Fred Hiatt Won’t Correct Dishonest Climate Change Columns, Will Lecture Congress on How to Handle Climate Change
An excellent point from Dave Roberts:
The Washington Post editorial board, which just this weekend elected to run a column from George Will denying climate change entirely, now presumes to lecture Barbara Boxer on how to solve it.
The classic post-war American newspaper has been largely insulated from market pressure and competition. Typically, you’d have a city and the city would have a newspaper. People could choose to subscribe to the newspaper, or they could choose not to. But they couldn’t choose a different paper. You just had to decide, as a citizen and as an individual, if you wanted to be the sort of person who read his town’s broadsheet or else if you didn’t want to be that sort of person. Thus, the audience was guaranteed and, at the time, so was the advertising. Under the circumstances, papers were remarkably free to just do whatever they wanted to do with their actual content.
When you talk about this with working journalists and newspaper nostalgics, there’s a tendency to focus on the upsides of this insulation from market competition. You could dispatch some reporters to work on a Pulitzer-contending feature or major investigation and not really worry too much if the marginal increase in readership justified the cost. You could keep a Moscow bureau open just because you thought it was important. All good stuff. But it’s also bread this weird arrogance where nobody in the business seems to think that the deplorably low quality of the product plays any role whatsoever in the declining relevance of these institutions. But here’s a George Will column in my paper, lying to me about global warming. Here’s Will’s editor refusing to correct the record or say anything about why he decided it would be a good idea to run a column in which George Will lies about global warming. And now here’s the very same indifferent-to-the-truth editorial team writing about global warming. And I’m supposed to read the editorial why? What value to me, as a consumer of information, do inaccurate uncorrected George Will columns offer me? How will the addition of Bill Kristol to the roster increase the value of the newspaper to me as a consumer of information?
These issues don’t get considered, at all. These guys are Important Conservatives so it’s important that we pay them to lie to people.
56 Responses to “Fred Hiatt Won’t Correct Dishonest Climate Change Columns, Will Lecture Congress on How to Handle Climate Change”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
February 18th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
But it’s also bread this weird arrogance…
I didn’t know baked goods were so versatile.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I realize that I shouldn’t be, but I remain genuinely surprised that neither Hiatt nor Will is going to address this issue at all.
“We regret the error.”
“We stand by the statements as they were presented.”
Nothing. One of the Post’s marquee opinion writers baldly and demonstrably misstated a fact, and Hiatt doesn’t feel he owes his readers any kind of response at all. I never thought of myself as naïve, but I am actually shocked at such a degree of arrogance.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
“But it’s also bread this weird arrogance where nobody in the business seems to think that the deplorably low quality of the product plays any role whatsoever in the declining relevance of these institutions.”
I love this sentence so fucking much.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
What’s extra funny is that these are the people who very quickly retort to those who raise issues of the quality of the journalistic product in their pages that ‘this is a business’ and that ‘these are idealists who don’t understand the business’ and ‘that’s not how this business works’.
Yet the minute you start pointing out that as a consumer, these major news producers are trying to sell you shitty, inferior product and hoping you’ll accept their explanations of why it has to be shitty or how the peculiarities of the j-business lead to this shittiness or please listen to our fascinating discussion of the processes and traditions we follow which lead to the shitty product we’re handing you.
The business model of the major news producers is thus well and good when they’re telling people to shut up because they’re naive idealists, but the business model is horrible when the same consumer quality testing and review standards which apply to, say, DVD players, is applied to the actual received output of the major news producers.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
“The classic post-war American newspaper has been largely insulated from market pressure and competition.”
Weird reasoning.
Matthew Yglesias is not insulated from competition and market pressure, yet he feels just as free as the WaPo to lie about certain things – in Matthew’s case the auto industry or the various Intellectual Property industries.
Similarly, The Corner is not insulated from competition and market pressure, yet they feel free to lie about pretty much everything.
