Reuters, CNBC Falls For Climate Hoax

As you may know by now, the US Chamber of Commerce opposes climate legislation such as the Cap & Tax bill proposed by Obama and which is languishing in the Senate. Apparently some global warming activist groups decided to send out a fake press release from the Chamber of Commerce that claimed they had completely reversed their opinion and now supported Cap & Tax.

Reuters got the press release, failed to fact-check it, and posted it. Once they were informed the press release was bogus (the President’s name was misspelled) they took it down and informed their customers of the “mistake.” But the news had already been repeated by CNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28456.html

In a dramatic shift, the Chamber of Commerce announced Monday that it is throwing its support behind climate change legislation making its way through the U.S. Senate.

Only it didn’t.

An email press release announcing the change is a hoax, say Chamber officials.

Several media organizations fell for it.

This is a bit interesting for me… news outlets sit on stories such as the Acorn scandal for quite a while before finally covering the story, but rush this one out the door without fact-checking it at all? Skeptics might say that this displays their own bias and willingness to cover stories they agree with… and their hesitation to cover stories that contradict their own biases.

If you’d like to read the press release, try this link:
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM138_091019_chamber.html

Maybe reporters will learn a lesson from this, and not report a story merely because they like it. I doubt it, but one can always hope. Note that though CNBC gleefully reported the Reuters story, interrupting their own news broadcast to do so, no other network (INCLUDING the much-maligned Fox News) fell for the hoax.