This is nothing new for CNN. Their 15th century coverage of the Earth’s shape was undeniably “roundist.”

Thank god CNN at least have journalistic integrity.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about this whole ordeal is that you can pretty much take anything and call it “-gate” and just watch it balloon out of proportion throughout the mainstream media.

Mr. Quigley, if I wrote for a living (and I do), I would be more careful with the phrasing in my lead paragraph so it wasn’t quite so easy to prove me wrong.

“The Climategate affair continues to move from fringe Internet cause to mainstream debate.”
Most “fringe Internet causes” do not receive attention from the top-rated cable news network or from the newspaper with the nation’s highest circulation or from U.S. senators and U.S. congressmen. Neither Fox nor the Wall Street Journal lent any credence to the birther nonsense, but both have devoted considerable airtime/column inches to the meaning of these e-mails.

And of course, no one is the least bit surprised that CNN is reporting that global warming is an indisputable fact. The liberals treat it as gospel. The conservatives treat it as crap. Neither side will ever produce evidence to sway the opposition, reducing this to an eternal political debate.

So the fact that scientist have been messing with data for the past few decades and receiving billions and billions of dollars to work on this questionable science is not the story? The story is how the emails were obtained…. once again the press showing why no one trusts them. Keep up the good work you jackasses.

@Tommy Christopher: didn’t Larry King anchor that? Hey-o.

@straitshooter: these are all signs that this has become a mainstream debate, no? But there was a lag from the Internet reaction to the more visible stuff…

I thought “brushing off critics” of conventional wisdom and progressive politics was now part of a journalist’s job description.

The art of making classist sneers, vulgar double entendre, or implications that average citizen critics are uninformed easily-led sheep, must be a part of j-school curriculum because it’s now so widely practiced in the industry.

I remember the days when mafiosi, politicians, administration staffers, and heads of industry were investigated and even ambushed by crusading journalists for exposing sound bites.

Now they specialize in going after any Joe Blow who shows up at the wrong sort of rally.

straitshooter says:

Totally agreed on your point, the ignorance of the media on a story is just as bad as misreporting to me. Maybe that’s why those networks have low ratings and circulations though.. they just plain suck at everything.

A debate about the theory of “global warming” wouldn’t serve any purpose because nobody would be able to prove their case, so nobody could possibly win.

I think your timeline is wrong. Wall Street Journal and Fox News recognized this was a story right away because they do not approach climate change as a scientific fact. They are skeptical, which is in fact, what reporters are supposed to be about everything.

A long time ago, CNN (witness Anderson Cooper’s planet in peril series) threw in with the climate changers, so the lag time is merely an example of them hoping this story would not grow any legs. It’s a lot like Van Jones and ACORN, where media outlets sympathetic to one side were willing to ignore a newsworthy development that bolstered the other side.

A responsible news organization should have reported on these e-mails immediately and let its readers/viewers decide whether the e-mails were relevant to the larger debate. Fewer and fewer viewers see CNN as a responsible news organization, and that is the driving force behind their ratings nosedive.

It is nice to see CNN finally discussing the story (two weeks late, but better than never). However, CNN has reached its conclusion and will deem the leaked emails, the code indicating fraudulent information etc.is really nothing, even though it looks bad. Just like ABC, CBS and NBC all of whom have broached the subject, only to say hey….it’s not a big deal.

This is why CNN is still losing in the ratings, they pretend to have a debate, even though they know which way the debate will end (the way the One wants).

It’s a real story and it isn’t going to go away just because Al Gore goes on CNN and recites his poem.

Robert Quigley says:
December 10, 2009 at 10:06 am
@straitshooter: these are all signs that this has become a mainstream debate, no? But there was a lag from the Internet reaction to the more visible stuff…

I agree. But if this is a complaint from you… why didn’t Mediaite pick up on the story earlier, when so many of its readers were screaming, “TALK ABOUT THIS”?

This story is representative of the Global Warming debate itself. If you doubt the ferocity of Global Warming, then this story is very big and important. If you believe 100% in man-made GW, then the story is simply an annoyance, and any talk means it’s “ballooning out of proportion,” even when mainstream reports are still hard to find.

It’s sad to me that objectivity is so hard to find… especially within journalists. The story deserves coverage… what the emails prove or not prove, isn’t really the point. However, if the MSM approached this story with as much skepticism and reservation that they approached other stories… perhaps they’d have a leg to stand on, when we claim, “Bias!” They NYTimes reports a bogus story about John McCain during an election… but is hesitant to report on Global Warming fraud.

fail or succeed, they are trying to take the high road and get back to what cnn started out to be with Ted Turner, a 24/7 news org., and not a commentary channel that caters to one political view or the other.

On this issue they somewhat fail because they keep feeding the fire, trying to gain viewers by pretending to give unbias stories on the topic when we all know that they (rightly) at cnn believe GW is real and mostly man made. They need to give up on trying to get ratings from faux snooze as long as we live in a dumbed down nation, faux snooze will have big ratings.

CNN is something FAUX SNOOZE will never attain, a legit news org. Forget ratings and stick to reporting news.

@Robert Quigley: Before too many people start chiming-in with “it’s about time”, I’d like to congratulate you for finding a proper media angle into the subject.

There has been few reports on Al Gore’s failed attempt at explaining away the controversey by declaring things in the emails were sent ten years ago and have been debunked, when in fact the damning emails were sent in the past year, some as recently as last month. They show how the IPCC were controlling the data stream and even the computer models every scientist has relied upon were completely flawed. They even established the “Peer review” standard by eliminating those outlets that dared publish contradictory evidence.

