Since When Do 1,400 Media Interviews = Muzzled?

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Answer: When you're a NASA scientist who has repeatedly ignored policies you agreed to upon employment with said agency and you'd like to gain more headlines by claiming you've been silenced. Newspapers, magazines, and TV newscasts are lit up with Gore's senate testimony today...but the global warming hearing testimony actually began on Monday.

The name James Hansen was splashed across headlines worldwide last month when he claimed to have been muzzled by the Bush administration. After being denied the opportunity to complete an interview with NPR (such limitations are apparently standard practice by NASA and other government agencies) Hansen claimed the Bush administration was attempting to silence his alarmist viewpoints on global warming. Upon questioning Monday in Washington DC, it was revealed that the NASA employee had already completed over a thousand media interviews prior to the NPR request (emphasis mine throughout):

But Republicans told him the hundreds of other interviews he did belie his broad claim he was being silenced.

"We have over 1,400 opportunities that you've availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled," said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican.

And furthermore, Hansen had already violated NASA policy by failing to inform his employer of such interviews:

[NASA spokesman George Deutsch] said Mr. Hansen was prohibited from doing the interview because of his prior refusal to notify NASA officials when he was granting interviews, not for political reasons. Citing what he called his "constitutional right" to give interviews, Mr. Hansen admitted violating NASA's press policy but defended his actions.

And following the "muzzling" by the Bush administration, somehow Hansen did more than a dozen follow-up interviews later that month:

Citing what he called a "growth of political interference," Mr. Hansen said he was forced by NASA officials to deny an interview request from NPR because press officials believed the network to have a liberal bias. But Mr. Issa noted that Mr. Hansen conducted 15 interviews in the month after accusing the Bush administration of censorship.

Another minor detail that was no where to be found in earlier revelations about this this 'muzzled' scientist:

Mr. Hansen received a $250,000 grant from the Heinz foundation, which is controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. Mr. Hansen was a vocal supporter of Mr. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

How many media outlets that pushed this "censorship" story in January will cover this revealing follow-up? The Los Angeles Times, for one, didn't mention it in their story yesterday. Any others? I won't be holding my breath.

Jake Gontesky routinely posts columns exploring the mainstream media coverage of the global warming debate. As a meteorologist, his viewpoints are frequently explored from a scientific standpoint rather than a purely political one. Read more at Notes in the Margin.