10 October 2013

LA Times- You’re Entitled To Your Climate Change Conspiracy Theory, But We Aren’t Printing It

Posted by Dan Satterfield

Screen Shot 2013-10-10 at 2.46.19 AMI’ve always gotten some rather crazy comments when I do a post on climate change.  My comment policy here requires a name, and if you make a claim, I reserve the right to ask for some hard evidence. This usually means the conspiracy theories don’t often appear here. Don’t make the mistake of assuming I can’t take criticism however, because I love a good debate based on science.

I’ve long thought that blogs should use the same editorial judgement of newspapers. That means crazy accusations and claims do not always get published. Good journalism is about giving accurate facts, and not about giving equal time. Just because you think the Moon Landing was a hoax, does not mean you’re entitled to equal time on every story about the Apollo program.

If news stories on climate change gave the correct proportion of time to those scientists who disagree with the consensus, then a 30 minute TV program about it would have about 15 seconds devoted to those who disagree.

It seems the LA Times has adopted the same policy.

 

I’m sure that this will be seen by some as proof that the truth is being withheld from the public. That’s the great thing about a good conspiracy though, any proof that it’s wrong, is just part of the conspiracy!