Balanced Reporting

Earlier this week, two Washington Post articles demonstrated, yet again, the Post's editors' dedication to modeling Post reporting after Faux News when it comes to Global Warming: "Fair and Balanced" over objective and truthful. In what were otherwise quite interesting and even valuable articles to read, the Post inserted material from Global Warming deniers and skeptics to assure that they had 'both sides of the story'.

Greening Higher Learning

Sunday's Higher Learning Adapts to a Greening Attitude was a truly interesting (and somewhat hope-inspiring article) about how college campuses and their educational programs are changing, changing in the face of student demands for more environmentally sound campuses and educational programs. Rather than recycling bins in the cafeterias, the focus has shifted as

"It should be part of everything we do," said Ligia Johnson, a Catholic student whose plan for the Kenilworth neighborhood in Northeast Washington included roofs that collect rainwater and grow plants and trees.

What was once a fringe interest, perhaps seemingly a fad, has become fully entrenched in academic life, university officials say, affecting not just how students live but what they learn and, as graduates, how they will change workplaces and neighborhoods.

An article worth reading with a real ouch factor in the ninth and tenth paragraphs when two notable skeptics each are given a paragraph: Donald J Boudreaux and Richard Lindzen.

For those who are skeptical about global warming and think that the current trend is often too alarmist, the changes carry risk. "It discredits science," said Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT. "It's propaganda," he added, with opposing viewpoints rarely explored.

Lindzen, you might wish to know, has stated that Exxon-Mobil is "the only principled oil and gas company I know in the US."

Please let me know when you've picked yourself off the floor and stopped laughing (or crying) so that we can get on with this.

....

Done?

Okay.

These two are quoted with their serious sounding titles that make them sound more authoritative, when it comes to Global warming, than those eco-leftist architecture students and professors. Does The Washington Post provide any context provided about how they're among the normal talking heads brought to the table to provide the "other side" to the overwhelming majority of scientists who have looked at the Theory of Global Warming, tested it, and found that (sadly) it passed the tests? Of course not.

Tainting Jim Hansen

Monday saw an article about Jim Hansen's 20th anniversary of speaking out forcefully in public on Global Warming issues, Turning up the Heat on Climate Issue

There have been hotter days on Capitol Hill, but few where the heat itself became a kind of congressional exhibit. It was 98 degrees on June 23, 1988, and the warmth leaked in through the three big windows in Dirksen 366, overpowered the air conditioner, and left the crowd sweating and in shirt sleeves.

James E. Hansen, a NASA scientist, was testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He was planning to say something radical: Global warming was real, it was a threat, and it was already underway.

Hansen had hoped for a sweltering day to underscore his message.

"We were just lucky," Hansen said

This is really a pretty good article, setting up readers up for reporting on Hansen's testimony to Congress and speech to the National Press Club later than day.  

A good article which, of course, had to have balance.

James Inhofe (R-Exxon) was given a couple paragraphs to comment. Any indication that Inhofe is the most virulent global warming denier in the Congress and that he has called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". For Inhofe, in essence, Global Warming is the latest Black Helicopter craze of UN conspiracy to take over the United States (and the globe).

Sigh ...

Yet again, The "Fair and Balanced" Washington Post threw into the trash the concept of objective and truthful reporting when it comes to Global Warming.

Not just reporting, also oped pages

Monday, Bill McKibben (StepItUp, 350.org, etc) had a great (must-read) piece: End of the Open Road: The Land of the Perpetual Frontier Meets $4-a-Gallon Gas discussing implications of rising energy prices and global warming. He also offered a vision of positive change.  Yet, again, a must-read.

Good has to be balanced with bad (with evil?).  Amid a balanced four conservatives and david broder, The Post handed over editorial space to serial deceiver Bjorn Lomborg. Despite having been caught with dishonesty in past opeds for The Post and reviews shredding his work for the truthiness it is, Lomborg got to publish a seemingly rational and reasonable, but climate delayer oped this week. Lomborg is smooth, very smooth, which makes him an extremely dangerous skeptic / delayer, as he comes off as reasonable and thoughtful.  He, however, has had a long record of deception and truthiness which, of course, The Post explained to their unsuspecting readers. NOT!

To return to Fiddler on the Roof, with the abject apologies for dirtying Tevye with association with this ugliness, let us ask the question:

Is there a proper blessing for Bjorn Lomborg?  

Absolutely!  

May God bless The Post and Bjorn Lomborg and keep them far away from us (from the US)!

NOTE:

For any masochistic enough to go through a range of Washington Post reckless endangerment of the truth when it comes to Global Warming, see:

Framing Climate Change politics -- Truthiness reigns at the Post

Post on Bush's Speech

WashPost Blurs R-D Presidential Race's Climate Change Differences

WE: WashPost Reporting: Balanced vs Objective