The Union of Concerned Scientists yesterday announced the
findings of a study it undertook of the accuracy of Fox News and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) opinion page coverage of climate
change, which has become the polite euphemism for describing the rapid and
destructive warming of the Earth. Note that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation
owns both of these media outlets.
In announcing the results, a climate scientist with the
organization noted that they began the study because they had heard a large
amount of anecdotal information that “suggested that there was bias and
misrepresentation at the News Corporation of the fact that human-induced
climate change is happening...” In other words, instead of accepting the
anecdotes, the organization did what scientists are supposed to do: they objectively
gathered the facts and then analyzed them.
And the results don’t draw a pretty picture of the
intellectual honesty of either Fox or the Journal.
The analysis
found that over a recent six-month period of prime time coverage, 93% of all references
to climate change on Fox News had misleading information.
For the Wall Street
Journal’s opinion page, another six-month analysis revealed that a mere 81%
of climate change mentions had misleading information, but get this—every
single example of an accurate presentation of climate change facts and issues
came in letters to the editor in rebuttal to inaccuracies presented in Journal columns, articles and
editorials.
The study found that on Fox News, the most common criticism
of climate science was to dismiss the scientific consensus that climate change
is occurring or human-induced. In the Journal
(quoting the report), “most of the
misleading editorials, op-eds, columns, and letters attempted to broadly
undermine the major conclusions of climate science. Instances of attacks on
individual scientists, mocking the science, and cherry picking data were all
equally common.”
The results of this analysis are stunning because they
reveal to what extent large numbers of people are being manipulated by the lies
and false assumptions of climate change deniers. We expect this kind of
mendacity from Fox News, but for years, the Wall
Street Journal has had a mostly deserved reputation for accurate reporting
of news events.
Just in case you were wondering, the Union of Concerned
Scientists has been around since 1969. Its mission statement states that “The Union of Concerned Scientists is the
leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer
world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to
develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in
government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.”
My first thought in reviewing the study was that it was
proof that there has been way too much consolidation of media properties. There
used to be laws preventing companies from owning more than a certain number of
radio or TV stations. The laws were there for a reason: to prevent one company
or person from being able to dominate the news media and therefore replace the
free marketplace of ideas. It was a great example of government regulation
increasing democracy and freedom. These
rules are mostly gone, and the result is that about 8 companies now control
most of the broadcast and print media and the publishing industry.
But then I checked Google News to see how many stories there
were about this study one day after its release. The answer is not very
complimentary to the rest of the media: it was a number less than 2.
Yes, dear readers, so far only one media outlet has
found and covered the news that News Corporation’s two flagship media outlets
regularly deceive the public about one of the most important issues of the 21st
century. Whether that’s an example of shoddy reporting or self-censorship I’ll
leave to my readers to decide.
To help you with your decision, I’ll close by noting that an
update on the stormy romantic relationship between an actor and an actress got
146,000 hits on Google News, while the suspension of the driving license of
another actress garnered 110,000 hits and the bachelor party of another actor
got a mere 5,140 hits.
Ughh!
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