The last time I fact-checked The New York Times, the Gray Lady was getting a much needed geography lesson about Arkansas.
The lessons continue!
Earlier this week, the newspaper-of-record published a front-page, bombshell report stating that a leaker had sent them a draft report of the National Climate Assessment, an analysis that the contact feared was being suppressed by the Trump administration. According the original article, the material wasn’t being released because it contradicted the views of Team Trump.
Now, the newspaper has been forced to issue a very public, and quite embarrassing, correction.
Turns out, the draft report has been publicly available for seven months, meaning the Times “scoop” was no scoop at all.The Times’s front-page story said that scientists were worried that the Climate Science Special Report — a multi-agency report that lays the blame for climate change on human activity — “would be suppressed” by the Trump administration, as cabinet members have expressed skepticism that humans are causing global warming.But, as with many reports from federal agencies, there is a period of public comment before a final report is issued. The third order draft, which the Times had falsely hyped as an exclusive of unpublished material, has been publicly available since January on the Internet Archive.The Internet Archive — also known as The Internet Wayback Machine Archive — is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library.In its correction, the red-faced Gray Lady wrote: “An article on Tuesday about a sweeping federal climate change report referred incorrectly to the availability of the report. While it was not widely publicized, the report was uploaded by the nonprofit Internet Archive in January; it was not first made public by The New York Times.”
The heat of the embarrassment is so hot that I swear I feel it in California!
Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, is listed on the report as among the lead authors. The story started to unravel when he indicated that the report had already been made public.
The Internet Archive, a website that archives content published online, says it downloaded the report from the Environmental Protection Agency’s website in January 2017.Kopp noted the draft was published on the site during the public comment period, but then taken down after the period. But it still remained online at the Internet Archive’s site.“The Times’ leaked draft has been on the Internet Archive since January, during the public comment period,” Kopp said.Another scientist who authored the report, Katharine Hayhoe, a professor at Texas Tech who leads the school’s Climate Science Center, also emphasized that the report is already publicly available.
Legal Insurrection leaders will recall that a Red Team/Blue Team approach has been set up by the Trump Administration to challenge the entrenched attitudes supporting climate change in the bureaucracy. Members of the Red Team from the Heartland Institue shared their views about the NYT’s article.
Climate change skeptics at the Heartland Institute slammed the New York Times as “fake news” Wednesday after the newspaper reported this week that President Trump was looking to suppress a new federal report on global warming despite the report being publicly available.”The New York Times’ front-page story on the National Climate Assessment represents fake news in collaboration with the deep state,” said Fred Palmer, senior fellow at the conservative think tank.Isaac Orr, a researcher for the group, added that the story’s claim that government scientists leaked a draft of the National Climate Assessment “for fear of the report being suppressed by the Trump administration demonstrates how politicized the debate over human influences on global temperatures has become.”
Despite the very public shaming, I theorize that the professional climate at The New York Times will not change an iota. Brace yourselves for another #FakeNews item soon!
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