The George Will episode is indicative of the WaPo having an abysmal Op-Ed page. It’s nothing more than that.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
As a first time reader of this blog I must say that I am not impressed. Yeah the conservatives are all lying about the global warming issue or whatever issue….one thing I do know after reading and watching everything I can on the subject of global warming is that temperatures are increasing and the scientists studying the reasons why are not in agreement as to the exact reasons. So how is George Will, or anyone else for that matter, lying? Is merely expressing an opinion, now considered a lie? To label in such a fashion seems immature. I would also proof read my work twice before commenting on the low quality of other publications.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Sh***ty quality is why a lot of industries have been losing customers (hello, US auto makers – I’m talking to you about the 70’s and 80’s). And, after a while, NO amount of “we’re sorry for selling you crap, we’re gonna do better – we promise” will suffice to get you back into their front door.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Re: Skeptique, did you actually read the George Will piece? He took a direct quote from a scientific paper and then changed it to fit his worldview. The lie was in the complete fabrication of a source.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Skeptique:
Will was caught making up facts. I would do some research about the topic before making snakry comments.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Before the 1980s most cities had more than one newspaper and there was competition. Not sure what war you are referring to in “post-war”. Perhaps, Vietnam??
February 18th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
“Typically, you’d have a city and the city would have a newspaper. People could choose to subscribe to the newspaper, or they could choose not to. But they couldn’t choose a different paper.”
Not exactly. In major cities, typically you’d have a handful of newspapers, some broadsheets some tabloids, and you’d have your blissful choice of which one or ones to read. Obviously many of them died off, and certainly some of that was due to market pressure.
New York:
New York Daily Mirror
New York Herald Tribune
New York World-Telegram and Sun
New York Times
New York Daily News
New York Post
etc.
Philadelphia:
Philadelphia Bulletin
Philadelphia Daily News
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Tribune
Boston:
The Boston Globe
The Boston Herald
The Christian Science Monitor
The Boston Post
etc. etc.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Personally, I’m in favor of giving about 3 thousands dollars per person in American to these lovely and VITAL institutions. Did I say VITAL? COLLAPSE? IMAGINE A WORLD WITH NO NEWS!!!
February 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Skeptique: You should consider reading more about global climate change.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
You could keep a Moscow bureau open just because you thought it was important.
You could even hire an editor.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
So what is preventing someone from starting a competitor that leaves out the crap articles, is primarily web-based, less dependent on traditional classified ad revenue, and is content to survive on slimmer, non-profit level margins? Here in Baltimore we had the Examiner for a couple of years, that (to the surprise of many) actually contained some decent reporting. It folded this week – a victim of the recession and being too close to it’s DC version. A shame really, the Sun needs a good kick in the pants, almost as much as the Post.
Where is the model for a successful web/newspaper 2.0?
February 18th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I have long since stopped reading any editorials or op-ed pieces in the Washington Post. Since the demise of Katharine Graham, the paper has been visibly on the skids, pandering to the power-brokers in DC in a sadly failed attempt to keep their relevance and their entry into the inner sanctums of Congress and the White House. Now, nobody cares what the Washington Post reports because the have simply became a broadside for whatever hack has a bout-and-paid-for viewpoint to hawk. Will and Krauthammer are the most obvious offenders but we have yet to see what Kristol will cook up. Not that I will be looking.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
John, that is the problem isn’t it? Huffington Post is doing well, as is Politico, and of course Drudge has the TV executive/media star market locked up. So we have at least some successes, first on the left with some tabloid type articles, blog postings from celebrities, etc, politico in the “center” with lots of insider political gossip, which corners the political junky and the permanent washington establishment, and drudge who of course rules their world (they being movement conservatives and their enablers). Viewed in light of their respective audiences and business models, its interesting how each ideological community has adapted. But I think we have yet to see a versatile, deep, broadly appealing news source that is primarily web. The closest I can think of is bbc which is of course not primarily web but seems to me like it has some international appeal.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
So why is George Will denying Global warming? I mean is there some reason for this behavior. I am honestly confused by it. Why does lying benefit him. It seems like either conservatives want to read dishonest columns or special interests are paying Will, or something. Maybe he is an egomaniac, thinks Global Warming is real but not worth preventing economically and therefore he figure is he lies then he will get his way. In the last case I would advise him to try to minimize the inefficiency of Cap and Trade by getting conservatives involved it enacting it. If conservatives like dishonest columns then they really are nuts.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
To expand on #11, many medium-sized towns had two papers. You see, kids, back in those days, one of the papers would be delivered in the morning, and the other in the afternoon (also, you couldn’t buy a phone but had to rent it from the phone company! and don’t get me started on party lines!). Obviously broadcast news really obviated that afternoon paper, which however still persisted in my hometown of Houston until at least the late 1970s. Lots of kids had after-school paper routes.
