LA Times Editorial- "A memo to reporters on climate science suggests an unacceptable level of bias."

[TomCADem]

Here is a relatively rare mainstream media story that holds Fox News accountable, rather than simply circling the wagons and defending Fox News against any attack on its objectivity as the rambling of liberal zealot.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-foxnews-20101217,0,6952663.story

Love it or hate it, Fox News has shaken up the media establishment and achieved financial success by airing the views of strident conservative pundits. Yet while the network has never made any bones about the political slant of opinion shows hosted by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly, executives often claim that its news coverage is "fair and balanced." A memo revealed this week by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters calls that into question.

* * *

"We should 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," read an e-mail sent by Sammon to news reporters on Dec. 8, 2009, and revealed this week by Media Matters. The memo went out 15 minutes after a Fox News reporter accurately explained to viewers that United Nations scientists had issued a report saying 2000 to 2009 was shaping up to be the warmest decade on record — even warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s.

Such data aren't in serious dispute among climate scientists. The way the data are interpreted can vary; it's legitimate for climate skeptics to reach conclusions that contradict mainstream theories. But only a crank would deny the underlying temperature data that show the Earth getting warmer — records compiled by independent stations around the world, combined with satellite measurements and confirmed by observations of rising sea levels, vanishing glaciers and other inputs — because to do so is to deny material and measurable facts. Instructing reporters to treat such facts as controversial is like telling them to question the laws of gravity when discussing plane crashes. The only reason for doing it is to further a partisan agenda, in this case an attempt to cast doubt on climate science in order to fend off government efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

Fox should either come clean about this and crack down on such partisanship in its news ranks, or it should stop pretending to be an objective news source.

[spanone]

1. k&r

[JDPriestly]

2. Fox enjoys the freedom of the press to broadcast lies and misrepresentations

But it's a crime for Assange to publish the truth.

So, we must conclude that publishing lies is legal, but publishing the truth is not.

It's all so confusing.

[enough]

3. k&r (nt)