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“We were following up on anecdotal and peer reviewed assessments to date that suggested that there was bias and misrepresentation at the News Corporation of the fact that human-induced climate change is happening, the vast scientific evidence that’s out there.”
Brenda Ekwurzel is a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. She announced in New York City on September 21st the results of an analysis of climate change coverage at two major properties of the News Corporation, the Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal.
“What we found in our analysis was that a staggering 93 percent of all occurrences in the last six months in the prime time news of Fox News were misleading occurrences of climate science. Okay, for The Wall Street Journal opinion section in the last year, we found a surprising 81 percent of the occurrences were misleading. And of the accurate ones, these were all letters to the editor that were submitted in response to misrepresentations in editorials or other letters. So, a broad swath of News Corporation viewers and readership are being misled about the science.”
—Steve Mirsky
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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24 Comments
Add CommentAs opposed to the fine graphs and charts presented by Mr. Gore with no scales, misleading scaling and no labels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey probably think the Earth is around 6,000 years old , too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo surprise here. Some suspected so but the reality is beyond the mere suspicion of a bias. Its deliberate and extreme.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is how the radical right works. If the facts are inconvenient, lie. If people challenge you then lie some more and accuse them of being part of a conspiracy. Then hopefully, if you lie often enough people will start to believe its true. Is it any surprise that the american christian party is populated by people of such low moral character? Hopefully some day the US will honor the first amendment to the constitution. It doesn't seem to have a problem honoring the second, despite the huge toll in human life that it takes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvosburgh,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOdd that you would use a redirect tactic enforced by your dislike for Al Gore as a counter to this disturbing report. Is it that you are upset that Al Gore's reports were 96% accurate or that your pundit was 93% inaccurate? Maybe it is neither and I am being presumptuously conclusive of your intention. However, your comment seemed dismissive of the importance of this podcast to our social development as a country. Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are feeding grossly inaccurate information to the masses. That is sociologically as well as environmentally dangerous.
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The News Corporation is the culprit in this case? A free press is necessary to protect our freedom. So problems with reporting bias are news worthy indeed. The Wall Street Journal had a reputation for reporting however the News Corporation is evidently buying a commodity in that respect to bad its value and shelf life is expiring due to its contents being rotten. Propaganda labeled with integrity by reputation. So that's why they bought the Wall Street Journal? Its kind of like drinking a big gulp of milk to find it spoiled, its never the same after you have to check the content for spoilage before consumption. So the reasoning is this: if this is bias what else?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ Al Toti - Much more than suspected; knew with three nines of probability. Murdoch runs propaganda companies and tabloids. He has left the journalistic aspect of the WSJ pretty much alone, but if the world is unfortunate enough for him to stay alive for a while yet, he'll start working on that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is disturbing is that many people with no particular rational motive (lots of oil or coal company stock, etc.) to believe his lies believe them anyway. This suggests the right has tapped into, as a driving force for their politics, darker motives that all the participants deny. Perhaps evosburgh could elucidate; or maybe he's a coal company exec. You never know; maybe he is rationally pursuing pure greed.
Pure greed would dictate using integrity in reporting. A poisoned news product is not worthy of purchase. No something else perhaps?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I agree that Fox/News corp is a toxic source, that does not mean they are wrong on everything. What about all the peer reviewed reports that say global warming is not man-made and that it is actually declining? There is no presentation of the other side here; just more propaganda disguised as peer reviewed
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe point of fox news, christian fundamentalist, and the self proclaimed "conservatives" out there is to justify natural resource plundering, polluting, and plain gluttony. If the "others" are wrong about man's influence on climate but move forward with conservationist's technology and tactics, we get cleaner air, water, cost efficient technologies, and extend the abundance of global natural beauty and resources. If the latter are wrong and we go the lazy, gluttonous rout, we are doubly screwed. ....And I say, "self proclaimed conservative" because there is nothing conservative about the way they treat the environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless if a news source is pushing untruth it is worse than outright lies. The power of disinformation by so called trusted sources have launched a wars and worse. President Eisenhower's speech on the military industrial complex is a classic he was used by those he trusted. It does not matter if its right or wrong if you cant trust it. How would I argue this before a Judge: Well you see some of the stuff might be OK or not as the case may be so why not accept the testimony of this liar? Oh yea I think I know what the Judge might say. It might not be nice or polite and if it were polite it might be worse than just rude. If you source is not trust worthy it is worse than nothing you are being used. The testimony is thrown out cast away unfit. Yes they are in fact wrong on everything even if the truth is told because a liar is not worth the time of day how do you know when the truth is untruth? No? You accept it because truth is occasionally distributed? It might not be a lie? The worst boondoggles in history are lies accepted as truth what could British intelligence say about that or Eisenhower. Misrepresentation deliberately made is clear and present danger to the integrity of a News organization and clearly a threat to the integrity of Nation and World so it is a very serious issue. So many resort to distorting information. Professionals study misleading obscuring and otherwise hiding the facts as well as the good ol deniability ah yes its was not my fault. However a news organization is not expected to resort to spy counterspy tactic's or representation by counsel. It is expected to report not obscure if its worth buying and reading. Your being used. So yes they are wrong on everything if even one distortion is detected. Why sort through is this truth or distortion? Why waste you time? Life is fleeting. A deliberate bias is as good as a lie in my book perhaps worse. Sad for the Journal so sad. I think the News Corp had done many many things poorly. It goes on and on and on. A free press is one of the things that made this country and lies will enslave it. No Fox has nothing I want to hear I need the facts not Fox and sadly the suggestion is that the opinion section of the Journal is being systematically used hmm jimmywat do you have any clue about that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jimmywat
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnnnnnd which ones would those be?
