Lingering Denial [1]
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton [2] on
The "majority of American journalists covering climate change, energy, and environment understand that human industry is primarily responsible for global warming [3]," writes Curtis Brainard. Unfortunately, "a small minority of pundits -- most of whom are talking heads and columnists, rather than hard news reporters" is "still trying to deny the well-established basics of climate science. The terrible irony is, that minority might reach more eyes and ears than all of the serious beat reporters combined." Brainard singles out Wolf Blitzer [4], Lou Dobbs [5], Chris Matthews [6], Charles Krauthammer [7] and George Will [8], along with "Glenn Beck [9], Sean Hannity [10], and various anchors on Fox News [11]," who apparently "don't know the difference between weather and climate" and "continue to contradict the news and editorial departments' otherwise solid understanding of climate science. ... The far larger volume of quality climate-news reporting, which reflects an accurate understanding of the basic science, should far and away drown out the claptrap spewed by misinformed talking heads and columnists. But it doesn't, and polls continue to show the majority of the pubic still does not understand the fundamental scientific evidence for global warming."