So the state of affairs that MY describes in the OP existed, in fact, only in fairly small towns. By the time big city papers like the Houston Chronicle were the only paper in town, the market forces that threaten them now were already starting to array themselves.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
“Dark Green Doomsayers” is the ninth most read opinion article on the Washington Post opinion page. It’s a little sickening.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
So why is George Will denying Global warming?
My guess is, if global warming is happening, it calls for policies that that cut against Will’s biases, and cause him, instinctively, to feel upset.
In order to avoid having to feel upset, he tries to convince himself that the problem isn’t real.
I doubt Neville Chamberlain, or Charles Lindburgh, were very easy to persuade about the news that the Germans were crossing from the Sudetenland into the rest of Czechoslovakia.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
… which must have been, like, two whole coloring books.
.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
a) the hippies CANNOT be right
b) the status quo benefits the powerful
c) tiny men overcompensate by enlarging their carbon footprint
.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Will denies the reality of global warming because the people he speaks to tells him it isn’t true, and he’s repeated it enough that he believes it.
After all, if people from think tanks and conservative activists tell you that something isn’t true, it isn’t true, right?
February 18th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Increase the CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere and you increase the amount of energy radiated back to the Earth. It’s basic physics and has been described for over 100 years. Uncannily, the amount of energy involved is sufficient to have caused the increases in atmospheric temps since the rise of Industrialization. If you want to offer another reason that temps have increased, the floor is yours.
The most recent IPCC assessment report concluded that it is very likely that human activity has been the “primary” cause of observed global warming in recent decades. It most definitely did not say that human activity is the only cause. Nor did it provide any more detailed estimate of how large the contribution from human activity has been. “Primary” could be anything from “slightly more than half” to “almost all of it.” Natural processes could be responsible for a very large share of the warming.
February 18th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Will stated as facts things that are not true. His lie isn’t “There’s no global warming”. Global warming is a complicated phenomenon with many defensible opinions in support of a wide range of projections. Will wasn’t lying about any of that. He lied about specific facts. These were repetitions of lies he has told in the past. Many people have corrected his lies, and he continues to tell them. His editor, when definitively informed of Will’s repetition of known lies, has done nothing.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
The most recent IPCC assessment report concluded that it is very likely that human activity has been the “primary” cause of observed global warming in recent decades. It most definitely did not say that human activity is the only cause.
Nor did I. What I said is that if you calculate the amount of energy radiated back to Earth by the increase in CO2 etc., you find that it’s sufficient to have caused the increase in temps. The IPCC’s conclusion is the greatest common denominator among climate scientists and left the door is open for other causes and other mechanisms. So far, none have been provided. The other mechanism would have to include vamoosing the energy provided by the increase in CO2. It’d be one very odd mechanism.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Well, no. Increase the CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere and you increase the amount of energy radiated back to the Earth. It’s basic physics and has been described for over 100 years.
Hmm. But if you increase the CO2 in the atmosphere you also stimulate plant growth, which… leads to increased consumption of CO2. I know, I heard it on NPR.
Just sayin’. Maybe global climate movements take a little more than basic physics to understand.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
What I said is that if you calculate the amount of energy radiated back to Earth by the increase in CO2 etc., you find that it’s sufficient to have caused the increase in temps.
You’ve offered no evidence to substantiate this claim. Even if it’s true, it’s irrelevant. The mere fact that human activity could theoretically account for all of the observed warming doesn’t mean that it actually does account for all of it. The IPCC was careful to note that human activity appears to be only the “primary” cause.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
There may well be a carbon fertilization effect. But increases in temperature also may increase bacterial metabolic rates, leading to greater respiration, and thus greater production of CO2.
More autotroph biomass is just going to provide more organic material for heterotrophs. So that increase CO2 consumption (by plants) leads to more food for non-plants, leading to larger populations, leading to more CO2 released as they eat that biomass.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
So that increase CO2 consumption (by plants) leads to more food for non-plants, ***POSSIBLY*** leading to larger populations.
Fixed that for you.
Ben D’s point, in case you missed it, is that the effects of increased CO2 emissions are complicated and not well understood. Even if we can be confident that there would be an increase in average global temperature, we cannot be confident about the magnitude of the increase.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Sometimes the There Is No Such Thing as Clean Coal banner ad runs on his op-ed.
Yeah. Good times.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
The production of biomass due to an increase in CO2 tops out pretty quickly. (Why do people think that scientists are just dunces who overlook obvious stuff?)
