george f. will
hrynyshyn | March 3, 2009My first take on Andy Revkin's odd little story effectively equating the climate change "hyperbole" generated by Al Gore and George F. Will was a quick shrug. Now I am not so sure.
While making such a comparison is clearly out of line, it seemed to me that anyone reading the story would come away more impressed by the differences between how Gore and Will handled their errors, rather than any implied similarities. Gore immediately withdrew a problematic sequence from his slide show when it was pointed out that the described trend in weather-related damages was not linked exclusively to…
hrynyshyn | March 2, 2009Last week we learned from the Washington Post's ombudsman that George F. Will had supplied a list of 20ish internet references to Post editors in support of his much-criticized Feb. 15 column. That column repeated his long-standing belief that the world is not warming according to the prevailing consensus of the world's climatologists. Now, Will claims to be on sound scientific footing and refuses to admit to the many errors that his critics say he keeps making. So it should not be surprising that the list of verifying sources that purport to support his arguments is of great interest to the…
hrynyshyn | February 28, 2009Like Carl Zimmer, I can't get past the George F. Will/WaPo climate change denial scandal. Carl's latest piece delves deeper into the nature of journalism and fact-checking at the Post, and I'm going to weigh in with my observations of working at newspapers off and on for the past 22 years.
First, contrary to what many non-journalists seem to believe, George F. Will is a journalist. Just because he gets to add interpretation and value judgment to the factual material that serves as his raw material doesn't mean he gets to flout the ethical parameters of the business. In other words, he is…
hrynyshyn | February 27, 2009How do I put this politely?
It is not possible for a reasonable person equipped with a secondary education to read the material George F. Will cites in his columns arguing against the scientific evidence for global warming and come to the conclusions that Will reaches.
It's been less than a day, but already the mountain of criticism written in response to a new column, leaked yesterday and published today in the Washington Post, in which American's leading conservative columns defends his previous column on the subject, is astounding. Carl Zimmer's is among the best, as usual. There's also…
hrynyshyn | February 25, 2009My apologies if you're weary of posts revolving around George F. Will and his inability to accept responsibility for getting climate science completely wrong. But the contrast between that sorry episode in one non-scientist's efforts to communicate science with those of Al Gore's is too stark to pass up.
This week Al Gore accepted that it had been a mistake to include a series of animated slides in the latest version of his climate change presentation. The images accurately record a dramatic spike in weather-related damages around the world in recent years, with the U.S. suffering more than…
hrynyshyn | February 23, 2009I just returned from delivering an hour-long presentation on climate change to the local chapter of American Association of University Women. It was one of the most intelligent and educated audiences I've had the pleasure to appear before. Followup questions were poignant and well-considered. But then someone piped up with:
"This is all makes a lot of sense. But last weekend I was reading a column by George Will...."
Sigh. The gentleman who had come across Will's error-laden Feb. 15 column, "Dark Green Doomsayers," was sincerely puzzled, I think. He seemed like a reasonable fellow who just…
hrynyshyn | February 20, 2009The focus has shifted from George F. Will's refusal to accept the science of climate change to the Washington Post's refusal to accept responsibility for Will's breach of journalism's most sacred tenets. I don't have more to say, but Carl Zimmer's second analysis of the problem is bang on. There's also Joe Romm (again) and Hilzoy of the Washington Monthly.
The bottom line is, Will was caught misrepresenting the science, and when the errors were brought to his editors' attention, in no uncertain terms, they refused to acknowledge any had been made. It's one thing to make a sloppy mistake,…
hrynyshyn | February 19, 2009I'm dwelling on George F. Will's latest violation of journalistic ethics because it seems to have hit a nerve. Journalists ordinarily too polite to attack another journalist for fear of appearing biased and unprofessional have broken with their habits to call Will on his misrepresentation of the mythical "global cooling" consensus of the 1970s.
It's not surprising to come across sarcastic and caustic reviews in places like the Think Progress Wonk Room or TPM Muckraker. And I would have been shocked if Joe Romm hadn't blown another in his infinite supply of gaskets. But the opprobrium has…