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PBS NewsHour Lambasted by Complaints for Including Climate Skeptic Perspective

Sep. 19, 2012 8:02pm Liz Klimas

On Sunday, PBS NewsHour included a segment on climate change with recently reformed climate skeptic Richard Muller and current “pragmatic climate skeptic” Anthony Watts. Since then, PBS has been criticized for creating “confusion” on the topic of man-made climate change and Watts has says he’s received an “unprecedented” amount of hate.

As PBS puts it (via the segment’s transcript) the “world of climate change” is an environment “where most scientists and a much smaller group of skeptics remain bitterly divided over their assessment of what’s happening to the planet.”

PBS NewsHour Airs Segment With Climate Skeptics and Receives Criticism for False Balance

Richard Muller (Image: PBS screenshot)

PBS covers Muller, a physicist for the University of California-Berkeley who was skeptical of climate change data until he began the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project. Armed with what he considered objective data from the project, Muller came out in an op-ed to the New York Times as a reformed climate skeptic who now believes “humans are almost entirely the cause” of climate change. PBS’ NewsHour corespondent Spencer Michels reporting the segment then brings in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s William Collins, who speaks on behalf of what most climate scientists believe of current temperature and other relevant data regarding climate change. Michels then brings on Watts, who maintains the climate skeptic blog Watts Up With That.

Antony Watts (Image: PBS screenshot)

Watts said in the interview, “Yes, we have some global warming. It’s clear the temperature has gone up in the last 100 years, but what percentage of that is from carbon dioxide and what percentage of that is from the changes in the local and measurement environment?”

He also shared his views on where some objectivity could be lost in the world of global warming research.

“There are whole divisions of universities that are set up to study this factor. And so there’s lots of money involved,” he said. “And so I think that there’s a tendency to want to keep that going and not really look at what might be different.”

Watch the 10-minute segment:

For including these men as guests and talking about an angle of climate change that, as Watt’s just put it, “might be different,” NewsHour has been receiving criticism. At the time of this posting, the web page with the segment and transcript has more than 60 comments and a blog post with an extended interview from Watts has more than 320 comments.

Forecast the Facts writes that PBS “provided an unchecked platform for Anthony Watts, a virulent climate change denier funded by the Heartland Institute.” It has launched an online petition to have the segment investigated for how it “came to be aired and [to] recommend corrective action to make sure a journalistic abomination like this never happens again.” Media Matters wrote that the segment ”propagates confusion on climate change.” Think Progress calls it “false balance” and the “worst climate story of the year.”

The Huffington Post points out that some believe the very existence of a global warming debate and those denying evidence for man-made climate change is because it is “manufactured with motivation from fossil fuel industry players.” Both Media Matters and Forecast the Facts point to Watts having associations with The Heartland Institute. It should also being noted that PBS does point out the Koch Foundation and The Heartland Institute helped fund Muller’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project, which lead him to “convert” from climate denaliasm to believing that warming is human-caused (but Muller has also been criticized by climate scientists as well as skeptics for bringing out his findings in an op-ed instead of a peer-reviewed journal). Of the Heartland Institute, the Huffington Post writes:

It is also well known that Heartland has received significant financial contributions from the oil and gas industry. The New York Times reported that Exxon Mobil“contributed more than $600,000 to Heartland” between 1998 and 2006.

With this, some contend a connection with the institute could influence views on the connection between fossil fuels and carbon dioxide and their effect on global warming.

Of the criticism Watts received, he wrote on his blog “objections were not with what I said, but rather that I was allowed to speak at all.”

Michels, the PBS correspondent, felt compelled Tuesday to write a blog post on the uproar that ensued over his coverage of the topic and the extended interview with Watts. He wrote that PBS thought it would “provide a chance for viewers to hear more about the skeptical perspective than we have done recently,” noting previous reporting over the years of an “expansive view from the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who say climate change is real.” Still, with complaints sent in from viewers and readers asking that more than the skeptic perspective be shared, Michel’s posts the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s response and defense of its warming data.

Michels ends with “we don’t expect this to be the last word in our own coverage. But we hope we’ve provided a bit more perspective to yesterday’s post and the broadcast piece.”

(H/T: Russel C.)

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Comments (54)

the blazer
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:24pm
Why bother watching PBS?

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poptech
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:21pm
The “complaints” all came from Skeptical Science, a website run by a cartoonist John Cook and the rest of his zealot leftists who have a partnership with Al Gore and believe Al Jazeera to be unbiased.

http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/03/truth-about-skeptical-science.html
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/09/skeptical-science-were-all-bunch-of.html
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/09/skeptical-science-partnership-with-al.html
http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/09/skeptical-science-from-al-gore-to-al.html

“Al Jazeera want[s] to feature SkS as the Site of the Week… Am sending them some info and pics now.” – John Cook [Skeptical Science], September 28, 2011

“Al Jazeera is actually one of the really good sources of journalism these days. [...] I’d say they’re really taking over the mantle of NPR for doing hard news. Al Jazeera is providing a news product that all but disappeared in the US today: Unbiased news.” – Rob Honeycutt [Skeptical Science], September 29, 2011

They also had very nice things to say about the late Andrew Breitbart,

http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/09/skeptical-science-ding-dong-witch-is.html

“Breitbart …was a horrible human being” – Daniel Bailey [Skeptical Science], March 2, 2012

“Ding dong, the witch is dead…” – John Hartz [Skeptical Science], March 2, 2012

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- The_Cabrito_Goat
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 9:59am
  Brilliant work
  
  Report this comment
Jaycen
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:04pm
Crazy is as crazy does.

