Just over two weeks ago, my blog piece here explained how Ross Gelbspan’s claim about industry intimidation of a top television editor seemed faulty. My 7th paragraph had a screencapture photo link showing a quote from Gelbspan’s web site media tirade, where he described the person more specifically as a CNN editor. As courtesy to anyone wanting to see the full context of his web page, I also provided a direct link to it. Sometime between November 18th and yesterday, his paragraph about the CNN editor disappeared from that page… along with other important material there. Continue reading
The ‘television editor told me “We did. Once.”’ Problem, Part II: Which Editor?
My 11/18 blog dealt with Ross Gelbspan’s claim that ‘a top CNN editor’ was scolded by a supposedly powerful industry group for attempting to connect weather events to global warming, where the threat was made that advertising would be pulled if CNN’s reporting did not meet the approval of that group. His claim appears to fall far short of being infallible, and from that, maybe it is not out-of-bounds to speculate on just who the CNN person might be. Continue reading
The ‘television editor told me “We did. Once.”’ Problem
My 11/8 blog piece recapped six problems seen with a single paragraph written by Ross Gelbspan in a 2005 Mother Jones article, and went on to tell about another of his major narrative derailments. But I mentioned there was one more big problem that needed a separate blog piece to examine it. That’s what this piece will cover. Continue reading
‘Industry PR Campaign sways US Opinion’; except practically nobody saw it
Ross Gelbspan’s “Snowed” article in the May/June 2005 issue of Mother Jones magazine described how a ‘misguided application of journalistic balance’ and ‘a decade-long campaign of deception, disinformation, and, at times, intimidation by the fossil fuel lobby’ was causing the media not to properly warn us about the perils of global warming. Accept his narrative without question, and it’s a rallying cry to solve the problem. But notice the errors in his article’s 5th & 6th paragraphs, and it makes you wonder how much more he gets wrong.
Is it Reporting Incompetence? Or Deliberate Misinformation?
One more bit on the Ross Gelbspan / James McCarthy situation, to drive home a larger point concerning the problem of critical information missing from mainstream media news discussions of the global warming issue. Continue reading
On James Hoggan / James McCarthy, et al. There’s More, Always More.
At my 10/18/13 piece at JunkScience, I detailed how Desmogblog’s James Hoggan essentially named IPCC scientist James J. McCarthy as the person who prompted Ross Gelbspan into an ‘investigation’ of the funding of skeptic climate scientists, and I concluded by questioning why a trained scientist like McCarthy would focus on a funding point that is irrelevant to scientific inquiry. But his problems on that don’t end there. Continue reading
James Hoggan’s Desmogblog has Inexplicable Problems with Ross Gelbspan. Why?
Weird. Ross Gelbspan founded the global warming anti-skeptic web site Desmogblog, he said so directly just eight seconds into this audio interview. James Hoggan credits Gelbspan as “a big part of the inspiration for starting the DeSmogBlog” (4th paragraph here). Gelbspan was a frequent blogger there, 50 pages’ worth of 10 pieces per page, from January 2006 to November 2010. So, from that level of familiarity, why would Hoggan go flying off a cliff over a central detail about Gelbspan? Continue reading
Greenpeace Loves Ross Gelbspan… sort of.
Since I have a small run of “Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action” blog pieces going here, and since I had some fun at Ross Gelbspan’s expense a few years ago using a line out of the old “Columbo” TV series, here’s one more “sorry to bother you, there’s just one more thing…” examination of who claims ownership over the ‘leaked industry memos’ that supposedly prove the corruption of skeptic climate scientists. Continue reading
When is a “Climate Change Expert” not an Expert? (a question Al Gore can use to salvage his legacy)
Embellishing credentials is an exceptionally bad idea, whether it’s done in self-promotion, or or done deliberately to hoodwink the public, or done mistakenly because someone didn’t do elemental fact-checking. Yet in the global warming issue, we see instances where a major organization promoted the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a Nobel laureate when he is not, and another organization similarly promoting a prominent IPCC scientist as a Nobel laureate when he is not, and the long-term promotion of book author Ross Gelbspan as a Pulitzer winner when he is not, a problem first revealed long ago by Steve Milloy and expanded upon at this blog. But now, let’s examine Gelbspan’s other small problem, the “Climate Change Expert” label. Continue reading
The Company You Keep: Kalee Kreider, Ozone Action’s “Creator” / Al Gore’s Long-Time Spokesperson
Credit Ross Gelbspan for apparently consolidating the brilliant 3-point set of talking points that have arguably kept the global warming issue alive all this time, (1) the science is settled; (2) skeptic scientists are paid by fossil fuel industries to ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’; (3) journalists are not obligated to give equal time to those skeptics because of points 1 and 2. But that mantra would have been worthless without a network of associates spreading it wherever and whenever they could. First up on that list, Kalee Kreider. Continue reading