It became apparent on Wednesday that the liberal website Media Matters has an informant planted at Fox News Channel who is leaking memos to it from its Washington DC managing editor Bill Sammon. The website on Wednesday published a copy of a year-old memo sent out by Sammon a year ago within minutes after Fox News reporter Wendell Goler reported that 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record. In his memo, Sammon said, "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 [caps are Sammon's] 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." Climatologists have indicated that there is virtually no disagreement among them on the issue of climate change and that the controversy has been created by a small number of political conservatives who confuse weather and climate and who muddle the matter by citing meteorologists or others who have little knowledge of the science of climate.

16/12/2010