CNN’s chief international correspondent said skeptics of man-made global warming should not be given equal time on the news while accepting an award for championing press freedom.
Christiane Amanpour, who hosts the nightly show “Amanpour,” then went on to say how covering ethnic cleansing in Bosnia during the 1990s taught her to “never to equate victim with aggressor, never to create a false moral or factual equivalence.”
“It appeared much of the media got itself into knots trying to differentiate between balance, objectivity, neutrality, and crucially, truth,” Amanpour said while accepting an award for press freedom in November. The award was presented by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“We cannot continue the old paradigm–let’s say like over global warming, where 99.9 percent of the empirical scientific evidence is given equal play with the tiny minority of deniers,” she said.
“I learned long ago, covering the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia, never to equate victim with aggressor, never to create a false moral or factual equivalence, because then you are an accomplice to the most unspeakable crimes and consequences,” Amanpour added.
Amanpour is far from the first journalist to suggest keeping global warming skeptics largely out of the media.
BBC News’s governing body reported in 2014 that 200 staffers got training on how to exclude marginal views from news coverage, including views of global warming skeptics.
“Science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views but depends on the varying degree of prominence such views should be given,” the Trust reported, singling out skeptics.
Some climate scientists and environmentalists even refused to publicly debate their critics. For example, in 2014 Dan Weiss, the former director of climate strategy at the liberal Center for American Progress, refused to appear on Fox Business to debate noted skeptic Marc Morano.
Amanpour seems to agree with BBC and other outlets that have minimized air time given to global warming skeptics.
“I believe in being truthful, not neutral. And I believe we must stop banalizing the truth,” she said while being honored for her dedication to press freedom.
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