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[Please Digg this post by clicking here. Updates are at the end. The NYT's Andy Revkin has a very good debunking of Will with detailed comments from leading cryosphere experts, "Experts: Big Flaw in Will's Ice Assertions." Sadly, Andy continues his refusal to correct the harm he did to Gore by equating him with Will. In a day or two, I will attempt to untarnish Gore's reputation to make clear that he did nothing whatsoever wrong -- intentionally or unintentionally -- as opposed to Will who has done multiple things wrong intentionally.]

“When a reputable newspaper lies, it poisons the community; every newspaper story becomes suspect,” declared a New York Times editorial. “Great publications magnify the voice of any single writer. Thus, when their editors or publishers want or need to know a source for what they print, they have to know it and be able to assure the community or the courts that they do. Where this is not now the rule, let this sad affair at least have the good effect of making it the rule.” That editorial was published on April 17, 1981 about the transgressions of a Washington Post reporter named Janet Cooke [who fabricated a story, which the Post later submitted for a Pulitzer Prize "despite the growing signs of problems" with the story's veracity].

Incomprehensibly, the Washington Post — after being roundly criticized for having senior editors and fact-checkers (and then their ombudsman!) sign off on (and then defend) George Will’s error-riddled global warming column — has allowed George Will to reassert in a new column (here) that every single one of his falsehoods was factual. [For a point-by-point debunking of the original February 15 piece, see CP and Wonk Room and this joint letter to WP].

And in what seems to be Alice-in-Wonderland journalism, a senior editor at the Washington Post now asserts it is perfectly reasonable for a non-scientist Post writer to reinterpret a prestigious source’s scientific data to support his or her conclusion — after those sources have repeatedly stated that their data is consistent with the exact opposite conclusion and without telling readers of that disagreement. And not only did Will do that multiple times in his first piece — the Post still let him do it again after he was called on it by multiple writers (see Washington Monthly and CP).

Much as I would like to spend my time writing about the strategies needed to prevent business-as-usual warming of 5°C to 7°C, both of my parents were award-winning professional journalists, and I think this story is simply too important not to focus a maximum spotlight on.

I will go through Will’s new and old falsehoods at length here because, as I noted above, the NYT editorialized on the Post’s infamous Janet Cooke scandal, “When a reputable newspaper lies, it poisons the community; every newspaper story becomes suspect.” Just as with the Janet Cooke scandal, this is about a major Washington Post writer fabricating and misusing soucres.

Media Matters saw Will’s column in advance and debunked it here, showing how Will doubled down on his previous global warming distortions and cited a document on sea ice trends as evidence against human-caused global warming when that “document actually states that the sea ice data are consistent with the outcomes projected by climate-change models.” And Will cited the U.N. World Meteorological Organization [WMO] — with no source citation — saying “there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade,” when, as Media Matters showed, as recently as January 7, Agence France-Presse quoted WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud as saying, “The major trend is unmistakably one of warming.” I have similar quotes from WMO in my original post.

The abuse of sources in Will’s columns — signed off on and defended by the Post’s editors (and ombudsman) should be a cautionary tale equal to the Janet Cooke story. One can only assume, sadly, that given the controversy, Will’s new piece was as at least as fact-checked as the original, which, according to the Washington Post ombudsman was “checked by people he [Will] personally employs, as well as two editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, which syndicates Will; our op-ed page editor; and two copy editors” (see here).

And yet the fact-checkers let through a lie so egregious that it would seem to utterly vitiate the credibility of the Post all by itself. Will was allowed to publish the following statement:

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The anti-clean-coal Reality Campaign is a coalition of some very serious groups and smart people. They have the same goal as all climate realists — stopping new dirty coal plants. But I just don’t think they have figured out an effective way to attack clean coal clap trap yet.

I criticized the first mocking ad of the Reality Campaign for many reasons, including a lack of obvious message (see here). I criticized their second mocking ad for many reasons, including a lack of obvious message and their continued use of mockery (see Does the “Reality Campaign” need new Mad Men?).

Now they have a third ad, which again relies on mockery (!), but at least they have gotten the best in the film business at irony to direct it (though not to write it) — the Coen brother (whom I love, see my interpretation of No Country for Old Men as a parable about global warming). Here is the ad:

I’ll share my view and then I’d love to hear yours.

