Newsweek massaging climate data?

Ironic, since that’s what they’re accusing others of doing.

Another day, another major media outlet libels Michael Mann—and James Hansen.

In a new black eye for Newsweek, their lengthy attack on climate scientists has been exposed as relying on massaged data and tawdry innuendo. While they have already corrected a number of mistakes, they left a bunch in, and decided not to change the overall theme of their now baseless story. That would have meant gutting the sensationalistic headline and visuals they apparently believe they need to grab eyeballs for their ever-shrinking magazine.

But Newsweek needs to do more than simply change a few egregious mistakes in its piece.  They need to issue an apology to Mann and Hansen—and Al Gore—and a big-time retraction.

Right now, their credibility on the entire energy and climate issue is hanging by a rapidly melting icicle—see Media stunner: Newsweek partners with oil lobby to raise ad cash, host energy and climate events with lawmakers—while publishing the uber-greenwashing story, “Big Oil Goes Green for Real.” Indeed, their dubious partnership with Big Oil makes this climate story doubly problematic.

Read the rest of this Grist.org post, by Joseph Romm, here.

Meanwhile, President Obama explains climate change:

This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2010.