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The Post ombudsman whitewashes George Will’s columns, the editors, and his own role:
[Via Climate Progress]
Please email and phone Andrew Alexander at 202-334-7582 or at ombudsman@washpost.com.
The Washington Post ombudsman is the paper’s “internal critic and represents readers.” Yet Andrew Alexander has basically decided to take on the role of defender of Will and the Post and his own mistakes. He has seriously undermined both his credibility and his independence, while at the same time making himself part of the story -; serious mistakes for an ombudsman.
You can read Alexander’s column here. You can read a good line by line response by Siegal here.
I have three main issues. First, for Alexander, the entire controversy is about “the reference to the Arctic Climate Research Center.” In short, he got suckered by Will’s second column in which Will now infamously made his most egregious lie and the Post editors let him get away with it:
The [February 15] column contained many factual assertions but only one has been challenged. The challenge is mistaken.
As readers know, the first column contained multiple falsehoods that were challenged point by point here, elsewhere, and even in a joint letter to the Post from several leading environmentalists.
And the second column was egregiously allowed to reassert that all of those other falsehoods were “factual assertions,” plus make some new falsehoods, as I detailed at length here: In a blunder reminiscent of Janet Cooke scandal, the Washington Post lets George Will reassert all his climate falsehoods plus some new ones.
[This is not to let Will off for his abuse of the Arctic ice source, which Alexander entirely missed the point on. See, for instance, the NYT- Revkin here and below.]
[more]
Joe debunks, or links to debunkings, of all the really atrocious stuff written by Will in his last 2 columns. Perhaps it will reach some of the minds that are still receptive.
George Will continues to misrepresent that data, in ways that he has done consistently for the last 25 years. It is a shame that his editors back him up with the same sorts of misleading statements. With misleading writing like this it is no wonder so few people actually have any understanding of what is going on.
And that is their purpose. Just like the tobacco companies spent 50 years trying to sow confusion about the dangers of cigarette smoking, we continue to have a small group of ideologues and corporations who are muddying the waters. They do not want the populace to understand.
Science deniers, whether it is climate change and evolution on the right, or anti-vaccinationists on the left, use such similar tactics as to be writing from the same books. Quote mining, total misrepresentation of the data, and cherry-picking are seen in all these attempts at science denial. Conspiracies of scientists are also a part of the tactics. Appeal to authority, often combined with quote mining, is a particularly favorite tactic, especially if the person that is misquoted actually said the exact opposite. They also continue to spew the same arguments that have been shown to be incorrect before.
Being a biologist, I have dealt with these tactics with respect to evolution. Now you can see the same sorts of things with respect to climate change.
Often these denialists think that if they can simply find one thing ‘wrong’ that negates the entire body of work.
The climate change denialists said 10 years ago “There is no proof of global warming.” Now that they can no longer deny that climate change is occurring (although there are still some trying) it is now all a natural process, without any human aspect.
Look, if these guys had actually ever been right, maybe they would be worth listening to. Maybe if they actually produced a body of work explaining how every lab generating data has been doing it wrong, they would be worth listening to.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is the best theory we have for ALL the data. If you want to overthrow that theory, come up with something that beats that it by explaining the data we have in a more robust fashion.
But there is no real evidence that will ever convince the ideologues and corporations of denial that the large number of experts working in a wide variety of fields using a tremendous number of unique technologies are actually right.
So our job is to ignore them when we can and come down hard on them when they are up to their tricks.
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by woodleywonderworks
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