In a Q&A; at the Wonk Room today, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) was asked why “the media still giving space” to global warming deniers. “I’m hopeful that while the old talking heads are still singing the ‘anti-science’ tune, most of America doesn’t really believe it,” replied Edwards.
Unfortunately, a new Gallup poll shows that while a majority of Americans still believe global warming is happening, a record number now say that it is “exaggerated” by the news media:
Considering the manner in which the media covers global warming, it’s not surprising that the public is confused. For instance, when conservative columnist George Will published demonstrably false claims about climate change in the Washington Post, the Post refused to run a correction. Editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, defended Will, claiming that he was simply “drawing inferences from data that most scientists reject” and that his critics were “irresponsible.”
In 2007, former Vice President Al Gore pointed out that studies have found that “essentially zero percent of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles disagreed that global warming exists,” but that “53 percent of mainstream newspaper articles disagreed [with] the global warming premise.” Gore says that this is “balance as bias.”