Fox News, Wall Street Journal biased on climate change, say scientists

Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are biased in their reporting on climate change say scientists.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report this week that says both media organizations continually contain misleading coverage on the climate change issue.

The UCS report included a number of key findings, reported the Washington Post.

First, over six months, 93 percent of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal opinion section had factually misleading content.

Second, over the last 12 months, 81 percent of climate science discussions on the Wall Street Journal's opinion page were incorrect – 39 out of 48 instances.

Indeed the report reads "attempted to broadly undermine the major conclusions of climate science. Instances of attacks on individual scientists, mocking the science, and cherry-picking data were all equally common."

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"Instances included accusations that scientists were fudging data and claims that they are motivated by financial self-interest."

Researchers expressed dismay at the dialogue on global warming that took place at the cable news network and the newspaper.

"It's like they were writing and talking about some sort of bizarre world where climate change isn't happening," study author Aaron Huertas told LiveScience.

"It's clear that we're not having a fact-based dialogue about climate change."

One example cited was an op-ed which referred to respected NASA climate scientist James Hansen as a "global warming alarmist" – not quite his official title.

Fox News hosts have continually referred to climate change as a hoax and a fraud, said LiveScience.

Both the Wall Street Journal and Fox News are owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.