The story circling the blogosphere this week is that libertarian think tank the Heartland Institute founded and partially funded by our own Koch brothers (they’re from Kansas, and Koch Industries is in Wichita) had revealed they were making stuff up in their fight against the cult of man-caused global warming.
As my friend and colleague Charlie Martin wrote earlier;
“Heartland Institute (insert Phantom of the Opera music, pictures of bats, and a reference to the Koch Brothers) ‘whistleblower’ had revealed ‘Heartland Institute’s budget, fundraising plan, its Climate Strategy for 2012 and sundry other documents (all attached) that prove all of the worst allegations that have been leveled against the organization.’”
There was only one problem — it would appear the one document which showed they were lying has been forged and the rest of the documents were stolen by a Huffington Post writer who is a longtime advocate for global warming.
Peter H. Gleick claims he’d been forwarded the strategy documents by an anonymous source and “in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name.”
Let’s be clear here. What he did is theft. Hidden camera investigations are always on ethically shaky ground, as journalists are not supposed to represent themselves as anything but who and what we are in order to gather information. Hidden camera investigations are only used when there is no other way to get the story and the story is of enough importance to override the questionable nature of the tactics.
There is no situation in which it is acceptable to commit fraud — and make no mistake, that’s what Gleick did — in order to get a story.
That’s aside from the federal charges and lawsuit sources tell me he’s facing for the forged document as well.
Here’s the thing. Whichever side of the global warming debate you’re on, you deserve to be able to trust the people reporting on it. Actually the biggest asset any journalist has is his credibility. It’s vital that our readers be able to trust us.
What Gleick did is to violate that trust. His credibility is destroyed.
It’s sad, really.
As journalists, we are not well liked or respected generally. As a group we have really done a job on our prestige in this country. No one really believes we can be trusted to tell the truth any more.
For someone who has always regarded this profession as a calling, it’s frustrating.
I was taught that we have an important responsibility — not just to inform the public, but to act as a final check on the government.
So many of my colleagues are acting as the propaganda arm of the current administration and are so often caught plagiarizing, or simply making stories up from whole cloth, it’s killing a profession I’ve long considered a noble way to spend your life.
My colleagues, please, remember your ethics, remember your responsibilities. It’s not too late to restore public trust and confidence in our calling — it will just take time.
So Patrick how did Charlie and you and others here discuss the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia? Did you treat those stolen emails the same? Did you say that was bad and never should have happened? Well Heartland went wild with those stolen emails and even when all the investigations pronounced that nothings was amiss and the science was right they still persisted.
Don’t you just like the irony of all this?
The only thing I see here that’s different is Peter Gleik told us what happened while the others kept quiet and enjoyed the praise of conservatives like you.
So, out of curiosity, which side of this are you arguing?
Are you saying that publicly funded organizations ought to be able to successfully defy FOI laws and keep documents private which were generated using taxpayer funds (not a position taken by most of the Anglosphere, I’ll grant you, so a bold one if you do take it)?
Conversely, are you arguing that a private organization should consider all of its private documents to be in the public domain?
If you are trying to draw an equivalence, it’s either one or the other. Would you please clarify your position?
Gee Mathew I wasn’t taking a position on either. Is that what you got from reading my post? Let me then clarify – when emails were stolen from the University of East Anglia Heartland Institute did not grouse about who stole them they immediately went to work saying that it proves the science was rigged. Of course like their typical work they were spreading disinformation and junk science which is their lot and role and what they get paid to do in this world. The irony is now they get their emails and documents (which they have not proven any were fakes although they yelp about it a lot) published and scream bloody murder.
I say we investigate it so we can get to the bottom of it – if they were spreading deliberate disinformation we should draw and quarter them and put it on Pay TV with the funds used to lower the deficit
You’re the one who’s been arguing that the cases are equivalent, even though the institutions involved have wildly differing legal expectations of privacy.
You seem to keep accusing people here of hypocrisy for treating completely different cases, well, differently. More than a tad disingenuous of you unless you see the cases as being equivalent. So, are you deliberately presenting yourself as a fool, or can you argue the equivalence?
To date, no one knows who got those East Anglia emails or how they did it. Those who received them from the source didn’t use fraud to obtain them. That’s a significant difference. The fact that many of the IPCC emails discussed evading US and UK laws is also significant.
It’s funny how the sides change. Many people who condemned the IPCC leaks praised the release of US government classified files (and vice versa). The difference is that the release of the classified government files actually put lives in danger while the release of the ClimateGate files put the livelihood of many “climate scientists” in danger.
As journalists, we are not well liked or respected generally. As a group we have really done a job on our prestige in this country. No one really believes we can be trusted to tell the truth any more.
To say that journalists are not well liked or respected is an understatement. On the trustworthniness scale, most people rank journalists at or below politicians and used car salesmen. So-called journalists have no one to blame but themselves. Had they actually been doing their job (and not just against Republicans), they would be held in higher esteem. As it is, they have their noses buried so far up Obama’s rear end that if the president farted, he’d blow out all their eardrums.
Larry,
I mostly agree with you, it’s a little more complicated than that. Although it seems rather simple to someone who doesn’t know the business. Most of us in-the-trenches types are just average guys, overworked and underpaid doing their best to get it right.
We get tarred with the brush of the evil journalist by the so-called big names at the Pravda-like rags in the major metros.