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UPDATE: Wonk Room has an excellent critique of the Revkin piece here where he points out, among other things, that “Revkin Cites A Paper’s Argument Without Disclosing The Paper Cites Revkin”! I have also made some changes in word choice that I explain below.

The lead climate reporter for the New York Times, Andy Revkin, remains stuck in the he-said she-said school of climate journalism that typifies everything wrong with the traditional media’s coverage of the issue of the century.

Indeed, if we were to apply his analysis to his own work, then it would be fair to say that there is no difference between Andy Revkin and George Will – especially since Revkin altered a key word in a major report — he exaggerated — to make his case against Gore stronger.

[Note to Andy: As I reread this, I STILL really think you need to make a correction/retraction.]

His latest “News Analysis” piece, “In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall,” manages to equate the recent 99.5% disinformation-filled (and widely debunked) op-ed by George Will — that Will and the Washington Post still stand by some 10 days later (see here) — with the 99.5% accurate, science-based (and Nobel-Prize winning) talk/slideshow that Gore has developed over the decades, and which, when it was pointed out he slightly overstated what could be said about one slide, Gore quickly pulled it.

Apparently, to Revkin, if during an extended discussion about climate-related issues you make a single statement that — while not provably incorrect — is not 100% backed up by the scientific literature you cite, you are no different then someone who just repeats huge amounts of long-debunked disinformation.

So let’s apply that to Revkin. A year ago, he wrote an article that helped sell the “global cooling” meme. It had a chart labeled “An Unusually Cold Winter,” when in fact, as I pointed out that “January was the 31st warmest on record” since 1880 (see “Media enable denier spin 1: A (sort of) cold January doesn’t mean climate stopped warming“). Does that story make Andy no different than Will?

[As a telling aside, Andy wrote a comment to that post: "To have my story lumped in with a quick blog post that did cite some of the spin as fact is neither accurate nor useful." Gosh, Andy, you don't like your thoughtful, though partially mistaken, piece "lumped in" with some "spin." I guess people who live in green houses shouldn't throw stones. You are right, though, lumping Gore in with Will is neither accurate nor useful.]

And just to be clear here, this is hardly the only misstatement Andy has made. As I detail here, Andy wrote in a different story:

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[Please email the NYT at nytnews@nytimes.com to demand a correction for the egregious mistakes in Tierney's column and/or email its public editor at public@nytimes.com to explain you are "concerned about the paper's journalistic integrity."]

The backlash from George Will’s disinformation rightly grows each day that the Washington Post stands behind his lies (see “Post is staffed with people who found ZERO mistakes in George Will’s error-filled denial column“). Media Matters has samples of widespread outrage in the country here, and a new report from CAPAF challenges the WP to issue a correction.

Now it is time for outrage over John Tierney, who not only makes stuff up just like Will, but is actually on the New York Times staff as their ’science’ columnist. When we last saw Tierney, he was spreading lies and disinformation about science adviser nominee John Holdren (see “More proof Holdren is a great choice: Pielke, Tierney, Lomborg, and CEI diss him“).

Today, the NYT not only let him print more egregiously made up stuff to smear Holdren (and Energy Secretary Steven Chu). But they actually published an article “Politics in the Guise of Pure Science” under the heading “FINDINGS” about Chu, Holdren, climate science, and climate solutions with precisely one source — Roger Pielke, Jr. That would be like publishing an article critical of Obama’s handling of the financial crisis and only citing Bernie Madoff.

Amazingly Pielke is quoted at great length as an “honest broker” on climate issues [pause for laughter, hope the orchestra starts to drown him out before he can finish talking], even though his policies are indistinguishable from that of leading global warming deniers (see “Finally, Roger Pielke admits he supports policies that will take us to 5-7°C warming or more“).

I am not going to debunk everything Tierney wrote — like Will, his piece that brings to mind Mary McCarthy’s famous quip about Lillian Hellman:

Every word she writes is a lie — including ‘and’ and ‘the.’

But let me focus on the three most egregious things he writes — at least the first of which the New York Times should retract and correct:

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