Fox News Caught Being Fair and Balanced

The lefties have got the vapors because Bill Sammon, who runs the Washington Bureau for Fox News, told his people to report on the global warming issue with proper skepticism (from Mark Tapscott):

You think the most essential purpose of journalism and the reason the Founders included freedom of the press in the First Amendment was to insure independent reporting about government, politicians, and public policy issues, right?

Well, you must be wrong because Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon is getting a raft of garbage from liberal activists masquerading as journalists at Media Matters, some liberal bloggers and a scattering of real journalists who ought to know better.

Why? Politico’s headline captures the controversy perfectly: “Fox editor urged climate skepticism.”

A journalist being skeptical? Who would ever have thought such a thing could be. I don’t know, maybe anybody who has heard this (attributed long ago to a crusty desk editor at the illustrious City News Bureau in Chicago): “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”

In other words, we journalists are paid to BE SKEPTICAL.

For the record, here’s what Sammon said in a Dec. 8, 2009, memo to his reporting staff shortly after the Climategate global warming email scandal erupted:

“Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data, we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.”

Sammon's error, in the eyes of the gotcha crowd, is he insisted Fox News reporters look at all sides of the issue and not just the politically correct one.  And, as it turns out, he was right to urge skepticism given that ClimateGate pretty much proved the whole man-made global warming argument to be a hoax.