With the AP busy fact-checking Sarah Palin’s book and much of the rest of the media busy trying to trip her up at her book signings, a huge story seems to have passed them by: ClimateGate.
FSM readers are likely aware of the fact that last week, someone hacked into the e-mail system of the University of East Anglia in the UK and exposed a series of e-mails that certainly seem like a conspiracy by some of the world’s top global warming alarmists to manipulate temperature data to reflect their hypotheses.
However, as Noel Shepard at Newsbusters pointed out earlier this week that several days after the scandalous news broke, neither ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, nor NBC had bothered to cover a huge story that is becoming bigger by the moment. He also notes that NPR seemed to be a part of the blackout. Here are some of the stories they did deem important within those few days:
- ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" Friday did a very lengthy piece about Oprah Winfrey ending her syndicated daytime talk show
- ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" Monday did a lengthy piece on new revelations involving the marital affair of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.)
- CBS "Evening News" Saturday reported a ten-year-old pianist playing at Carnegie Hall
- CBS "Evening News" Sunday did lengthy pieces on the website FreeCreditReport.com not being free and the movie "New Moon"
- CBS "Evening News" Monday did lengthy pieces about defective drywall and a man who makes money wearing t-shirts
- NBC "Nightly News" Friday reported on Switzerland's supercollider being turned back on
- NBC "Nightly News" Saturday did a somewhat lengthy report on food carts
- NBC "Nightly News" Sunday reported the release of British singer Susan Boyle's CD, and then followed it up with another report Monday on her promoting it.
More “big news” as of this writing was about the couple who managed to crash the White House state dinner on Tuesday night, as well as the annual Black Friday shopping crush.
On Monday, Fox had done four reports alone and Rush Limbaugh was also all over the story throughout the beginning of the week. Fox also had actor and “climate change” believer Ed Begley, Jr. on with Stuart Varney to discuss the issue, and all Begley could do was shout over the host with various talking points.
So where’s the “mainstream media”? Fact-checking Sarah Palin and getting ready to breathlessly cover Obama’s upcoming trip to Copenhagen to discuss…global warming.
Aren’t they at all curious about the e-mails? We’re told that they, as professional journalists, are more qualified to cover the hard news stories than those cheeky bloggers. And yet – and yet – who is falling down on the job?
If the MSM is wondering why ratings and circulation continue to tank, they have only to look their own ideology in the mirror.