February 18th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
(Why do people think scientists know much more than they really do?)
February 18th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Don’t you guys ever look at real global temperature graphs…it seems not, after reading a few posts here!
February 19th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Hey, thanks for fixing that. I suppose I would argue that some effects of increased CO2 emissions are fairly well understood (ocean acidification, for instance), while others are significantly less so (effects on storms and hurricanes).
I’ll also agree that we cannot be confident of the exact magnitude of increased temperatures. That is why projected temperatures are typically given as a range.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Of course, the Post was only without competition between the death of the Washington Star in the 70’s and the birth of the Washington Times in the 80’s. The Star was a moderate / conservative paper run by traditional Republicans. The Times is a far-right paper run by a bizarre East Asian cult.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:57 am
It’s an editorial – get over it. George Will is a great sportswriter, but I don’t read his op-eds…maybe you should try the same.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Am I the only one here who thinks its a little nutty to judge opinion columns by the same standard as regular journalism?
I happen to think there’s a real value in having a decent newspaper* regularly publish a conservative viewpoint in its opinion column. If said conservative can’t explain his views without making up facts, then no good comes of keeping sane people from hearing him try.
(*I would like to humbly suggest that those who disagree with me that, at least outside the opinion column, the Post has decent journalistic standards take this issue up in another, more fitting, thread.)
February 19th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I think there is no value whatsoever in publishing things that are objectively untrue, in the opinion or any other section, especially when they are left without any challenge to benefit from the imprimatur of an allegedly reputable source of information.
Remember the old quote: you are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
I used to read WaPo editorials religiously, but they have become so cowardly and lacking in insight that I abandoned that as an abject waste of time years ago.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
The “natural process” guys never seem to be able to explain where all the global warming that should be happening as a result of anthropogenic carbon emission goes, if it isn’t the warming that’s responsible for the Earth’s increased temperatures.
I mean it’s not like it’s a total mystery how much greenhouse gas human activity produces. We have a fairly good idea. That gas, once released, can’t do anything but warm the Earth. So how could “natural processes” be responsible, instead? It doesn’t make any sense.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Jon
The opinion section is called the opinion section. The Post reputable informed its readers on what justifications conservatives gave in opposing measures to curb global warming.
As to whether said opinion benefits from an “imprimatur” — this is a definition from wikipedia:
“An Imprimatur (from Latin, “let it be printed”) is an official declaration from the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church that a literary or similar work is free from error in matters of Roman Catholic doctrine and morals, and hence acceptable reading for faithful Roman Catholics.”
The benefit of an open society is that the subject of other men’s minds requires no justification in being printed. If a paper publishes falsehood as fact, it should be judged accordingly.
But if a paper provides its readers an insight into the minds of unlike our own, no matter how factually incorrect those thoughts may be, as long as it does so with the understanding that it is opinion, it should not be judged as providing falsehood — the reader is expected to understand what opinion is.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Will should not lie, editorial or not. That he has had his error (or lie) pointed out and refuses to correct it should force his editor to do the right thing and correct it, or at least apologize.
And what does it really matter if some of the warming is due to “natural” processes? It’s kinda like arguing about nature vs. nurture with a real human being. All you can fix at that point is the nurture, as the nature is a done deal. Same with the natural/manmade dichotomy concerning global warming. It’s a problem, let’s fix the part we can.
February 19th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Susan, it’s one thing to say Will should not lie. Morally, he shouldn’t. (I am not, whatever anyone here may think, defending the liar).
But that doesn’t change the fact that there are still a lot of people out there, many of them in the US Congress, who agree. (And yes, I realize I’m saying that it is possible to “agree” with a blatantly empirically untrue statement — that’s conservatism these days for you.)
And I have to strongly disagree on the editor — he gave a man whose opinions, whatever their merit, are respected by a large number of Americans. Giving such a man space in the newspaper titled “Opinion” is nothing for Hiatt to apologize for.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Ab’t a year ago, or so in Newsweek Will made the claim that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has found that there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade. I’m no reporter, but it took me less than 5 minutes of work to prove that they said the exact opposite.
Is their cause so weak that they have to lie through their teeth about it? What’s next? Greed is good? Smoking is beneficial to your health?
March 12th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 17th, 2009 at 2:28 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:17 am
tramadol
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 am
buy viagra online
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:22 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:15 am
Incredible site!
cheap brand pfizer viagra