Today is a brief foray into how news organizations can downplay or up-play a set of facts.

Compare the following brief new items. They regard how a White House advisor, who was also a former oil industry employee, and who happens to be a lawyer and not a scientist, modified some official global warming reports published by the Government.

He modified the reports by inserting derogatory comments in key passages discussing the effects of greenhouse gases on global warming. By adding a few choice words or phrases, he skewed the reports to create the false impression that settled science was not settled after all, and calling into question the opinions of credible scientists. He essentially reproduced the anti-science talking points of the Republican spinwits.

Apparently, few credible and impartial scientists agree with the positions of the pro-oil and gas Republican Party. And so this man is not able to justify his insertions, and the insertions are pure propaganda, paid for and sponsored by your US Government.

The way in which the media describes the controversy is interesting. Consider how YOU would have described the story. Would YOUR version reflect an obvious point of view? How would a news organization report the story “objectively”? Is objectivity possible?

I’ll present how some media outlets reported the story, and then make a few comments at the end.

CNN - White House official who edited global warming reports resigns

Philip Cooney, who was chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, left Friday, two days after it was revealed that he had edited administration reports on climate change in 2002 and 2003.

. . .

Based on documents provided to the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that helps whistle-blowers, The New York Times first reported Wednesday that Cooney made changes in several federal environmental reports. The changes tended to emphasize the uncertainty of evidence that greenhouse-gas emissions are causing global temperatures to rise.

Cooney, a lawyer without a background in science, once headed the oil industry’s lobbying on climate change.

The White House defended the changes, saying they were part of the normal, wide-ranging review process and did not violate an administration pledge to rely on sound science.

And now another:

Washinton Post - Reuters- Ex-lobbyist leaves White House environmental job

A senior official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality has resigned, days after a newspaper reported he changed some government reports to downplay links between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Philip Cooney, the council’s chief of staff and a former energy industry lobbyist, resigned on Friday, two days after The New York Times reported he edited some descriptions of climate research in a way that cast doubt on links between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.

. . .

The Times said it obtained the environmental documents from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that provides legal help to government whistle-blowers.

The White House has denied Cooney had watered down the impact of global warming.

The newspaper noted Cooney previously worked at the American Petroleum Institute, a lobby group for the oil industry.

And now for some more detailed harder hitting examples:

MSNBC - Ex-oil lobbyist quits White House job

. . .

Warming language qualified, removed

The Times reported that Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

. . .

In one document, Cooney reportedly crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack from warming. Those projections, he noted in the margins, are “straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings.”

The Times also reported the words “significant and fundamental” were added before the word “uncertainties” when describing the state of climate science.

The White House denied that Cooney had watered down the impact of global warming.

“That’s false,” spokesman Scott McClellan said. “The reports are based on the best scientific knowledge that we have at this time.”

And another:

Guardian Unlimited - Ex-oil lobbyist watered down US climate research

. . .

The Bush aide had performed a similar role in his previous job for the American Petroleum Institute, a lobby group representing oil giants and focused on countering the virtual consensus among scientists that man-made emissions are rapidly heating the planet.

. . .

He inserted “significant and fundamental” before the word “uncertainties” in a section assessing the solidity of the evidence for climate change.

Mr Cooney also introduced the word “extremely”to the sentence: “The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult.”

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, defended Mr Cooney’s editing role as “part of our inter-agency review process. There are more than a dozen agencies involved in the inter-agency review programme,” he said.

However, it is customary for scientific papers to be edited by other scientists.

The CNN report seems to have downplayed the controversy by using the phrase “emphasize the uncertainty” to describe the changes made to the reports. The CNN report presumes that there exists legitimate scientific “uncertaintly” with regard to the topic at hand, that the official chose to emphasize.

The Wash Post/Reuters report used a somewhat stronger phrase “cast doubt on links between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.” The Reuters report seems to imply that the “doubts” the official cast might not have been legitimate from a scientific point of view.

My impression is that the CNN report, very subtley, downplayed the adverse implications of the story. Reuters seems to have, very subtely, more accurately reported the nature of the controversy. But Reuters steered clear of making a bold declaratory statement that the official used bad science or inserted propaganda into a report.

I must say it’s kinda nice to read news from CNN and Reuters, where the reporters and editors seem to make at least some attempt to keep their opinions in check. I read a goodly amount of internet news from biased sources across the spectrum.

Then we move to the MSNBC report, which goes into a LOT more detail about what exactly the official actually did. From the MSNBC report, we get the feeling that this official was trying to put a Rush Limbaugh spin into a report writted by real scientists. I think there’s a lot of truth in that inference, and we got that inference from the reporting of the more of the actual facts.

The Guardian report makes two assertions that appear to be true (from my own reading), but does not support either assertion by a citation to a source: 1) The Guardian refers to the virtual consensus among scientists that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming. and 2) Scientific papers should be reviewed by other “scientists” (not political lobbyist lawyers).

Of course we are all biased, but legitimate news outlets try to minimize the publication of biased news accounts. Being human, some subtle bias is unavoidable. But at least the legitimate news outlets are not so much spin machines. Unlike the others listed above, the Guardian is obviously opinionated without citations, and so its reporting on this issue is not as credible from a pure news point of view.