Yesterday was April Fools’ Day. Looks like a prominent liberal business outlet did not get that memo and fell prey to a major climate change prank.
MarketWatch was forced to admit in its lede paragraph: “MarketWatch and other technology and investing sites misreported earlier Wednesday that Google parent Alphabet will cut ties with lobbyists and think tanks that deny accelerating man-made climate change.”
The search giant Google had apparently “also reportedly announced plans to cut ties with fossil fuel sources. Except, it did not make that announcement.”
So, the initial report was literally #FakeNews.
“The posting was a prank put out by the New York City arm of a climate protest group, which has called out Google’s practices before,” MarketWatch said.
To be fair, MarketWatch did concede in a buried paragraph that it “should have given more scrutiny than usual to any release of this nature, no matter its apparent seriousness.” But it then proceeded to strangely push a bit of climate change propaganda along with its apology for its apparently mistaken coverage: “Such coverage is not fair to readers who are trying to discern the science-based facts on both coronavirus and the long-run effects of climate change. We can all be more responsible.” [Emphasis added.]
An apology for reporting #FakeNews is still an apology. Maybe the rest of the liberal “media gnat[s]”can learn a thing or two from Marketwatch about journalistic integrity.