No, Fox is not wrong on everything. They were right 7% of the time on Climate information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey should just stop calling themselves a News organization, which implies some level of truth.
"What about all the peer reviewed reports that say global warming is not man-made and that it is actually declining? There is no presentation of the other side here; just more propaganda disguised as peer reviewed", thanks for proving my point. There is no "peer reviewed reports" saying global warming is not man-made. You are lying. What's more; I find it amusing that you would tout your position as "peer reviewed" while dismissing your opponents position as being "disguised as peer reviewed". Again we see the low moral character of the right as it tries to manufacture confusion and doubt in order to advance its agenda. Is being a shill the best thing you can do with your life?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat would be relevant if there WERE ANY SUCH REPORTS. The few papers which have tended to cast doubt on AGW have either had gross methodological flaws or were simply hypotheses that have since not held up against further observations. There's simply no credible doubt left. If you ask 100 climatologists 99 of them will tell you there hasn't been any serious doubt in 20 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is rather unfortunate that we now live ina asociety where about 26% of the population choose political ideology over fact based scientific research, a society that has led an organized campaign defined to redfine a theory as a hypothesis and rejects science for their personal preference of their particular brand of religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf evolution is about survival of those best equipped to to deal with the environemnt in which they live, then these people are dooming the future of a majority of mankind based on an ideaology and/or a religious based system of amorality that the majority of humans do not share.
It is a morally bankrupt practice of intentionally ignoring facts and science for the sake of saving a few dollars at the pump or practicing a dogmatic for of dominonism that history will show to have been one of the greatest crimes against humanity in our entire history.
What people fail to to realize about ideologies and religions, is that in time, they they have all failed or fallen to mythology as they are replaced and outgrown.
How much longer must we wait for the Judeo-Christian faiths to fade to the shelves of mythology, where they so deserve to reside?
Would this writer be biased to one side or the other? I'd guess yes and let you pick which side she favors. Nothing to read here that's fair and balanced!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTypical, instead of contesting the information, throw out a red herring. Next are you going to try a ad hominem attack?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have not heard of any legitimate peer-reviewed research that comes to the conclusions you mention....if you have information on where I can find such research, please let us know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBefore I go on I'd like to know a couple things before you amazing intellects cause the seas to stop rising. First, what temperature is the earth suppose to be? Second, why is global warming bad? Last time i checked, rain forests don't exist under the snow. Crops don't grow better where the ground is frozen. I'm sorry but, I won't miss the ice caps.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis study itself is propaganda. It uses opinion sections as proof of wrongness. What?
Why do they use "climate change" interchangeably with anthropogenic climate change. That's propaganda in and of itself. I read another article on this here at SA and the study was done using "key word search" as proof. That story didn't even bother to mention that Fox has a lot of commentary shows.
I'd like to know why you people jump all over Fox when most of you never even watch it. You're leftists and that, as far as i'm concerned, proves you never ever ever entertain opposing viewpoints.
Americans value the press not propaganda passed for profit or worse to manipulate we have seen enough of that after all propaganda is an American invention. Americans are not leftes not rightes. Americans want to be free not enslaved by lies non-truth or distortions. Equivocate all you want its not what I want to buy or watch. Eisenhower had it right. This issue in my opinion is not so much global warming I believe that the oil and coal interests will burn every scrap of fuel exiting on Earth regardless of a possible consequence however the possibility of agonizing death for Humanity will not affect me I plan to be in my grave long before. Perhaps this might effect others who have children and want them to grow up in a world full of life and respect the truth. Defend bias lie about opponents Eisenhower had something to say about dangers to the American way of life I think Fox qualifies as dangerous by those Conservative all American standards. Like truth.
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Yet another example of the stupidity of the constitutional US right to lie.
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