Fact Checking John Tierney

[Demeter]

http://www.motherjones.com/blue_marble_blog/archives/2008/08/9200_fact_checking_j.html


In June 1996, the New York Times Magazine ran a story by John Tierney titled "Recycling is Garbage." In the now-infamous piece, Tierney argued that recycling was environmentally unnecessary, fiscally burdensome, and ideologically laughable. "Recycling," he concluded, "may be the most wasteful activity in modern America." Having provided comfort to millions of non-recyclers—particularly New Yorkers—. Tierney has since migrated to the paper's Science Times section, where he writes a regular column, "Findings." Despite the whiff of empiricism, the column is often a platform for his libertarian-tinged environmental skepticism.

Last week, Tierney struck again with a column listing "10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List." The article displayed the typical Tierney M.O.: Take an environmental or health issue and dismiss it with a less-than-thorough glance at the research.

His list wasn't entirely off-base—shark attacks are incredibly rare, no matter what Shark Week teaches us. And it's not really worth losing sleep over intergalactic wormholes or the potential collapse of the universe. But back on Earth, Tierney's glib dismissal of some common environmental and health issues obscured the whole story. Seven things Tierney's latest column fudged:

1. Hot dogs as health food
2. A/C OK!
3. Eat globally, not locally
4. Cell phone hang-ups
5. That's my bag
6. Plastic's fantastic
7. Meltdown averted?

SEE LINK FOR DEBUNKING....

[Captain Hilts]

1. He rarely appears on the op-ed page now. That's a good thing.

Hell, the NYT let Bob Herbert peddle the "Clinton Admin vandalism of the White House" story about a month and a half ago and MoDo's columns are full of incorrect information, so, in that sense, Tierney fits right in.

[depakid]

2. Tierney has about as much credibility as John Stossel

and is even more embarrassing to the Times than Stossel is to ABC.

A couple of years ago, I heard him drone on nearly incoherently on one of the panel type shows about the boundless supply of oil- and what accounted for rising prices. The camera panned to the other members of the panel, who just looked at one another in seeming disbelief.

No one bothered trying to respond to him. The moderator just changed the subject.