all this by repeatedly misstating what Gore had said in his AAAS talk (video here). These indefensible charges would have died on the gossip grapevine of the blogosphere, had they not been picked up by Revkin.

I have written multiple emails to Andy in an effort to get him to clear Gore's name in print, and he refuses. If he won't, I feel that someone must for the record and the search engines. If I could clear Gore's name without criticizing Andy, I would. But I can't.

My reason for writing this post is simple. Having your reputation stained in print in the New York Times is a very big deal for anyone because:

• That story is reprinted and excerpted around the planet. It lives on forever.
• The NYT is the "paper of record," and thus considered highly credible (though it shouldn't be).

Let's look at exactly what Revkin wrote in "In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall" (see here, original links, emphasis added):

In the effort to shape the public's views on global climate change, hyperbole is an ever-present temptation on all sides of the debate ...

Mr. Gore, addressing a hall filled with scientists in Chicago, showed a slide that illustrated a sharp spike in fires, floods and other calamities around the world and warned the audience that global warming "is creating weather-related disasters that are completely unprecedented."

...

Both men, experts said afterward, were guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements.

Mr. Gore removed the slide from his presentation after the Belgian research group that assembled the disaster data said he had misrepresented what was driving the upward trend. The group said a host of factors contributed to the trend, with climate change possibly being one of them. A spokeswoman for Mr. Gore said he planned to switch to using data on disasters compiled by insurance companies.

Do you see what Revkin did here?

The NYT's false 'guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements' charge began with false charge by Pielke

In all the hubbub about George Will's falsehood-filled columns and Andy Revkin's equation of Al Gore with George Will in the New York Times, one simple fact has been a largely overlooked:

Contrary to Revkin's assertions, Former Vice President Al Gore is not guilty of "exaggeration," let alone "guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements."

Having communicated at length with Gore's staff and Revkin, I will show that not only did Gore do nothing worthy of the NYT's criticism, but in fact he acted honorably and in the highest traditions of science journalism. Contrary to the impression left by Revkin in his February 24, "News Analysis" piece (see here), Gore and his team work overtime to accurately represent the data and the science.

Gore is very careful in his use of language, more careful than the NYT -- and far more careful than the man who initiated the indefensible charge, Roger Pielke, Jr. As Dylan Otto Krider wrote at Examiner.com:

It was Pielke who provided Revkin with his Gore infraction to "balance out" his article on Will to allow Revkin to say "both sides do it" ...

As we will see in this two-parter, Revkin's case is so weak, so nonexistent, that it rests almost entirely on his interpretation -- on his indefensible overinterpretation -- of one word by Gore, a word that Revkin didn't even include in his article for reasons that will soon be obvious to all.

Part 1 focuses on how Pielke started all this by fabricating a bunch of baseless charges against Gore and smeared the good name of thousands of scientists.

The Washington Post lets George Will reassert all his climate falsehoods plus some new ones

[The NYT's Andy Revkin has a very good debunking of Will with detailed comments from leading cryosphere experts, "Experts: Big Flaw in Will's Ice Assertions." Sadly, Andy continues his refusal to correct the harm he did to Gore by equating him with Will. In a day or two, I will attempt to untarnish Gore's reputation to make clear that he did nothing whatsoever wrong -- intentionally or unintentionally -- as opposed to Will who has done multiple things wrong intentionally.]

"When a reputable newspaper lies, it poisons the community; every newspaper story becomes suspect," declared a New York Times editorial. "Great publications magnify the voice of any single writer. Thus, when their editors or publishers want or need to know a source for what they print, they have to know it and be able to assure the community or the courts that they do. Where this is not now the rule, let this sad affair at least have the good effect of making it the rule." That editorial was published on April 17, 1981 about the transgressions of a Washington Post reporter named Janet Cooke [who fabricated a story, which the Post later submitted for a Pulitzer Prize "despite the growing signs of problems" with the story's veracity].

