Nearly a decade ago, I wrote a profile of Richard Cizik for Audubon magazine. He was, at the time, a prominent lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals and a member of good standing among social and political conservatives. But Cizik’s views on a number of hot-button issues were evolving. In 2008 he was forced to…Continue Reading…
Earlier in the year, Roger Pielke Jr. was named as a contributing writer for Nate Silver’s newly re-launched FiveThirtyEight site. Shortly after that, Pielke, a climate policy scholar and political scientist at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, published an article at FiveThirtyEight headlined, “Disasters Cost More Than Ever–But Not Because of Climate Change.” Critics pounced immediately in…Continue Reading…
My colleagues in the media have taken notice of the execrable rant by Mike Adams, in which he likens some science writers and scientists to Nazis. To recap: The self-proclaimed “Health Ranger” said that certain publishers, journalists and scientists “have signed on to the Nazi genocide machine of our day,” which he identifies as the agricultural biotech…Continue Reading…
I recently discussed what is perhaps the most twisted, disgusting anti-GMO tract ever written. It’s by Mike Adams, who as Jon Entine said earlier this year, is “a titan in the booming alternative lifestyle business, running dozens of websites promoting ‘natural’ products, many of them bogus or dangerous, which he relentlessly hawks online.” The main communication…Continue Reading…
I really thought Mike Adams couldn’t write anything more possibly deranged than he already has at his Natural News website. (Readers of this blog have seen a freaky side of Adams.) Jon Entine has the scoop on his editorial output and alt-med empire. Entine’s piece, which Forbes cravenly took down (after Adams threatened to sue), asked if…Continue Reading…
My recent Washington Post magazine piece on Robert Kennedy Jr. has prompted numerous reactions in media outlets, on Twitter, and in the blogosphere. Generally speaking, readers have found the story both compelling and maddening. What folks seem to be divided on is how Kennedy comes off in the story. Laura Helmuth at Slate says I…Continue Reading…
Last September, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Mark Hyman received a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It pertained to a “report” that Kennedy, an environmental attorney and Hyman, a medical doctor, had sent to federal health officials on the dangers of thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once commonly used in pediatric vaccines…Continue Reading…
This weekend I have a profile on Robert Kennedy Jr. in the Washington Post magazine. During our numerous conversations over the phone and in person, I found him to be candid, self-deprecating, and unshakably confident in his belief that thimerosal was a dangerous ingredient that should not be in vaccines. (It was phased out of U.S. pediatric…Continue Reading…
Some stories I pursue, others I let unwind a bit to make sure they are for real. The cover story I wrote on Robert Kennedy Jr. for this Sunday’s Washington Post magazine falls into the latter category. You couldn’t find a more unlikely author of this story than me. Last summer, I wrote two critical posts…Continue Reading…
This week the New York Times published a profile of longtime climate skeptic John Christy. I found the piece perplexing because it contained no obvious hook or peg, as we say in journalism. There were no newsy events in Christy’s life that might have prompted a story about him in a prestige media outlet: No…Continue Reading…