By David Fiderer, a lawyer who covers the energy industry for several global banks in New York.  This is an OpEdNews.com repost.

If you wondered whether Murdoch’s various news outlets operate in sync when they misrepresent the facts about climate change, consider the deceitful reporting done by Ben Webster, the Environmental Editor for The Times of London. His smears against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were immediately amplified and embellished by Fox News in New York. Both Webster’s story and its Fox News incarnation were used to defame the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and to lend an air of legitimacy to the phony “Climate-gate” scandal that had already been debunked by scientific journals and scientific inquiries .

Today we know that one of the Murdoch employees arrested in Britain, Neil Wallis, was deeply implicated in two hacking scandals, the first pertaining to the News of the World, and the second pertaining to the invasion of computers at the University of East Anglia, the victim of the phony Climate-gate scandal touted by Fox News. So it may be worthwhile to take another look at how deceitful reporting within the Murdoch empire can spread like a virus. Look at the opening paragraphs in The Times of London story:

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What regions see the highest monthly expenditures on gas?

Mint.com, a website that tracks personal finances, released some data on cities where people spend the most and least on gas each month. The top three “guzzlers”: San Jose, California ($216); Birmingham, Alabama ($212); and Jacksonville Florida ($203).

The top three “teetotalers”: New York, New York ($102); Brooklyn, New York ($104); and Washington, DC ($112).  Perhaps more surprisingly, the ”teetotalers” include St. Louis ($138), Salt Lake City ($130), and Denver ($112).

As peak oil kicks in, those numbers will no doubt rise in many places — until people switch over to electric drive vehicles, when they will plummet.

Here’s the Pulitzer-Prize Winning Tom Toles, with a great cartoon plus his “Friday rant”:

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