Sheldon Whitehouse calls for news outlets to suppress ‘extreme’ op-eds by climate skeptics

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/14/sheldon-whitehouse-calls-news-outlets-suppress-ext/

– The Washington Times – Thursday, July 14, 2016

Sen. Sheldon Whitehousewants newspapers to stop publishing “extreme” and “phony” op-eds written by climate-change skeptics, blasting such articles as “industry propaganda.”

The Rhode Island Democratsaid he was stunned by the “extraordinary barrage of opinion pieces” that followed his May 2015 op-ed recommending that Attorney General Loretta Lynch investigate fossil-fuel companies and their supporters for possible civil violations of federal racketeering laws.

He blamed the flood of what he described as “error-plagued criticism” on “the climate denial apparatus” and urged newspapers to reject such opinion pieces in the future.

“The breadth of the op-ed assault suggests that a new level of critical scrutiny will be needed at honorable editorial boards to make responsible choices between legitimate and honest opinion and clever, made-to-order, industrial-scale dissemination of industry propaganda,”saidMr. Whitehousein a Tuesday op-ed in the Columbia Journalism Review.

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