By Paul Farhi June 14, 2016
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages may be the beating heart of climate-change skepticism, but the newspaper apparently was willing to entertain an alternative view — for a price.
The leading business newspaper is letting an obscure environmental group challenge the Journal editorial page’s orthodoxy on the issue, although it will cost the group thousands of extra dollars to run its kickoff ad on the page.
The Partnership for Responsible Growth, based in Washington, approached the Journal last month with plans to run 12 ads, in print and digital form, promoting a proposed fee on carbon-fuel producers. It sought to place its print ads on the newspaper’s op-ed page, where columns blasting environmentalists in general and climate-change activism in particular are standard fare.
The group’s first ad, however, seemed to have hit a little too close to home.
The group’s first ad, however, seemed to have hit a little too close to home.
“Exxon’s CEO says fossil fuels are raising temperatures and sea levels,” its headline reads. “Why won’t the Wall Street Journal?”
The ad goes on to call out the Journal’s editorial position — long held and staunchly defended — that climate change is complex and the science surrounding it is still uncertain: “If the CEO of the world’s largest company accepts the basic physics that humans are heating the climate with excess C02, why won’t the editorial board of this newspaper?” the copy says. “Isn’t it about time?”
No dice, said the Journal’s advertising department, according to the environmental group. The newspaper — owned by News Corp., one of two companies controlled by Rupert Murdoch — initially rejected the first ad but accepted 11 subsequent ads, none of which mention the Journal.
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Journal spokeswoman Colleen Schwartz denied that the paper initially rejected the first ad. “We do welcome the debate,” she said.
[Why should we take the word of the WSJ about this, since they lie so blatantly about global warming/climate disruption (as well as other topics)?
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Bottom line: The Journal published the Journal-bashing ad in Tuesday’s edition.
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Several studies, including one by the partnership itself, indicate that the Journal’s editorial pages have tipped strongly toward climate-change denial for years. The partnership found that none of the paper’s 201 editorials on the topic since 1997 acknowledged that fossil fuels were a cause of climate change, and only 14 percent of 279 guest editorials published since 1995 reflected “mainstream climate science.”
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The group also plans to buy two TV ads on Fox News — also owned by a Murdoch-controlled company — during the Republican National Convention in July featuring Republicans speaking about the need to address climate change.
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