In Leaked Memo, Fox News Managing Editor Tells Minions How to Talk About Climate Change

Media Matters got its hands on a leaked internal Fox News memo from the network's Washington managing editor Bill Sammon that told reporters and hosts how to talk about climate change.

The memo is dated December 8, 2009 (during the Copenhagen climate change talks, and shortly after the "climategate" emails were leaked), and provides insight into the kind of marching orders they get at Fox.

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Bill Sammon:

...we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.

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There certainly are critics who have called that weather data into question. They've been pretty convincingly disproven, but why not present all sides?

In fact, there are people who think George H.W. Bush is secretly a reptile (they have YouTube videos). Fox News has a journalistic obligation to refrain from asserting he's human!

(That's Bill Sammon in the photo, discussing journalistic ethics, I assume, with Pamela Anderson.)