In technical terms, Revkin’s dilemma is known as the Hostile Media Effect, according to an interesting post by communications expert Matthew Nisbet at his blog, Framing Science. And that effect is probably the reason that most of the press didn’t touch the Heartland Institute conference: many unsure reporters do, in fact, consider it a bear trap. The few other seasoned journalists who took a shot at explaining the event, like The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin, who called the conference a “global warming doppelganger” of the IPCC process, found just as much controversy as Revkin. Even CNN’s Miles O’Brien is taking heat from Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard for likening conference-goers to “flat earthers.” Only Reuters deserves a kick in the pants for its ridiculous cop-out and utterly pointless report about the ad hominem “roasting” of Al Gore.


Journalists should not shy away from reporting and analyzing events like a group of skeptics’ opportunistic use of a cold spell, no matter whom they rankle. If such things are as riddled with pseudo science and misdirection as environmentalists claim, then explaining that will surely do no harm. The public remains easily confused by climate and weather, and skeptical arguments resonate. As the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported Monday, a local judge attended the Heartland Institute conference in order to learn something that he might use to argue against a proposed moratorium on coal-fired power plants. So a head-in-the-sand approach is simply not an option.

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