The Examiner’s Dead Polar Bear Award goes to Andrew Revkin, the New York Times climate beat reporter, who ignored mounting evidence that the “science” used to justify draconian cap-and-trade proposals to reduce energy use was phony.
When a critic of Penn State’s Michael Mann exposed the data manipulations behind Mann’s infamous hockey stick graph, Mann told Revkin in an e-mail: “Those … who operate almost entirely outside of the [rigged peer-reviewed] system are not to be trusted.” Instead of investigating further, Revkin bought Mann’s lame excuse hook, line and sinker: “I’m going to blog on this as it relates to the value of the peer review process and not on the merits of the … attacks,” the journalist responded.
When the incriminating e-mails from the Climate Research Unit were finally released, Revkin huffed that they may have been illegally stolen by hackers, a strange stance from a reporter who works for a newspaper that has no qualms about printing leaked national security secrets.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor.