Regressive Socialists want to have a “national crisis” that requires more direct control of the critical aspects of your life. How, where, when, how often you travel must be constrained. We HAVE to control people if we’re going to control the economy. See…people are the economy.

If you dropped out of the economy, you’d have a miniscule effect. If you convinced a lot of people to do it, you’d have Occupy Wall Street. That’s neither here nor there. No one who righteously believes in Anthropomorphic Global Warming is a scientist. Ask one about Physics or Chemistry. They have no clue.

The scientists who claim to know, won’t/can’t explain it in laymen’s terms, or give you data that isn’t later found to be “massaged” or in a couple cases outright false. We know there are ties with the “environmental movement” and communists. People just have to call it what it is. “Hey, that stupid little Earth in your e-mails. That’s Communism.”

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FEMALL
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:31pm
Hmmm..Jim Lehrer, PBS NEWS HOUR moderates the first Prez Debate.It begins…

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poptech
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:24pm
Muller was never a skeptic,

“If Al Gore reaches more people and convinces the world that global warming is real, even if he does it through exaggeration and distortion – which he does, but he’s very effective at it – then let him fly any plane he wants.” – Richard Muller, 2008

“There is a consensus that global warming is real. …it’s going to get much, much worse.” – Richard Muller, 2008

“Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.” – Richard Muller, 2003

http://www.populartechnology.net/2012/06/truth-about-richard-muller.html

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Carlinpa
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:17pm
yet again liberals prove that they are NOT scientific or “open minded” like William F Buckley said
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

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- Welcome Black Carter
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:14pm
  Liberals cannot be reasoned with. Elect them out of office. Keep them where they will do the least amount of damage.
  
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kalli
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:13pm
PBS, or public being screwed, is a liberal left-leaning rag that taxpayer dollars should not be funding. The soros-owned groups complaining about Watts being allowed on the program should pay for the entire funding since PureBS can only broadcast programs they approve.

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Gregb
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:05pm
global warming is real and is caused by man, the moon landing was faked, kennedy was shot by republicans, obama is not a communist, the U.S. government destroyed the world trade towers…. all of these beliefs from the left are crazy and they want to force us to be green???? The truth is that we have no control over earth’s climate. Nothing that we do will stop the natural processes and no taxes will stop nature.

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rbsJudy
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:11pm
Wonderful world where taxpayers sponsor PBS but audience doesnt think they should tell both sides of a story.

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Rayblue
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:07pm
They’ve learned this trick from so many other liberal agendas.
Ram their foot in the door and keep up the screaming no matter what the cost in making themselves laughingstocks. And after a while people just feel sorry for them, pat them on the head and give them a pass to the next grade. Until conservatism has to finally quit the Dr Phil/Oprah approach and force feed them their new diet of responsibility.

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roadhog
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:55pm
PBS and the BBC are Communits

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paperpushermj
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:50pm
It seems the Believer see him as an Iconoclast and wish to drive him out of the Temple.

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TJexcite
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:43pm
Some say the worse Apostate is one that goes against Islam but it really it one that is apostate to the AGW theory.

They are crying on the hills that the arctic is ice free but no mention that there was a huge storm that caused the ice to break up due to wind. Also that the Antarctic is having record level of ice.

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DarkJello
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:35pm
Hearing ALL sides is the ONLY way to SCIENTIFICALLY learn more about climate change.

Anyone who wants to silence any part of the discussion is a SKEPTIC of science.

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Stelex
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:32pm
We know GW is a scam, its a fact. But what isn’t up for debate is the Patriot Act, NDAA and all associated agencies. TSA, has to go, ATF, has to go, EPA, has to go, DHS….really has to go and they should sell off there 1.6 billion bullets.The only person I would have confidence in would vow to disband TSA, IRS, EPA. DOE, no I’m not a Paulbot…….but this is the only rational begining.

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Politijack
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:27pm
Green is the new Red

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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:22pm
  POLITIJACK, That is why they call them watermelons. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
  
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godhatesacoward
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:25pm
I guess it only took 1 whack to the forehead from the manbearpig mafia for him to cry mercy.

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deltaecho
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:23pm
To the Warmers: What, precisely, is the correct temperature of Gaia? Please show your work.

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- Wolfgang the Gray
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:51pm
  ROTFL! I still remember Gore & his “Inconvenient Truth”. He said the oceans would rise like 21ft, but he busy a beach front home in San Francisco.
  
