Yesterday, Scientific American editor Michael Moyer visited Fox & Friends to discuss future trends in science and technology. The number one trend, as he saw it, is climate change. But he was asked by the producer to pick something else. Moyer tweeted about his experience and Fox News got spiteful. Today, they smeared Moyer as a “coward” and co-host Brian Kilmeade urged Fox viewers to attack Moyer on Twitter.
The actual segment with Moyer was uneventful. You can watch it below. But afterward, an interent firestorm broke loose when Moyer tweeted, “Fox & Friends producer wanted to talk about future trends. I said #1 will be impacts of climate change. I was told to pick something else.”
In a blog post after his appearance, Moyer wrote, “About the only interesting thing that the scientific community is sure will happen in the next 50 years is that climate change is going to get worse, and that we’re going to have to deal with the impacts. So I put that as one of my talking points."
Business Insider got a comment from Fox News and a rebuttal from Moyer:
When we reached out to Fox News, they denied that climate change was the issue.
“We invited Michael on for a segment on technological and scientific trends we can expect in the future. We worked closely with him and his team and there was never an issue on the topic of climate change,” Suzanne Scott, SVP of programming at Fox News, said in a statement. “To say he was told specifically not to discuss it, would be false.”
In an email, Moyer told Business Insider that “the specific language used (in an email, by the Fox producer) was ‘Also, can we replace the climate change with something else?’”
But wait, there’s more. Moyer also gave a frank account of his impressions of Fox News:
So today, Fox & Friends hit back. They did a segment called, “’SCIENTIFIC’ COWARD: MOYER ATTACKS FOX & FRIENDS AFTER HIS SEGMENT.” It began with an audio clip of Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” song while an unflattering photo of Moyer appeared on the screen:
Later, one of the lower-third banners read, “OFF HIS ROCKET.” Moyer was attacked for having “stabbed us in the back,” according to Doocy. As if Moyer owed them some kind of loyalty. Doocy also purported to give viewers “the back story.”
Kilmeade took it a step further by suggesting viewers attack Moyer on Twitter. “If you don’t like the way he handled his appearance here… start tweeting at him. Let him know how you feel. …He’s actually insulting the viewers as well as the anchors,” Kilmeade said.
It wasn’t until right after that, at the 3:53 mark, that anyone actually addressed Moyer’s contention. And you’ll notice they didn’t deny it. But they didn't really give the back story, either, despite Doocy's later announcement that they had:
ANNA KOOIMAN: The bone that he had to pick with Fox, he said, was that he wanted to come on here and talk all about climate change. Well, our producers decide what we air, right?
STEVE DOOCY: We talk about climate change all the time!
ANNA KOOIMAN: We talk about it all the time! And the things he talked about were actually quite interesting, right? Robots driving your cars in the future, replacing unhealthy genes with healthy genes so that you can cure diseases – things that actually matter!
In reality, as Talking Points Memo noted, Fox News’ coverage of climate change is nothing to boast about:
A recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that while misinformation about climate change was more or less common among cable news channels, Fox News led the pack by airing misleading coverage 72 percent of the time. The network’s denial of global warming has been a subject of late night mockery, from Jon Stewart to “Saturday Night Live.”
4/10/18 update: Videos below, originally available via Raw Story, are no longer available.
The twits on this show are teleprompter readers, and the only topic they know is anti-Obama. The on-the-job training producers of these shows is a joke.
We challenged these frauds to debunk what astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s said on climate change.
http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-2014-4
Tyson should publicly defend Michael Moyer from these vicious wolves, and call them to the carpet.
They wouldn’t like it, but they know the rules. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a product of 21st Century Fox, parent company of Fox “News” Channel. Attacking anything associated with News Corporation/21st Century Fox will be dealt with severely by senior management.
Since we are on the subject of climate change we decided to smack these frauds down with this brilliant take down of a Foxer.
http://youtu.be/a5dSyT50Cs8
NOTE TO MICHAEL MOYER
That makeup girl is typical of the twits that work at this so-called “news” outlet. The producers are useless tools of senior management and other top suits.
Doocy and Kilmeade are not the brightest lights in the studio. You have to choose easy topics that they can comprehend. That chick in the short skirt is really a piece of work. Dumb as a box of rocks.
Tell your friends and colleagues to avoid this network at all cost.