An obituary for The New York Times

Michael Widlanski  "When prominent people die, the press publish “obituaries,” reports of their death and a summary of their life.   I recently read a New York Times obituary that accidentally summarized the last years of The New York Times, a once-great newspaper. 

The Times obit was meant to be about Dr. S. Fred Singer, a noted scientist, prolific writer (including at American Thinker) , and prominent critic of popular climate change models that contend that man has heated up the Earth.

"The entire NY Times report -- including a snooty and biased headline -- was not a factual account but an ideological argument meant to discredit the life and work of Fred Singer, once the chief atmospheric scientist at NASA and a man who had penned a  book of more than 1,000 pages critiquing popular climate theory."

“ 'A leading climate change contrarian.”  That is how The Times headline describes Singer. The article never mentions that Singer was chief atmospheric scientist for NASA, a science-based organization not known for employing quacks.  In fact, the article never mentions NASA or quotes anyone from NASA who knew Singer.

"One positive statement about Singer is offered from a person described as a “climate change denialist” and a member of the administration of Donald Trump. This is meant to signal The Times reader to be awake and to be “woke” and to discount anything positive about Dr. Singer. 

"Written by John Schwartz, “a reporter on the climate desk,” the obituary calls Singer a “physicist.” That is true but misleading. It is intended to belittle Singer’s knowledge of climate matters.  Had the Times climate desk writer  lived in the Middle Ages and recorded the death of Galileo, he might have called him  a “contrarian star watcher” who “tried to peddle the idea that the sun revolves around man.' ” . . .  Full article

The New York Times v. President Trump  . . . "The NYT article does not mention that on January 26, 2020, during a radio interview with WABC radio host John Catsimatidis, Fauci said that the coronavirus posed “a very, very low risk to the United States” (at 25 seconds into this audio file).  According to The Hill, Fauci

said Sunday the American public shouldn’t worry about the coronavirus outbreak in China.“It’s a very, very low risk to the United States,” Fauci said during an interview with radio show host John Catsimatidis.“But it’s something that we as public health officials need to take very seriously...  It isn’t something the American public needs to worry about or be frightened about.  Because we have ways of preparing and screening of people coming in [from China].  And we have ways of responding - like we did with this one case in Seattle, Washington, who had traveled to China and brought back the infection.”

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