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Chromo200
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:21pm
That is why I don’t watch PBS or listen to NPR since they are one sided and any attempt to be objective is met with the Lefts wrath. I am a conservative, but I read a lot of papers from all over the world and from both sides of the isle. I wonder how many of the PBS people do so. My cousins watch PBS and read the NYT or the Wash. Post.

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- Salamander
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:44pm
  I’m sure they consider themselves ‘well read’ and ‘diverse’, as do all of my friends that read ‘all the news that’s fit to print’! They wouldn’t think of reading something ‘from the other side’, just to see how ‘they’ think! One’s a Princeton graduate, the others are Wellesley, Tufts and Havard. All are well-entrenched in the academia and consider themselves FAR superior to those lowly conservative Beck-types! (I’ll reiterate that I’m willing to bet that Harvard Business School will have a case study on Glenn Beck, The Blaze, and his efforts to wake up a sleeping giant–that segment of the voting public that pays all the bills!
  
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Sirfoldallot
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:18pm
Million of yrs of climate change with out man . PBS , hummm, P-BS , now it’s right.

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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:35pm
  Pure Bull Sh/t
  
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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:36pm
  Okay, I do have to add that I watch the wood working shows.
  
  Report this comment
sparkyrules
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:15pm
“One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.” James Lovelock, the Godfather of global warming

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel

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- wvernon1981
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:25pm
  That is true but as we reach better and better approximations of truth, we should act according to our best knowledge at the time.
  
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- Fatheroftwo
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:44pm
  The problem I have with Climate Scientists is that a great deal of them have hitched their wagon to Politics and as most people know when you attach yourself to Politics you become corrupt! It will be along time before these Scientists will become believable again!
  
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cookcountypatriot
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:13pm
tax payer feeding of the trolls at npr and pbs must come to an end…these fanatics actually believe this stuff…when they go on a force diet from tax payer dollars they will decide to investigate the TRUTH

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- wvernon1981
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:19pm
  How does one investigate the truth about climate change when discerning the truth about climate change requires at least 10 years of higher education to competently assess the evidence for and against anthropogenic climate change?
  
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- DarkJello
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:38pm
  @wvernon:
  
  Apparently 10 years studying anything will do… just ask Al Gore.
  
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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:39pm
  WVERNON1981, Please, fill us in on your ten years of higher learning. The discerning mind wants to know.
  
  Report this comment
- wvernon1981
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:55pm
  I don’t have 10 years of climate science expertise. That’s why I go with the understanding of those that do. Why would you think I’m asserting I’m an expert?
  
  Report this comment
- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:18pm
  Thought maybe that you had something under your belt other than falling for this scam that has been perpetuated by currently admitted frauds.
  
  Report this comment
- Fatheroftwo
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:49pm
  And after all those years of higher education all they’ve really learned is how to pick and choose their data sets to give the best example of the Politically excepted standard so as to garner the most funding! Money! Money!! Money!!! Got to pay for the education somehow!!
  
  Report this comment
- 13th Imam
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 9:54pm
  In 1970-80 , Global Cooling was going to bring on the next Ice Age. Wha happened wi dat? You must have not lived thru dat era. History only starts when you are born, if you are born, if you are a Liberal.
  
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- wvernon1981
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:32pm
  FatherOfTwo,
  
  How did you come to the conclusion that the scientists were cherry picking data? Is it because of the “climategate” emails? The researchers were cleared of academic misconduct by multiple academic panels. Am I missing something?
  
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- Fatheroftwo
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 11:13pm
  Ask any Climate Scientist to provide the original data sets that they base their hypothesis on and see what answer you get! I have heard that the originals are so corrupt that they might as well not exist anymore! That’s just me though, I haven’t been educated for 10 yrs, although I’m married to a meteorologist who has been!!!
  
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- WindyDualism
  Posted on September 20, 2012 at 7:46am
  Grants are for what again? 10 years of grant writing and fluffing manbearpig should lead to some sort of empirical data. Cow farts? It is a billion buck industry for granola wankers that have nothing else to affix their name to and research. Nobels for all for feeling.
  
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progressiveslayer
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:12pm
The warmer cultists are as bad as the Obamazombies and their groups overlap,they’re stupid and naive,they’ll believe anything you tell them.Except the fact that man made global warming is a fraud,the greatest fraud perpetrated on mankind.

http://climatedepot.com/ http://ilovecarbondioxide.com/

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PutMoreOnMyPlate
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:10pm
I feel a climate change is about to happen and you can’t tax it away.

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CaveDweller
Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:06pm
If the incoming Romney administration wants me to take them seriously, they and the new Republican Congress will immediately and completely defund NPR?PBS/CPB and any remaining vestiges of the government broadcast propaganda wing.

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- progressiveslayer
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 8:14pm
  They should also kill all so called green energy BS programs and exploit ALL our natural resources.
  We have more oil and gas than any country on earth and we need to exploit them.
  
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- RSHLUVER
  Posted on September 19, 2012 at 10:48pm
  Agreed!!
  
  Report this comment

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