Back When "Skeptic" was a Good Thing

Now that the New York Times has finally acknowledged Climategate and folks are starting to wonder about the basic state of journalism. 

The Times seems to have forgotten the most important aspect of the news business.  For years now ’skeptic’ has been a dirty word at the Times when the subject of climate change comes up.  Excuse me, but reporters are supposed to be skeptics.  They are supposed to be cynical, hard bitten people who trust their mothers — but cut the cards.  They are supposed to think that scientists are probably too much in love with their data, that issue advocates have hidden agendas, that high-toned rhetoric is often a cover for naked self interest, that bloviating politicians have cynical motives and that heroes, even Nobel Prize laureates, have feet of clay.  That is their job; it is why we respect them and why we pay attention to what they write.

Comments

[papatodd]

Skeptically reporters = big circulation and a profitable business.
Kiss-ass reporters = falling circulation,failing biz and lots of lay-offs.
Example A The NY Times
Example B ABC News.

[Ben Kalafut]

This is equivocal: the climate "skeptics" have for the most part not acted like skeptics for years--they're excitable and, if an argument supports their pre-determined position, credulous. They don't search the literature to check whether or not their whims are wrong, either.

The real skeptics are the working scientists. A good, skeptical science reporter is rare outside of Science, Nature, or other pubs where they hire ex-scientists to do the writing: the skills needed are ones that reporters simply do not have. But I trust that some reporters can at least smell the obvious BS of the so-called "climate skeptics".

[bridgetusee]

Define "climate skeptic" please.

[nick]

Ben,

Tell me more about science?

Washington Times:

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.

Goreism is defrocked!