Reporting on preparatory negotiations kicking off on Monday in Bonn, Germany, Fox News Channel treated its viewers this weekend to a “crawler” that claimed the failed “Kyoto Protocol, which committed 183 countries to reducing emissions 5% from 1990 levels by 2012″.

No. It did not. This is a common, material misstatement premised in a UN talking point but which does not withstand scrutiny.

Kyoto committed 35 countries (not 183) to varying levels of emission “reductions” about, 30 of which amounted to emission increases. These ranged from Australia promising to “reduce” emissions by increasing them no more than +8% over 1990 levels, to … Continue Reading

Liberal interest groups scored a victory this week when the Arizona State Supreme Court ruled that two voucher programs designed to help special education students and foster children attend private school violated the state’s constitution.

Writing about the court case in the March 26, Arizona Republic, reporters Pat Kossan and Emily Gersema slipped in a misleading generalization about school vouchers’ effectiveness. They wrote: “Vouchers are the most controversial and least successful of school-choice reforms that have swept the country during the past decade.”

This probably gives readers the impression that school voucher programs aren’t working. But an actual look … Continue Reading

The March 22 London Independent has an article titled “The incredible shrinking polar bear” by Geoffrey Lean. It begins:

Polar bears are shrinking, along with the ice on which they live – and are turning to cannibalism – as global warming increasingly stops them getting enough to eat.

Scientists say the animals are now only two-thirds as big as they were 30 years ago as melting ice makes it harder for them to catch seals, and that they have begun to hunt each other instead.

The thrust of the piece was that stress and alleged cannibalism, due to global warming, is responsible … Continue Reading

When President Bush and Vice President Cheney claimed that reversing their tax cuts would hurt many small businesses, the fact-checkers of the press zinged them for exaggerating the impact. Most small businesses, they pointed out, would not be affected. Good for the media: Journalists ought to inform the public when their leaders are making false or misleading statements.

But they ought to do so whether the politicians in question are Republicans or Democrats, and whether the claims help liberal or conservative causes. Last night, President Obama said that his liberalized policy on funding for embryonic stem-cell research would aid the search … Continue Reading

On March 22, The State newspaper in South Carolina profiled a top Democratic lawmaker’s change of heart on school choice. State Sen. Robert Ford, a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination for 2010, is now supporting legislation that would give families across the state greater power to choose their children’s school.

In explaining how Senator Ford is breaking with some of his colleagues in the state legislature, reporter Roddie Burris makes a sweeping generalization about who supports school vouchers:

…African-American lawmakers have continued to resist public money for private schools. Instead, improving public schools, where nearly all African-American children attend,

… Continue Reading

The Washington Post reported March 22 on how workers are feeling pressure not to ask for, or take advantage of, flexible work schedules or other family-friendly benefits. Reporter Annys Shin writes:

In good times, workers frequently seized the opportunity to use “flex time” and family leave, to telecommute and to take paid sick days. But, according to workplace consultants, human resources specialists and employees themselves, those days are slipping away. More workers are giving up those arrangements, or resisting asking about them in the first place, out of fears that doing so will make them appear less committed to

… Continue Reading

Covering President Obama’s decision to begin federal financing for embryonic stem cell research for the March 6 New York Times, David Stout and Gardiner Harris give short shrift to the major advances research in adult stem cells have taken:

Critics of embryonic stem cell research also argue that scientists can use different types of stem cells, like those found in amniotic fluid or the placenta. But supporters of using embryonic cells say those are by far the most promising.

That’s it. That’s all the coverage adult stem cells get. Contrast that with the Washington Post’s Rob Stein’s coverage from earlier … Continue Reading

The March 9 Washington Post has a story by Rob Stein titled “Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics“, announcing that the Obama administration will “issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence”.

This claim and its premise, that such shielding is needed and a change, meet no critical inquiry in the piece. Instead they are supported by administration official claims of the sort that have been frequently reported ever since Obama made a similar claim in his inauguration address. For example, “‘The president believes that it’s particularly important to sign this … Continue Reading

The AP repeats a common myth in their March 10, story “UC Merced gets $4M for campus stem cell project.” From the item:

The University of California-Merced will be getting a boost from President Barack Obama’s lift of the ban on embryonic stem cell research.

In fact, President Bush never banned stem cell research that destroys embryos. Scientists were free to conduct that research throughout the Clinton and Bush administrations. They could do so with all the state and private funds they could get their hands on. And Bush didn’t even ban taxpayer funding of the controversial practice. In fact, he … Continue Reading

The March 16, 2009 USA Today headline, “Reports question U.S. shield of Europe” by Ken Dilanian fueled an already on going controversy about the future of ground-based missile defense sites that are to be emplaced in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter a potential Iranian long-range ballistic missile threat against Europe and the United States. The headline refers to a report by the Government Accountability that was released later that day and a Congressional Budget Office study released earlier that month. The article, however, actually drew from a wide variety of sources to question … Continue Reading

Jennifer Brown’s March 17 Denver Post article “Colo. Medicare Patients in the Cold” blurs the line between government run health care and health insurance. Brown writes:

The recent closure of two clinics that treated Medicare patients has magnified concern for some of Colorado’s neediest senior citizens, who have long struggled to find doctors willing to accept low-paying insurance.

The loss of the clinics in Colorado Springs and Boulder — both of which shut their doors within the past few weeks — punctuates what doctors call a major flaw in the health care system: Physicians who treat the underinsured have little incentive

… Continue Reading

In their February 23 article “Obama Pushes Firmer Budget Rules,” Wall Street Journal reporters Jonathan Weisman and John McKinnon exaggerate the reach of the President’s Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) proposal. They state that:

President Barack Obama this week will propose using mandatory, across-the-board spending cuts to offset any new initiative that expands the government’s red ink.

The article later says:

Under Mr. Obama’s plan, new spending or tax cuts being adopted by Congress would have to be offset by equivalent spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere.

The authors incorrectly assert that all new spending is subject to PAYGO. In reality, entitlement spending is subject to … Continue Reading

Matt McGrath’s  March 12 BBC article, “Earth warming faster than thought,” offers no evidence of any such thing. It merely reveals claims of impacts that modelers project would result from a large warming – impacts greater than previously asserted by others, as is how things work when it comes to global warming.

Examples include one person cited who “said that if the world was to warm by 5C over the next century there would be dramatic consequences for millions of people.” Also, “There was also new information on how the Amazon rainforest would cope with rising temperatures.”

The article said “New … Continue Reading

In March 8’s “Pentagon’s Unwanted Projects in Earmarks Democrats Press Backyard Spending,” Washington Post staff writers R. Jeffrey Smith and Ellen Nakashima’s incorrectly argue Congressional earmarks are behind the procurement of the Pentagon’s most advanced weapons systems.

Regarding the F-22 fighter aircraft, the article quotes a senior defense official stating “the plane has not been used in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.” This criticism makes no sense. The first unit of F-22s was not even declared operational until December 2007. Further, in 2008 the Air Force requested to deploy the F-22 to Iraq and the Department of Defense denied … Continue Reading

David Sands’ piece in March 3’s Washington Times entitled “Hispanics Wary of Future in GOP” has this nut graf:

Leading Hispanic Republican strategists say the natural attraction the party should enjoy with churchgoing, socially conservative Latino voters is being overwhelmed by a single issue: the party’s hard-line stance on illegal immigration.

There’s a lot to complain about in this story, from it’s being a glorified press release for an unbalanced panel at CPAC last week, to the lack of skeptical voices, other than one 14-word quote from Heather Mac Donald, an important cultural critic but hardly an electoral analyst.

But under the … Continue Reading