When the Corporate Media Covers Global Warming...

By: Lowell
Published On: 3/4/2008 7:59:17 AM

...they don't ask questions of candidates at debates, they don't give it much attention at all, but apparently they do cover a gathering of global warming deniers "[s]ponsored by the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank funded by energy and health-care corporations as well as conservative foundations and individuals."  

At least the Washington Post article quotes a real scientist, Princeton University geosciences professor Michael Oppenheimer, who mocks the deniers as having to "get together to talk to each other, because nobody else is talking to them." Except, apparently, the Washington Post, which takes up valuable space in its newspaper talking about these idiots and not writing about the scientific facts of the situation, day in and day out. And while we're on this mini-rant, why is it that in so many corporate media articles on global warming, there has to be a stab at "balance," as in "99.999999% of scientists agree that man-made global warming is taking place, but now let's spend half the article quoting the 0.000000001% of people who deny reality?"  As usual, the corporate media completely fails us.  And they wonder why their readership is plummeting?

Comments



The right-wing has apparently had some success... (ericy - 3/4/2008 9:17:49 AM)

in framing the issue as a political question and not a scientific one, and hence the need for "balance".

It really ticks off the deniers when you tell them that consensus has already been reached by the scientific community.  I had one guy hoovering the internet for links to prove I was wrong - and came up with a link to what sounded like the Russian equivalent of the National Enquirer.



the shame of it is everything has become a "political question" in America (Alter of Freedom - 3/4/2008 1:52:08 PM)
when we do not take things on the merits of the case being presented and simply see things through political glasses in the end WE all will lose as well as the future generations. When you have twenty four hour news agencies looking to fill in every second of every day America gets served up a hefty dose of politicized agendas. Politics to cable is becoming the new sex and politics SELLS, especially when you can keep people divided.


Tom Davis, coming around again for Big Oil (Andrea Chamblee - 3/4/2008 9:46:54 AM)
I started blogging against Davis when he said "he didn't take a nickle from oil companies" ... and it turned out he took 1.25 Million dollars.

Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008 - The House voted to repeal certain tax deductions for oil and gas companies in order to pay for the extension of renewable energy and energy conservation tax credits for individuals.

Rep. Thomas Davis III voted NO......send an e-mail to your crooked congressman!



Obama needs his own "Best and the Brightest" (Bernie Quigley - 3/4/2008 12:19:11 PM)
The lobbyists, the politicians, the media don't realize how fully they are linked and much of the linkage is generational. I follow closely British papers and BBC - they are all going for Hillary making an 11th hour "come back" as are so many Republicans and psycho-babble radio and print commentators. (Der Spiegel is more grounded.) BBC's Katty Kay and other staff went fully into Iraq as Bush shills. As if it was 1956, Anthony Eden was gonna retake the Suez and Bush had repealed Eisenhower. This week they seem issue-less: It is bad enough without Bush but without Hillary as their "oppositional paradigm" they are Lost. Obama leaves them entirely irrelevant and politically "post seasonal." It is Sherlock Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty going over the waterfall together.

Obama needs to bring up his own "Best and the Brightest" as Jack Kennedy did. The old establishment, including Eleanor Roosevelt, did not like the Kennedys and did not support them.  Kennedy, with the great speech writer and adviser Ted Sorensen, had to awakened his own new day. His key people up here were Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., John Kenneth Galbriath and Steele Commanger, Jr. It parallels the Clinton camp today in opposition to the new Obama path. Barack and Michelle need to do exactly the same as JFK did in close and conspicuous association with a few BRAND NEW original thinkers.