George Will getting caught out!

Ethos, Pathos and Logos in “The Washington Post lets George Will reassert all his climate falsehoods plus some new ones”

 

 With his exemplary use of ethos, pathos and logos Joseph Romm debunks George Will’s deceitful climate assertions. Unlike Will, Romm, being editor of Climate Progress and son of award winning journalists, states and links to all his sources which include the prestigious Media Matters. In addition to being eloquent, he appears to have good knowledge of the subject and uses actual figures to support his assertions as opposed to just stating trends (like Will). The strong pathos in the text illustrates that the subject is one of Romm’s personal interest. He repeatedly states how he is staggered by the fact that an assumably credible newspaper not only permits Will to misinterpret sources and deceit the public but also lets him reassert his falsehoods! Basically Will treats his readers like naive children. Also the fact that his fact-checkers are self-employed reflects discredit on him and the newspapers peer-review-policy. What Romm disregards as Alice-in-Wonderland-journalism the Washington Post senior editor only sees as Will merely drawing inferences from data that most scientists reject. Romm criticizes that the Washington Post’s senior editor destroys the printed newspaper’s image of being a trustworthy media by applying a policy of letting Will write anything unless and even if somebody challenges him retrospectively. As far as the logos of this text is concerned one can only be impressed. Romm starts of with the main issue, namely Will’s deceit. Then the clearly structured text continues with first stating Will’s original assertions and then dismantling them completely. It is not only shown where Will has cheated but precisely in which way he is done so. For example, Will states that Science News has predicted major cooling and extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation. This is not a falsehood but Will “forgot” to include that this prediction deliberately excludes the human parameter! I would have to lie if I would say that it was not a pleasure to see Will getting caught out like that. [322]