In the wake of a George Will column (Washington Post, 2/15/08) attempting to refute the reality of climate change with a string of inaccurate claims, FAIR has an action alert calling on media activists to write to the Washington Post asking them to retract the falsehoods and explain their fact-checking procedures for columnists.
You can post copies of your letters to the Washington Post in the comments section below. Please remember that letters that maintain a civil tone are most effective.
Media literacy teachers nation wide have been explaining to students that newspapers are more reliable than blogs, wikipedia, or talk radio. As a curriculum designer working currently on a national Media Literacy course, I’m perplexed to learn that this may no longer be true.
Does the Washington Post not fact check editorial content as in the case of George Will’s Februrary 15, 2009 column? If this is in fact your policy, it should be stated on the masthead and in a disclaimer appended to each editorial. That way teachers can help students recognize which sources are committed to factual accuracy and which are bare-faced propaganda. Imagine if George Will’s teachers had done as much so long ago.
Condolences,
J. Decker
Mr. Decker … not jumping on you … just pointing out that there are such things as responsible blogs, wikipedia entries, and even talk radio programs (depending on your definition of same).
There are no really reliable corpress outlets, are there?
That would defeat their purpose, wouldn’t it?
At least, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after forty-some years of reading, listening and watching them.
What do you think?
Here’s what I sent to Fred Hiatt:
Dear Mr. Hiatt,
I add my voice to what I’m sure will be thousands of others in decrying the editorial laxity shown by publishing George Will’s February 15, 2009, column â┚¬Ã…“Dark Green Doomsayers.â┚¬Ã‚ Mr. Will consistently promulgates his opinion that global climate change is â┚¬Ã…“hypothetical.â┚¬Ã‚ He is welcome to his opinion, as misguided as it may be.
What he should not be welcome to do is to misstate scientific opinion, which he does liberally. The University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center was compelled to refute Will’s claim about global sea ice levels, since no one at the Washington Post checked readily available data. They also commented, quite pointedly, â┚¬Ã…“It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Will also was inaccurate in writing, â┚¬Ã…“Besides, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.â┚¬Ã‚ The facts do not support this claim, and the facts are readily available for confirmation.
When opinion is based on false premises, that opinion consequently loses validity. Over coffee or drinks, opining invalidly is simply annoying or sad. But when the person stating opinions based on false premises receives no oversight and is published in a renowned newspaper that is read around the world, the responsibility falls onto that newspaper for letting those opinionsâ┚¬”Âand the misstated â┚¬Ã…“factsâ┚¬Ã‚ supporting themâ┚¬”Âpass unquestioned.
Please realize that confirming Mr. Will’s sources and interpretation of those sources does not impinge on his freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not allow someone to yell â┚¬Ã…“fireâ┚¬Ã‚ in a theater when there is no fire. It also should not allow invalid opinion to receive the implied imprimatur of accuracy from a newspaper that has not bothered to check the facts. When the Washington Post published Mr. Will’s column as is, it made a mockery of the spirit of freedom of speech.
Sincerely,
Roberta [XXXXXX]
[XXXXXXX], WA
Here is what I wrote:
I am writing to ask you to do a better job of fact checking George Will’s columns. He has misstated facts about global warming in his February 15, 2009 column.
He cited a few periodicals that claimed in the 1970’s that the earth was cooling, but that was not the prevailing consensus at the time.
He misnamed the University of Illinois’ Polar Research Group and misrepresented their research. They deny the facts he claims they stated.
I understand that George Will and any columnist can come up with their own opinions, but doesn’t your paper have a responsibility to check the facts?
Andy Alexander
Ombudsman
Washington Post
Dear Mr. Alexander,
Thank you for your recent explanation of how George Will’s falsification of the sea ice data was hidden from Post fact checkers.
I eagerly await your determination of how his misrepresentation of UN climate change researchers found “no recorded global warming for more than a decade” also escaped the scrutiny of your fact checkers.
Do you also intend to determine how he was also able to claim that there was a prevailing view of global cooling in the 1970s, when in fact the cooling claims in the peer reviewed researchers amounted to only a tiny fraction of climatology papers, with small confidences? The difference between that and today’s widespread consensus of global warming at “very likely” and “likely” strong confidences endorsed by the secondary (literature review and meta analysis) peer reviewed sources is like night and day.
Please do not allow Will’s politically-motivated scientific falsehoods to besmirch the Post’s reputation any further.
Sincerely,
James Salsman
Mountain View, California
Dear Sir,
In your response to observations of inacuracies to George Will’s recent refutation of the facts regarding man made climate change, you cited posession of information corroborating as well as refuting Will’s claims as an argument not to print a retraction. Perhaps a sentence or two citing various sources in a correction could help readers make up their own minds: ie; “While numerous nobel laureates and repected scientists conclude climate change is real and man made, employees of Exxon/mobile are paid to disagree.”
sincerely,
Rod Hillen, laguna Niguel, CA
Mr. Alexander,
Thank you for your response to recent criticisms of negligent fact-checking regarding George Will’s 2/15 column. I am writing to take issue with that response.
You specifically support one portion of the column that makes reference to global sea ice levels by quoting from the original University of Illinois source. However, that statement from the University of Illinois was written to specifically refute the very point that Will is making in his column. That is, it has been long known that global sea ice levels are not the most relevant measure for understanding the effects of climate change. How can you use this source to support your claim that Will’s column was sufficiently fact-checked? Clearly, Will is misrepresenting this source. Now, you do the same in his defense.
Further, there are other issue regarding fact-checking in the Feb. 15 column that you did not address. Specifically, that there has been no global warming in the past 10 years, and that there was a scientific consensus in the 1970’s that the earth was entering a period of global cooling. Both of these statements are facts that can be easily refuted by referencing the relevant peer-reviewed climate science literature.
I look forward to a future correction/retraction from the Washington Post to ensure that the ombudsman fulfills the duty to protect the Washington Post’s journalistic reputation.
Sincerely,
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