It’s the same as what I tell cops who complain about being lumped in with those on the take or who are excessively brutal: You’re no better than the worst actors you allow to remain in your force. If you want to regain the respect of the population at large, clean up your act. However, once trust is lost, it is very difficult to regain.
“the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia”
Do you actually know they were stolen? It is not known how they were obtained. The suspicion is hacking, but it is not known. It might have been released by someone from the inside, someone who did not want to get into legal trouble for denying FOIA requests.
Fact is, they were not stolen, because they are public property in the first place. That was the deal for the money they received. Their work then became subject to FOIA requests. They tried to renege on the deal, tried to keep the information private. It wasn’t theirs. They sold it to the public in advance for money. By definition, you cannot steal that which belongs to you.
Liberals do not know what words mean. That’s what makes them Liberals. When you don’t know what words mean, you get fooled all the time by the misuse of words, by the lies.
*sigh*
Where to begin. Flaming Wingnut, it’s become increasingly clear that the East Anglia emails were leaked by a source inside the climate unit, not obtained fraudulently. Moreover those emails were accurate. No one inside East Anglia has tried to pretend they weren’t.
In this case a man I’m saddened to call colleague chose to violate the basic tenants of journalistic ethics which require us to clearly state to any source that we are, in fact, journalists. Doing so makes it explicitly clear that anything which is said is on the record and a source must therefore guard their tongue.
It is a firing offense at any paper I’ve ever worked at to misrepresent yourself to a source. Indeed as an editor if any of my reporters ever did so not only would they be looking for a new job within about 5 seconds of my hearing about it, I’d do my best to black ball them in the rest of the industry.
And before you bring up the Pentagon Papers again, it is perfectly acceptable to print documents someone else has given you so long as you’ve verified the authenticity of said documents. It remains unacceptable to steal them yourself.
You are as ignorant of journalistic ethics as you are of everything else — and it shows.
Poor Patrick the East Anglia emails were either hacked or they were dumped from inside OK. We agree so far it’s either one or the other. If it’s hacked then they were obtained fraudulently or does your thinking not understand that? I understand you need to believe only the side that supports you objectives even though there is no evidence on that fact.
Now regards to those emails being accurate = no one said they weren’t here.
I agree that Peter Gleik did a bad thing and should be fired. However, the first document was not stolen or even obtained fraudulently. You know the one in which Heartland said it’s a fake – where I say prove it and you swallow what they say because you would never question their objectiveness or sincerity.
Now as for the rest of the documents they are accurate even according to Heartland and it’s not a nice read but I’m sure with your journalistic ethics you will have no problem making Heartland into Saints and even drop to your knees in adoration of your hero Fred Singer.
You talk about ethics – you don’t even know what the word means especially when talking about Global Warming
At least try to be consistent. I was quite clear. So far as anyone has been able to determine no journalist committed fraud to obtain the East Anglia emails, as your buddy Pete has admitted to doing.
Hacking, by the way, is not fraud.
It was perfectly acceptable for news outlets to publish those documents as it was for the WaPo and NYT to publish the Pentagon Papers.
Had Gleick been able to determine the authenticity of the documents he was given without resorting to deception then it would have been perfectly ethical to publish those as well.
The problem here lies in that one of the documents is an obvious forgery. The quote (I’m paraphrasing) “Discourage the teaching of science” is a dead giveaway. Not even in internal communication will anyone write something like that — there’s always the risk it will get out.
By the way, I taught a seminar in ethics to high school student journalists for five years — try again.
Look, if you want to know, go look at the 20 or so articles I did on it. There’s no secret about it.
FL said; “The only thing I see here that’s different is Peter Gleik told us what happened…”
You phrase that sentence like he volunteereed or acted ethically when in reality he admitted that he was the source after he was caught. Your sleight of hand tactics and dishonesty are as disgusting as Mr. Gliek’s actions…
It does no good to have discourse with the likes of you because you are inherently not interested in the truth, just gotcha games, relativisms, and redirection.
I didn’t know that can you point that out to me? What is the source of that information?
The effrontery of Flaming Idiot is remarkable. The emails from East Anglia were “liberated” by someone fed up with the efforts of Jones et al to evade FOI requests. Those emails had been sequestered in an attempt to evade the law. A full investigation into it – not some whitewash – would land several people in the witness stand trying to avoid going to jail for lawbreaking. And in the course of this “speaking to (corrupt) authority” the emails also showed that what passes as Climate Science is much more akin to quackery and charlatanism than to science.
On the other hand, Gleick is toast. He’s going to lose whatever credibility and authority he has built up over his career. Too bad, but he’s just one of many zealots in this very serious game who need to be defenestrated (or else thrown under the bus, your choice).
A full investigation into it – not some whitewash – would land several people in the witness stand trying to avoid going to jail for lawbreaking.
Actually, the U.K.’s FOIA equivalent is rather new, restrictive, and perhaps even disingenuous because it has an insanely short statute of limitations, 6 months if I recall correctly. For that reason alone they have escaped prosecution.
(Or more likely that was a convenient excuse not to go after them, seeing as how Global Warming is something of a state religion, at least of the two major parties and I assume the 3rd.)
“What Gleick did is to violate that trust. His credibility is destroyed.”
All that means is he’s now a rising star on the left.