Left wing “scandal” of the day: Fox News urged … climate change skepticism!

Politico tries to play “gotcha” again with Fox News – and fails epically:

Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon sent an e-mail to staff last December offering guidance on how to handle the climate debate, three weeks after the Climategate scandal broke and in the midst of the Copenhagen climate summit.

“Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data,” Sammon wrote, “we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.”

GASP! Imagine that. A mainstream news organization essentially telling its on-air reporters to …. not take sides. If only NBC/MSNBC and other Gore-approved left wing “green” networks would do the same.

And just who was this “incriminating” email leaked to? None other than the Soros-funded Media Matters:

The email, leaked to liberal media watchdog and frequent Fox critic Media Matters, was sent on Dec. 8, minutes after Fox White House correspondent Wendell Goler reported that U.N. scientists had issued a report saying that 2000-2009 was “expected to turn out to be the warmest decade on record.”

Surprise surprise!

Seriously – can you believe that this is even considered a “scandal” amongst left wingers? Well … ok, of course it’s “controversial to this crowd because – to them, anyway – any network that is not biased on the side of global warming alarmists like Al Gore is, well, UNFAIR, dammit! Bob Owens breaks it down:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock—or inhabit a cultish, community-based reality—you are well aware that the “science” of climate change science is being hotly debated, and has been for several years. This has been exacerbated by allegations of climate change scientists hiding and/or manipulating data, and of course the heavily-politicized nature of the subject.

Is it a scandal to point out that contested theories are, in fact, hotly contested?

It is for Media Matters, just one of along line of activist groups that has decided that using the near-certain threat of short-term ecological disaster is a great way to establish control over the general population in the service of their wider agenda.

Despite protestations to the contrary by those with vested political and financial interests, climate change science is a field of study in its infancy with significant room for debate.

Asking for reporters to note the controversial nature of climate science claims is the only responsible position for a news manager to take.

Absolutely, but don’t tell that to master data manipulator and pseudo-science “expert” Al Gore:

Fox News has consistently delivered false and misleading information to its viewers about the climate crisis. The leaked emails now suggest that this bias comes directly from the executives responsible for their news coverage.

COP15 was a critical moment in the fight against the climate crisis. It is unsurprising, yet still disturbing, that Fox would allow its political bias to infiltrate its news reporting about the conference. Over all the media’s coverage of climate issues has been atrocious. However, Fox seems determined to set the bar even lower.

ROTFLMAO – “political bias infiltrating reporting”? Um, pot, kettle …

Gore, Soros, Media Matters, MSDNC, and nearly every other alarmist punk out there have been willfully and eagerly allowing their blatant political biases to cloud their judgment for decades on this issue, which has lead to a massive, widespread, routine, deliberate manipulation of data by “scientists” that the world should supposedly trust because of their “gifted abilities.” Not only that, but in the process of their push to declare with certainty that the “science is settled”, not only have they turned their backs on the process of real science and debate – you know, the kind where the data is processed in its purest forms and conclusions are drawn from that rather than the conclusion being pre-determined, but this socialistic gang has attempted to viciously and relentlessly impugn the scientific integrity of the many, many gifted and talented skeptics in various science-related fields who have expressed even the slightest doubt about whether global warming is indeed “man-made.” Hey, how about “Nuremburg-style trials” for skeptics? Did you know that “deniers” are “swines” who are committing “treason” against the planet? In fact, did you know that “man-made” global warming is analogous to slavery and Nazism?

It’s fascinating, really, when you think about how Gore and his devotees – most of them fanatical left wingers – have also been fierce critics of the Iraq war, and have falsely claimed in so many words that President Bush willfully manipulated the facts that he used to justify going to war in Iraq (“for oil!!!”), particularly on the issue of WMD. These same hyper-critics have also asserted that had “more time” been taken by “all parties involved” to “carefully and painstakingly examine all the facts” then perhaps we’d never have gone to war with Iraq in the first place. This in spite of the fact that even Bill Clinton himself (Gore’s boss) made a similar persuasive case to go to launch cruise missiles on Iraq in 1998. There was very little debate about whether or not Iraq had WMD. Pretty much everyone on both sides of the aisle believed it. It’s just that one side preferred to coddle the Iraqi dictator rather than confront him.

On the other hand, there is a significant amount of disagreement in the scientific community on the issue of whether or not global warming is “man-made.” Yet let one person apply that same “let’s think this through and examine all the facts carefully first” logic to the global warming debate, and all of a sudden you’re a conspiracy theorist/flat earther type who shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Hopefully, Fox News will not cave to pressure from these left-wing uber-hypocrites and allow itself to be bullied into more MSDNC-esque global warming coverage. Lachlan Markay at Newsbusters has it right:

The fact that Fox is taking flack for not slanting its reporting to be more friendly to one political position than the other speaks volumes not just about critics’ lack of concern for journalistic ethics, but also about Fox itself. The email above is a showing of political neutrality. On climate reporting, other media outlets could take a lesson from Bill Sammon.

Let’s not hold our collective breath!