STILL WAITING…. George Will’s column on Sunday about global warming included some demonstrable falsehoods. The need for a correction was obvious and mandatory.
And yet, as Matt Corley noted, we’re still waiting.
On Sunday, the Washington Post printed a climate change denial column by George Will that contained several demonstrable falsehoods. Despite the loud chorus of critics pointing out Will’s factual flaws, Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has refused to comment on the errors and the column has not received a correction. Will has another column in the Post today, but it too has no correction attached to it for his last column’s obvious factual mistakes.
This is a little surprising. The Washington Post runs corrections all the time, and has published several in recent days. I honestly assumed there’d be a couple of lines at the end of Will’s column today, noting his error. There wasn’t. The paper hasn’t made any acknowledgement of the problem since the column was published.
So, what’s the hold up? There are a few possibilities: 1) the Post doesn’t consider Will’s factual errors to be factual errors; 2) the Post considers factual errors made in opinion columns inconsequential; or 3) the Post knows Will’s wrong and wants to run a correction, but doesn’t want to endure a “tantrum” from the columnist.
Any other possibilities here?