Incomprehensibly, the Washington Post -- after being roundly criticized for having senior editors and fact-checkers (and then their ombudsman!) sign off on (and then defend) George Will's error-riddled global warming column -- has allowed George Will to reassert in a new column (here) that every single one of his falsehoods was factual. [For a point-by-point debunking of the original February 15 piece, see CP and Wonk Room [PDF] and this joint letter to WP].

And in what seems to be Alice-in-Wonderland journalism, a senior editor at the Washington Post now asserts it is perfectly reasonable for a non-scientist Post writer to reinterpret a prestigious source's scientific data to support his or her conclusion -- after those sources have repeatedly stated that their data is consistent with the exact opposite conclusion and without telling readers of that disagreement. And not only did Will do that multiple times in his first piece -- the Post still let him do it again after he was called on it by multiple writers (see Washington Monthly and here).

Much as I would like to spend my time writing about the strategies needed to prevent business-as-usual warming of 5°C to 7°C, both of my parents were award-winning professional journalists, and I think this story is simply too important not to focus a maximum spotlight on.

I will go through Will's new and old falsehoods at length here because, as I noted above, the NYT editorialized on the Post's infamous Janet Cooke scandal, "When a reputable newspaper lies, it poisons the community; every newspaper story becomes suspect." Just as with the Janet Cooke scandal, this is about a major Washington Post writer fabricating and misusing sources.

Media Matters saw Will's column in advance and debunked it here, showing how Will doubled down on his previous global warming distortions and cited a document on sea ice trends as evidence against human-caused global warming when that "document actually states that the sea ice data are consistent with the outcomes projected by climate-change models." And Will cited the U.N. World Meteorological Organization [WMO] -- with no source citation -- saying "there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade," when, as Media Matters showed, as recently as January 7, Agence France-Presse quoted WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud as saying, "The major trend is unmistakably one of warming." I have similar quotes from WMO in my original post.

The abuse of sources in Will's columns -- signed off on and defended by the Post's editors (and ombudsman) should be a cautionary tale equal to the Janet Cooke story. One can only assume, sadly, that given the controversy, Will's new piece was as at least as fact-checked as the original, which, according to the Washington Post ombudsman was "checked by people he [Will] personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors" (see here).

And yet the fact-checkers let through a lie so egregious that it would seem to utterly vitiate the credibility of the Post all by itself. Will was allowed to publish the following statement:

Washington Post is staffed with people who found no mistakes in George Will's denial

After my debunking of George Will's recent column collection of error-filled denier talking points [redundant], it became somewhat of a sport on the internet (see here). I had written:

I don't know whether it is more pathetic that Will believes this or that the Washington Post simply lets him publish this lie again and again.

Now we know it is the latter, thanks to Brad Johnson at WonkRoom, who got this jaw-dropping email from Post ombudsman Andy Alexander:

Basically, I was told that the Post has a multi-layer editing process and checks facts to the fullest extent possible. In this instance, George Will's column was checked by people he personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors.

Paging Woodward and Bernstein. [The CP fact checker notes that Woodward abandoned journalism based on facts, at least checkable facts, many years ago.]

Both of my parents were professional journalists, and I must say that response makes me want to cry. I could understand Will's people stooges signing off on his crap -- they drink from the same pitcher of Kool-Aid. And I could understand if the Post said that they don't fact-check opinion pieces.

But there is no clearer evidence of how far traditional journalism has sunk than that five different editors associated with the Washington Post signed off on a piece that brings to mind Mary McCarthy's famous quip about Lillian Hellman:

Every word she writes is a lie -- including 'and' and 'the.'

I am not going to redebunk Will here point-by-point, but I will excerpt the devastating response to the ombudsman's lazy defense of Will penned by Hilzoy of the Washington Monthly. After you read it, I'm sure you will want to give Andy Alexander (ombudsman@washpost.com) -- "the reader's advocate" -- a piece of your mind (and please do repost it in the comments).

