The watchdog organization Media Matters has uncovered disturbing new internal emails from the Washington bureau of Fox News. The emails suggest Fox News’ slanted coverage of climate science isn’t the result of a subtle bias, but of a deliberate directive from Fox News management to falsely represent science:
In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the “veracity of climate change data” and ordering the network’s journalists to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.”
The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was “on track to be the warmest [decade] on record.” […]
Sammon’s orders for Fox journalists to cast doubt on climate science came amid the network’s relentless promotion of the fabricated “Climategate” scandal, which revolved around misrepresentations of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.
As National Wildlife Federation President & CEO Larry Schweiger wrote in his book Last Chance, “Walter Cronkite’s journalistic values are gone, and Glenn Beck’s are in.”
As Grist readers know, the more scientists investigate global warming, the more convinced they are that current manmade global warming is unprecedented in magnitude, speed & cause. Learn more about global warming’s impact on people, wildlife & America’s natural resources at NWF.org/Climate.
