On Fox, WSJ's Gerry Baker says the media isn't skeptical enough of climate reports
Fox anchor: “These reports from the IPCC, when they come out, it really is amazing just how the media does seem to speak in lockstep about the results”
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From the August 10, 2021, edition of Fox News' America Reports
DANA PERINO (ANCHOR): On the heels of a dire report on climate change by the United Nations, The Wall Street Journal's Gerry Baker is calling out journalists on the issue, saying instead of seeking various opinions on it, reporters just aspire to be part of the authoritative expert class. Quote: “My beef here isn't mainly with climate extremism itself. I'm no climate scientist. I'm confident the planet is warning and that evasive action would be smart. My concern is with the way these topics are now almost universally reported by the news media. ‘Reported' is a misnomer." Gerry joins us now. He is also host of the Wall Street Journal at Large with Gerry Baker on the Fox Business Network. So I started my career on Capitol Hill working as a spokesperson for the chairman of the Energy & Power Subcommittee, this is back in 1995, '96. And these reports from the IPCC, when they come out, it really is amazing just how the media does seem to speak in lockstep about the results.
GERRY BAKER (WALL STREET JOURNAL): Absolutely, Dana. There is no attempt to question, to challenge, there's no skepticism. The reports are just going to retell completely. And by the way, it's not just the IPCC report, which we've got this week. It's the entire media establish now is so completely invested in the idea of climate change that every single event that happens is given as proof of climate change. You know, as far as I know, we've had extreme weather conditions in the world for thousands of years. You know, 1935, half a million Chinese died in floods. But now, every single time there is a flood, there's a wildfire, there's a period of hot weather, there's a period of cold weather, there's ice, there's snow, there's rain, there's wind, everything is attributed to climate change. And that's just a form of extremism itself. But that's way the media works, because the media no longer reports, no longer try to get at the facts, no longer approach anything with any degree of curiosity. They see themselves as kind of proselytizers, as propagandists, as people whose role is to promote a view rather than actually to examine and to interrogate it.
PERINO: Here's an example of one of the headlines in The New York Times, “Is this the end of summer as we've known it?" And you can understand, you see the extreme weather and now we can see it from all over the world, especially what's happening in Greece. And I understand that, but there's very little coverage also of what countries are actually doing to deal with it. It's not just about reducing emissions, of which America is actually doing pretty well on that front. It's about using some of these monies to do things like improving the infrastructure that we have in smart ways in order to adapt.
BAKER: Yeah, it's a good point. That headline in The New York Times is a classic, as I said in the column, when, you know, “Is this the end of summer as we've known it?" Whenever you see a headline in a newspaper that has a question, you always know the answer is no. It's like, you know, it's like, “Are we all going to be vegans?" or, “Is this the beginning of a new era for the New York Jets?" You know the answer is no. Exactly, there is this alarmism -- people are invested in this. You know, it's very interesting and I think they're institutionally invested, these media organizations. The New York Times has many, many, many more climate reporters than it has energy reporters. So when you do that, you know it's like the old phrase, “Well, when your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." That's the way in which the entire media institutions, governmental institutions in much of the world, are organized. They are organized to take climate change, the most extreme version of climate -- and again, I don't dispute that we have climate change. And I don't dispute that, as you say, we need to invest in infrastructure and do a better job. And also as you say, Dana, the U.S., ironically, is making great progress in reducing carbon emissions, but this doesn't fit the narrative. So the narrative is always about the most extreme threat, the most extreme damage, the world's going to burn in 10 years' time unless we completely change everything we do.