@ Jeannie
Seriously? You just called CNN a “legit news org.” after stating they were “pretending to give unbias stories” that “they believe is real”. In other words, they were in fact biased and misrepresented facts for ratings while they know all along the “real” truth. How does ANY of that make them legit?

>the fact that scientist have been messing with data for the past few decades and receiving billions and billions of dollars to work on this questionable science is not the story?

It’s hard to comprehend how insanely stupid that statement is. 40 years worth of science, encompassing thousands and thousands of papers, literature and data is “questionable science” because you choose not to believe in it?

Giving room to global warming deniers is the same as giving room to birthers, 9/11 truthers, creationists and flat-earthers.

M, as usual, you refuse to have a fair debate.

There are extremely well educated, well credentialed scientists who don’t subscribe to the global warming theory. I have an open mind and am willing to believe global warming is a possibility. I am also smart enough to know it might also go the way of the “population bomb” scare of the 1970s.

“data is “questionable science” because you choose not to believe in it?” – and the data is not questionable to you? Is this because you choose to believe it?

40 Years worth of science and at least 10-15 of them are tainted with controversy. And, if the science has become more precise over the last 10-15 years, wouldn’t that make you question what the truth is?

20 years ago I was CRAZY if I didn’t believe we were heading into a deep freeze, and now I’m CRAZY if I don’t believe that we are heading into an extreme heat. AND – your precious science has shown the planet to be cooling again, matter of fact for the past few years. So, what is it?

What temperature should the planet be to be at the proper temperature? What does your science say about that?

I get it, you’ve been duped and now you’re so angry about it that you are lashing out at those of us who weren’t fooled. I get it; my kid does it all the time.

We’re all doomed if all we can agree on in the 21st century is that the earth is round – we ALL do believe that don’t we?

We have definitive proof the Earth is round. We’ve all seen it from space.

People who believe in climate change believe we are ACTUALLY doomed (the world is ending, didn’t you see Day After Tomorrow!?!) unless we change the way we live. Where is the similarly convincing evidence?

There are those who continually insist that there is a “consensus” in the scientific community, yet there are also thousands of scientists who dispute the science. The difference is that the IPCC elects to dismiss those who do not walk in line with their agenda.

@ m
“It’s hard to comprehend how insanely stupid that statement is.”

I’m amazed at how often you read a statement on this site that is the dumbest, most insane thing you have ever read. I believe I even once wrote the most moronic thing you had EVER read on the internet. Alas, I seem to have been trumped, numerous times over in fact.

Quig, nice zinger. Everybody, tip your waitress.

@Tommi — Why don’t we hear in the mainstream news about all the glaciers worldwide that are advancing? Why wasn’t it a big deal when Nashville and several central US cities set record lows in July? Didn’t Louisiana have it’s earliest yearly snowfall EVER last year and then break that record last Saturday?
Because it’s not news when it doesn’t fit the MSM agenda!!!!!!!
I worked with PhD chemists and engineers who were math modelers for over 20 years and NONE of them believed the models that supported man-made global warming. How many mathematical models have you created Tommi?
The climate is always changing, has always changed (see ICE AGE 10,000 years ago) and will always change, whether we drive SUVs or rickshaws.
And did you read the Feb 2007 National Geographic article about the Mars polar ice cap getting smaller? Must be George Bush’s fault and have nothing to do with the good ol’ sun!
Yeah, when one side says there’s a consensus, there must be one.

“On the one hand, CNN is right: whether or not specific political measures like cap-and-trade or declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant are bad ideas, anthropogenic global warming is the scientific consensus, Climategate e-mails or no, and it would be irresponsible reporting to pretend that both sides of the debate are perfectly equal when they clearly aren’t” – Quigley

I question what Mr. Quigley believes to be under debate. It is sure enough that anthropogenic global warming is the scientific consensus, but then again, it would also be the consensus of ‘deniers’.

The question is not whether increased CO2 contributes to warming. There are three main separate though overlapping questions:

1) How much does CO2 contribute to warming?

2) What are the likely consequences of that warming?

3) What should be done to either stave off or mitigate those consequences?

Talking about the ‘deniers’ being outside the consensus on these questions would be more relevant, and you could do so were you to take the IPCC reports as the distilment of the consensus view(which some people at least claim to do. Very often immediately before talking about nightmarish scenarios which have not the slightest resemblance to anything which could be a found in an IPCC report)

The quality of science reporting by the major news outlets, especially in regards to climate research, has been pretty awful, resulting in a confused public, very strong nutcase/fringe/vested interest opposition, and pretty frustrated scientists. The hacked emails mostly shows scientists frustrated and annoyed in having to also deal with a politics-driven crank factor on top of already complicated enough research. One of the common tactics of the GW deniers is to take snippets of research wholly out of context and then go all Jacques Clouseau on them, with the “results” quickly disseminated throughout the entire right wing nut-o-sphere, and far too often then working its way up to Fox News (of course) , the WSJ (Murdoch’s “influence” is now fully in play there), and increasingly into newspapers who should know better.

And make no mistake: “nutcase” and “fringe” are very much still the apt descriptions for active GW deniers. Genuine climate scientists use things like the Jaguar Supercomputer (Google it) for their research, as opposed to just trolling right wing blog sites and using math and “logic” that would get a failing mark in a high school science class.