UK Press Complaints Commission

Thu, 2010-06-24 17:50Brendan DeMelle
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George Monbiot Rips UK Sunday Times For 'Amazongate' Lies And Stonewalling

Intrepid British journalist George Monbiot has a piece in The Guardian today that absolutely smashes the London Sunday Times' handling of its botched 'Amazongate' story.  The Times was forced to retract essentially its entire January article,  which badly mischaracterized the work and words of rainforest expert Dr. Simon Lewis, to whom the paper sheepishly apologized earlier this week.

Monbiot took some time to try to figure out how the Times could have possibly allowed the sham story to run in the first place, but his efforts were met with aggressive stonewalling by Times' editors, who trampled transparency in order to cover their own behinds. 

Exactly who at the Times was responsible for re-writing the story after a totally different version was read back to Dr. Lewis over the phone by the reporter Jonathan Leake, remains a mystery.

Read more: George Monbiot Rips UK Sunday Times For 'Amazongate' Lies And Stonewalling
Mon, 2010-06-21 17:37Brendan DeMelle
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UK Sunday Times Retracts Bogus ‘Amazongate’ Story, Apologizes to Simon Lewis

Ending a dispute that has dragged on for months, London newspaper The Sunday Times has finally retracted and apologized for an article filled with blatant misinformation and smears against the IPCC and climate researchers that it ran in January, creating a nontroversy which deniers tried to label “Amazongate.” 

RealClimate.org more accurately dubbed the episode “Leakegate” after the Times' reporter Jonathan Leake, who wrote the article in question.

The Times published a lengthy correction to the bogus article and disappeared the original from its website.

Since the bogus article ran in January, scientists and researchers who study the Amazon have tried to correct the misinformation it spread.  Chief among them was Dr. Simon Lewis, an expert on rain forests at the University of Leeds, who filed a 30-page complaint against The Sunday Times with the UK Press Complaints Commission in March. Lewis alleged that the paper had mangled his quotes, which ended up far from the remarks he actually made in interviews with the reporter, and that the paper had published “inaccurate, misleading or distorted information” about climate change in the article.

Read more: UK Sunday Times Retracts Bogus ‘Amazongate’ Story, Apologizes to Simon Lewis
Thu, 2010-03-25 17:02Brendan DeMelle
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Forest Scientist Simon Lewis Files Formal Complaint Against UK Sunday Times Over Dishonest Reporting On “Amazongate”

Simon Lewis, an expert on tropical forests at the University of Leeds in the UK, says the Sunday Times’ "inaccurate, misleading and distorted" story by Jonathan Leake in January left readers under the wrong impression that the 2007 IPCC AR4 report made a false claim by stating that reduced rainfall could wipe out up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest.  Lewis filed a formal complaint this week with the UK Press Complaints Commission.

Leake’s story helped to launch the “Amazongate” scandal that had the denialosphere all aflutter, and even made the rounds of many mainstream outlets.  Leake got his story idea and research from climate change denier Richard North, a blogger who has denied the link between secondhand smoke and cancer, among other ridiculous positions. The premise of “Amazongate” was ginned up by North, who alleged that the IPCC erred in its 2007 report by citing a World Wildlife Fund report that stated the impact of reduced rainfall on forest health.

Read more: Forest Scientist Simon Lewis Files Formal Complaint Against UK Sunday Times Over Dishonest Reporting On “Amazongate”
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