By
James Taylor
A
publication that has built a reputation for fair and non-biased
reporting has lately been inserting leftist propaganda into its energy
and environment coverage.
Energy, environment, and climate reporting at the usually
solid Washington Examiner are increasingly taking on the left’s language
and agenda. Why are the Examiner’s two lead energy and climate
reporters advancing leftist politics rather than straight reporting, and
why is the paper allowing this to happen?
In June 2017, the Examiner hired Josh Siegel to join John Siciliano
covering energy, environment, and climate news. Siciliano had a solid
track record of just-the-facts reporting and had worked as a reporter
for The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of the
conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation.
Two months after bringing Siegel on board, the Examiner launched
Siegel and Siciliano’s “Daily on Energy” report, with each day’s edition
containing several short write-ups of energy, environment, and climate
issues. Lengthier versions of many of the short write-ups later appeared
in the Examiner as stand-alone articles.
Shifting Toward Politicized Language
Since launching the report, Siegel and Siciliano have taken a
significant turn toward the political left. Its substance, tone, word
choice, and quoted sources consistently advance leftist messaging on
energy, environment, and climate issues.
For example, in news articles regarding the Trump administration’s
proposal to enhance energy grid reliability by crediting coal and
nuclear power for being on-demand power sources with on-site fuel
storage, Siegel and Siciliano consistently refer to the proposal as “the
coal bailout.” While anti-coal activists can make a shaky argument that
assigning monetary value to electric grid security is a “bailout” for
the energy sources that provide that security, the argument is exactly
that–a political argument.
Siegel and Siciliano refer to the proposal matter-of-factly as “the
coal bailout,” as if such a label was factual and beyond dispute rather
than a loaded political argument. Just as strikingly, Siegel and
Siciliano never use the term “bailout” to describe wind and solar power
or the many government programs, subsidies, and policies that benefit
them, even though wind and solar power
receive more subsidies than all conventional energy sources combined.
When
reporting on Sen. Marco Rubio noting that sea level rise will continue,
regardless of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, Siegel and
Siciliano cite the aggressively leftist Union of Concerned Scientists
(UCS) in an attempt to rebut Rubio. Worse yet, they present the UCS as
an objective arbiter of scientific disputes. The journalists claim, in
their October 15 report, “What the science says about sea level rise: The Union of Concerned Scientists last week published a report…” (emphasis in the original).
Using Leftist Language To Talk About Climate Science
Siegel and Siciliano also use the left’s biased and loaded language when discussing global warming. In their October 10 report,
they write that President Trump “has denied climate science.” Trump has
never said there is no such thing as climate science, which would be
the factual definition of “denying climate science.” Trump acknowledges
climate science exists; he merely sides with the many thousands of
scientists who are skeptical about predictions of an imminent crisis.
Moreover, the term “denier” was inserted into the global warming
debate by environmental leftists who want a more loaded term than
“skeptics” to vilify people
who are skeptical of alarming global warming predictions. The term was
reportedly chosen in an effort to equate skeptics of an imminent global
warming crisis with contemptibly racist Holocaust deniers, which is
historically the most common use of the term “denier” in the political
context.
Siegel and Siciliano are likely familiar with the history of the term
and the strong objection skeptics take to being unfairly besmirched by
it. Yet they still used it to describe Trump.
On October 18,
the two journalists released another biased and inaccurate criticism of
Trump on climate issues. They wrote, “Trump on Tuesday continued to
falsely assert that the science is unsettled on climate change and its
causes…” Yet the causes of climate change are very unsettled.
For example, a 2016 survey of more than 4,000 American Meteorological
Society meteorologists reveals 33 percent believe humans are not
responsible for most or all of the earth’s recent warming. Even among
the 67 percent, many undoubtedly believe a warming earth will not create
the climate catastrophe the the environmental left predicts.
Moreover, every new publication by the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contains different
predictions than the previous publication, and each report explicitly
states there is a degree of uncertainty in its predictions. In fact,
IPCC predictions of future climate change have dropped significantly
over the years, from a prediction in its initial report, in 1990, of 0.3
degrees Celsius warming per decade, to its current prediction of 0.2
degrees per decade.
Real world observations also show temperatures are rising closer to
0.15 degrees per decade, which defies the predictions in all of the IPCC
reports. Yet Siegel and Siciano state that it is false to claim there
is scientific uncertainty regarding global warming.
In their same October 18 report, Siegel and Siciliano launched a
cheap personal attack on Trump, using a false global warming narrative
as a hook. They write that, during a recent media interview, Trump
“claimed he has a ‘natural instinct for science’ because his uncle
worked as a professor at MIT.”
While Trump claimed a natural instinct for science, and noted earlier in the conversation that his uncle was a professor at MIT, Trump did not say he has a natural instinct because
his uncle was a professor at MIT. Siegel and Siciliano’s inaccurate
description, while subtle, tells a false narrative that clearly conveys
ridicule for a person who he believes his uncle’s work at MIT
automatically makes him an expert.
But that is not what Trump said at all. It is difficult to believe
such an error, and one that appears designed to ridicule Trump, appeared
accidentally.
Why So Biased?
Many more examples exist. Why have Siegel and Siciliano deviated from
objective reporting and taken on the left’s language and agenda? People
would be forgiven for expecting that from the New York Times or the
Huffington Post, but the Washington Examiner? The paper, like the Wall
Street Journal, has a conservative editorial board and has historically
aimed its news reporting at the middle. But this kind of reporting is
not the middle. It better reflects the typical media bias towards the
left that the Examiner has built a reputation contrasting with fairer
reporting.
Is there a hidden follow-the-money story here? Is there an editor
pushing these reporters in a leftist direction? Is this an example of
two reporters succumbing to the leftist ideology that is so pervasive
inside the Beltway? Or is this just an example of the Washington, D.C.
political swamp rearing its ugly head? I don’t know, but it is tragic
and sad that the political left has subverted the energy, environment,
and climate reporting of a respected newspaper.
James Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy and vice president for external relations at The Heartland Institute.