The Winners And Losers Of The Climategate Email Hack

It’s the weekend, which means it’s time to separate the chumps from the champs in Mediaite’s “Winners and Losers” — our scorecard of who rocked and who flopped in the week’s headlines.

You’ve no doubt heard the story by now: hackers recently got hold of a bunch of emails from some climate scientists and the University of Anglia. So now some have decided these emails are the smoking gun to some grand global warming conspiracy, cooked up just for sport. And the controversy broke just in time for the Copenhagen summit!

So who are the Winners and Losers of the Climategate scuttlebutt?

LOSER

Copenhagen Reps, put on the defense in the wake of the pseudo-scandal. No, Climategate probably won’t derail an international resolution at the U.N. climate change summit, but the controversy has certainly sullied the positive image of the event. Now world leaders and scientists are forced to defend the evidence of global warming instead of focusing on efforts to curb the trend.

WINNER

Producers and pundits, because the climate change conspiracy angle is super-talky and easily digested, which means it’s made for cable. And the timing couldn’t be better! As reporters await actual news from Copenhagen, which isn’t likely to break until the 11th hour, recycling the back-and-forth between climate contrarians and the ‘warmists‘ is a sensational ‘in’ to an otherwise dreary policy debate.

WINNER

Sarah Palin, who after snatching headlines last week for lending credence to the birther movement, is now scoring buzz for her stance on an equally popular right-wing conspiracy theory. Palin’s Washington Post climate change op-ed was a reported chart-topper, ranking 21st of the hundreds of opinions published by the paper this year and inciting numerous rebuttals.

LOSER

Sarah Palin, called out along with other deniers by Al Gore for persisting in an “era of unreality.” Fair call or not, her Washington Post op-ed was decidedly wrought with inaccuracies, both about hacked emails as proof of a climate change hoax and about the economic consequences of a carbon emission reduction policies.

WINNER

The Washington Post, for audaciously defending their decision to run the Palin piece. After all, despite being marred by disinformation, the editorial met all the WaPo op-ed selection criteria: “opinion” penned by someone who “stirs discussion” (i.e. page views). Which is why this week you can look forward Snooki Polizzi’s on Afghanistan combat strategy.

WINNER

Tiger Woods — Looks like global warming took some of the heat of the philandering golf great. At several points this week “Copenhagen” trumped “Tiger Woods latest” among hot Google Trends search topics. Yay, world!

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