Right-wing media’s overheated response to warming bill
You knew it would happen. But Fox News and talk radio have become a big unhinged over House’s vote Friday in favor of the Waxman-Markey climate bill.
It’s a Wall Street conspiracy. It’s a commie plot. It’s treason. Every year, it’ll cost each family 500, 750, 1,500, 3,000 dollars.
Sometimes, the talking points are a bit inconsistent. But that’s what makes them entertaining … in a slow-motion train wreck kind of way.
Media Matters, the left-wing watchdog site, has steadily pushed out clips of the talking heads, which I’ve annotated for your viewing convenience.
Fox’s Glenn Beck (June 29) issues a “Wanted for being a cap and traitor” poster for eight Republicans who voted for the bill:
More clips after the jump. Read more
27 GOP’ers run risks with ‘no’ vote on climate bill
Since Friday’s House vote, there’s been a lot of political reporting about how risky a “yeah” on the climate change bill would be for Democrats in conservative districts, or in districts that depend heavily on coal for their electricity.
If you take the climate vote in isolation, however, it seems more likely that more Republicans who voted against the bill will be vulnerable in 2010.
As the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein points out, 20 of 49 House Democrats from districts that Republican John McCain carried last November voted for the climate change bill. The vote could be used against Democrats in districts that lean Republican already, especially in states that are dependent on coal.
The reverse, Brownstein notes, is true for more Republicans:
In contrast with the Democrats from split districts, 27 of the 34 Republicans from Obama-districts held with their party and voted against the legislation. California crystallized that trend: Of the eight Republicans there in districts that Obama carried last year, only Mary Bono Mack from Palm Springs supported the bill.
When it came to the Republicans, however, Brownstein didn’t take that observation to the next level: Read more
Climate change polls may be misleading
Americans have a more nuanced view of climate change than news reports about recent polls suggest, according to a Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media article by environmental journalist John Wihbey.
Wihbey, a former environmental reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, is addressing a supposed trend trumpeted over the last few months by the mainstream media: Despite mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, people seem to be getting more skeptical of climate change.
Wihbey makes a good case that the trend isn’t at all definitive, but the article doesn’t entirely convince me that public perception isn’t headed in the wrong direction. Read more
Rush Limbaugh: ‘Global cooling in full swing’
Three to 4 million Americans were told this yesterday afternoon — and have the same sort of thing beaten into their head every day. I wonder how many believe him.
A newspaper finally covers Heartland deniers’ meet
Finally, a mainstream reporter has covered last week’s Heartland Institute climate change skeptics’ conference, but his article doesn’t make the group sound particularly believable.
Scott Harper of the Virginian-Pilot, of Norfolk, Va., in a piece that was published Saturday, focused on the emotion-laden tone of the meeting, which was ostensibly held to display examples of dispassionate science. Read more
Oil group gives award to Murdoch editor
An oil industry lobbying group has given an award for “Media Excellence” to a leading global warming denier employed by Rupert Murdoch’s national daily, The Australian. What a surprise.
PR Watch, a U.S.-based group that watches such things, dubs it the “Slick Award”:
The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) , a peak lobby group for the oil industry and opponent of government’s taking strong action on global warming, has awarded the the JN Pierce Award for Media Excellence to the editor-in-chief of The Australian newspaper, Chris Mitchell. … The media release announcing the award stated that “over the past twelve months The Australian’s in-depth coverage of a range of public policy issues affecting Australia’s upstream oil and gas industry has been of a consistently high standard.”
Earth Journalism Awards prize: Ticket to Denmark
Both professional and citizen journalists are being invited to nominate their best reporting on climate change for the Earth Journalism Awards, a global contest sponsored by Internews.
The prize: A flight to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, where they will get funding to cover the negotiations and will be given their awards at a ceremony.
Of 15 awards, 14 are now open for entry between now and Sept. 7: Read more
Bill O’Reilly bark at Al Gore worse than his bite
Fox News heavily plugged an O’Reilly Factor segment on eco-celebrity Al Gore last night, but the report ended up sounded more like a faint reverberations in the conservative media’s echo chamber.
The report recycled the very same information that was peddled last month by O’Reilly’s guest host, Laura Ingraham. But this time correspondent Megyn Kelly credited Investor’s Business Daily for the information.
It turns out that IBD article didn’t provide any new information, however. Kelly apparently was referring to an un-sourced April 29 declaration on the business newspaper’s famously right-wing editorial page, which said:
When Gore left office in January 2001, he was said to have a net worth in the neighborhood of $2 million. A mere eight years later, estimates are that he is now worth about $100 million. It seems it’s easy being green, at least for some.
The thin sourcing of old news didn’t prevent O’Reilly and Fox from endlessly hyping the planned attack on O’Reilly’s climate change Enemy No. 1. Read more
CNBC’s Kudlow says no to “Obama’s little green go-karts”
Someone says “business news” and you think: Well, that ought to be serious, dispassionate, unsentimental, objective. It’s all about money. Right?
Wrong — at least when it comes to the major business cable networks. As Jon Stewart demonstrated with his on-air ambush of Jim Cramer in March, CNBC — supposedly the less ideological of the two business networks — is filled with just as much unthinking, knee-jerk “truthiness” as the rest of cable news.
That’s why ideologue Larry Kudlow is the network’s flagship host. And that’s why he went yesterday to conservative humorist P.J. O’Rourke for, er, business analysi. Well, actually it was just to help another pundit pimp his book.
“Are President Obama’s little green go-karts the end of our freedom?” Kudlow hyperventilated before introducing O’Rourke. “I want big cars! I want SUVs! I want horsepower!
Although O’Rourke shouldn’t be the guy to go to for investment advice, he’s funny and smart. Like any good humorist, he provokes more thought with wit than most talking heads do with rants.
Which brings us to Kudlow. Read more
Earth 2100: Two views of the TV screen
Last night’s ABC News’ documentary/graphic novella on climate change — Earth 2100: Civilization at Crossroads — elicited very different reviews, depending on which side of the TV the critic sat on.
Earth 2100 was hosted by real-world reporter Bob Woodruff. But it starred a fictional anime-style character named Lucy.
Grist.com was ga-ga about the show: “Hurray for the mainstream media exploring the worst-case scenario aka Hell and High Water!”
But the “Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow” at the free-market oriented Business and Media Institute called the show “a two-hour, left-wing, Obama commercial.” Read more
