Day Fourteen and Counting
Published: 12/4/2009 12:05 PM ET
Bozell Defends Networks' Silence on ClimateGate:
"Maybe They Just Don't Know"
"Maybe They Just Don't Know"
Alexandria, VA - For the fourteenth straight day, the three broadcast networks have failed to report on the great and growing ClimateGate scandal on their weekday morning or evening news programs. How to explain this?
Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, despite two weeks of non-stop reporting on and discussion of ClimateGate in a whole host of media outlets.
Perhaps the broadcast networks only trust their fellow liberal press outlets, like the New York Times. Perhaps they don't realize the Times exhibited journalistic diligence on ClimateGate, with a front page story the day the story broke.
In the event that ABC News, NBC News and CBS News missed the news, the Media Research Center (MRC) is today rushing each of them a copy of the Times story, in the hopes that armed with this new information, they will finally report a story that has been roiling nearly everywhere else for a fortnight.
So as not to offend the networks' pro-global warming sensibilities, MRC President Brent Bozell is looking to have the stories delivered by bicycle messenger.
Bozell:
"Ignorance is no excuse under the law, but maybe we should stop criticizing and start showing compassion for NBC, ABC and CBS and their neglect of the huge ClimateGate story. We are more than happy to help rectify their knowledge deficit - via a network-friendly source and in an as environmentally-friendly a way as possible.[UPDATE, Dec 5: Friday evening, NBC Nightly News finally mentions ClimateGate, but frets it could "delay taking action." ABC and CBS remain silent. Read more here.]
"We think that once the networks read the story of ClimateGate in their vaunted New York Times, they'll feel compelled to report it themselves.
"We very much look forward to seeing the fruits of their labor."