Alexander's original email ends:

Eric Pooley offers nine questions on climate legislation that the press ought to ask Obama

Eric Pooley continues his quest to single-handedly raise the intelligence of mainstream media climate coverage by a factor of ten: Thursday on the Nieman Watchdog site, he lays out "nine climate questions for President Obama" on the upcoming climate bill. I won't attempt to summarize them here. Suffice to say, a) he hits the most important issues, and b) the chances of anyone in the U.S. political press corps asking Obama questions this informed and nuanced are somewhere between slim and nil.

I was going to conclude this post by cleverly pointing out an important question Pooley missed, but I can't think of one. Go read.

NYT breaks story on CO2 regulations … after two years of Grist coverage

Back in mid-January, Kate covered Lisa Jackson's confirmation hearing, in which Jackson promised to move ahead on the CO2 endangerment finding:

On climate change, Jackson said she would have the EPA declare whether greenhouse gases pose a danger to humankind and need to be regulated -- an action mandated by the Supreme Court, but put off by the Bush administration. "When that finding happens, when EPA makes a decision on endangerment, let me put it that way, it will indeed trigger the beginnings of regulation of CO2 for this country," she said.

Then, this past Tuesday, Kate covered the fact that Jackson announced the beginning of the endangerment finding process.

Back in December, I posted some thoughts on regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act.

At the beginning of February, the folks from the Constitutional Accountability Center wrote two excellent posts (here and here) on the politics and mechanics of regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act.

Our own Sean Casten has published at least two interesting posts (here and here) on the technical and legal challenges of regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act.

And on Tuesday, I posted an extensive analysis of the politics and mechanics of regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act.

Meanwhile, today, The New York Times finally got around to covering the story.

And lo! The blogs are suddenly abuzz with the news! Friends are emailing me the article! "Did you know about this?!" Our own commenters are saying "This will be the top story here on Grist tomorrow."

Yeeeeaaaaaaaargh!

WaPo lets Will off, lectures Boxer on climate change

The Washington Post editorial board, which just this weekend elected to run a column from George Will denying climate change entirely, now presumes to lecture Barbara Boxer on how to solve it.

It's amazing how long people like this have ruled our national discourse.

World carbon dioxide levels jump 2.3 ppm in 2008 to highest in 650,000 years

NOAA's Global Monitoring Division reports that global concentrations of the primary heat-trapping greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, jumped 2.28 ppm in 2008.

A study in Science from the Global Carbon Project (see "More on soaring carbon concentrations") noted:

Superb NYT story captures both coal's peril and the barriers to its elimination

"Is America Ready to Quit Coal?"

So asks a must-read story by Melanie Warner in the Sunday New York Times.

And so, slowly, fitfully, that possibility -- the possibility not just of cleaning up coal or using less coal but eliminating coal -- creeps its way into the American public consciousness.

The headline isn't the only thing worth celebrating. I would quibble with some details, but overall this piece comes closer than anything I've ever seen in the national media to getting the big story right.

It starts off by describing what too few people understand: coal is in a perilous position. Already building new coal plants is extremely expensive; any new regulations -- on CO2, MTR mining, coal ash, you name it -- could put new plants permanently off the table.

But the more interesting parts, to me, are those that describe the barriers in the way of quitting coal. Here are the big three, in order of importance:

The fear that that there's no alternative.

"[W]hether renewables can keep the lights on and our iPods charged remains an open question."

Loss aversion is, in your author's humble opinion, at the core of the coal fight. If the American people can be convinced an alternative is possible, they will not accept dirty, unhealthy energy, any more than they accept tainted water or cars without seat belts. But the fear of letting go of the devil they know, the fear of jumping into the unknown, is incredibly potent.

"Charging iPods" trivializes it; electricity provides basic sustenance, shelter, and comfort for families. For children. This is primal lizard-brain stuff. You do not mess with it lightly. Those looking to dethrone coal in the public imagination would do well to focus most of their firepower not on coal itself but on establishing the credibility and reliability of the renewables/efficiency alternative. It can't be cutting edge and whizbang forever. It's got to be safe for soccer moms in suburban Atlanta.

The fear of rising prices.