Mainstream media's mockery

America's mainstream media can't ignore those who question manmade climate change. So they ridicule them instead.

Sadly, a news-filled major conference of unintimidated freethinkers drew scorn from most media that deigned to cover it, and those reporters actually likened the gathering to a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.

The Heartland Institute convened the New York City conference, called the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. If Heartland's goal was to expose the media as well as the hype on global warming, it at least succeeded in the first objective.

Some journalists personally belittled the conferees. Some solicited others to make a cutesy put-down and then printed those negative quotes – something journalists rarely do when reporting the claims of global-warming alarmists.

There was one thing the media outlets almost universally did not do: They did not report on the substance of the meeting. They disregarded the presentation of science, studies and papers – facts – over multiple days.

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Attendees rarely were dignified with the label of scientists, researchers or anything other than "skeptics." Reporters treated the conference like they'd been assigned to visit a carnival and report on the freak show, with a prize for whoever could find the most amusing or disgusting way to describe it.

CNN's Miles O'Brien used most of his airtime to describe conferees as out-of-step folks who ignore the truth, concluding with this observation: "Even the Flat Earth Society didn't fold its tents in 1493."

The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin seemed to take special delight in throwing barbs. Eilperin disregarded the scientific debate because it was "a stark contrast to the near-unanimous chorus of concern expressed by top U.S. politicians and most of the scientific mainstream." So she reported critics' efforts at humor, including one wit who said the conference "looks like the climate equivalent of Custer's last stand." Said another: "I'm sure that the Flat Earth Society had a few final meetings before they broke up." And: "They have to get together to talk to each other, because nobody else is talking to them."

To the New York Times' Andrew Rivkin, it was a "quirky conference" of people "driven mainly by libertarian passions or a nonconformist streak." In a companion article, Rivkin highlighted a claim that the conference was "a harmful distraction" from the agenda of the climate-change mob.

What they couldn't ridicule, most reporters chose to ignore. Unless they read the press from Prague, few Americans learned one speaker was the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, who proclaimed, "Global warming alarmism is marching on."

"The insurmountable problem as I see it," Klaus added, "lies in the political populism of its exponents and in their unwillingness to listen to arguments."

But there was plenty of other substance, as a few inquiring reporters realized. WorldNetDaily, of course, covered it. And Reason magazine's account was full of tantalizing tidbits, such as describing how the accelerated warming of Greenland indeed would cause loss of the ice cap – at the rate of .eight-tenths of one percent, if the trend continues, for another 100 years. Similar facts just didn't get reported by a mainstream media too busy poking fun.

Straightforward reporting in daily newspapers, including an article in the New York Sun, unfortunately was rare. And while other cable and broadcast outlets ignored Heartland's meeting, "Fox & Friends" did not. Steve Doocy began an interview with, "Is there another side to this story? Many scientists would say yes, but most media outlets – the mainstream media – only cover Al Gore's 'Earth has a fever' perspective."

How true.

John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, also drew minimal coverage for suggesting that Al Gore and others be sued to help expose what Coleman called "the fraud of global warming." That's newsworthy, but few Americans heard about it.

Critics also succeeded in getting reporters to focus on claims that the conference was tainted by money from oil and tobacco interests – the modern-day equivalent of Hitler and Stalin. The Heartland Institute responded that they account for a mere 5 percent of its budget.

This sort of unashamed media bias has become common. A division of the Media Research Center analyzed 2007's media coverage of the climate controversy, reporting:

• Eight out of 10 network stories tell only one side, the alarmists' version of supposed "consensus."
• Related interviews on network newscasts are unbalanced by 13-to-1. That is, 13 believers in manmade climate change get interviewed for every one critic or skeptic.
• One story in every 10 mentions the cost of proposed "solutions."

Some of those attending the conference tried to give back a little of the abuse they've received, poking fun at the other side with a roast of Gore and a screening of Glenn Beck's film, "Exposed: The Climate of Fear."

There's plenty of reasons to be skeptical of what climate-change alarmists are saying, as documented in a good summary by The Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman. Another must-read is The Heritage Insider's "Guide to the Hype."

The debate over media bias also is far from over. The climate conference concluded with presentation of the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, which opens with these words: "Global warming is not a global crisis."

Bias in our media, however, certainly is.

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