Know what we hate? The leftwing mainstream media always being so leftwing-y and librul and stroking Obama’s knob by not investimigating his super-fake birth certificate and not focusing enough on BENGHAZI (enough = 25 hours per day) and generally being lamestream.
Which is why we are glad to see the recent report about how clean energy is miserably failing on that reliable bastion of truth-telling: Fox News. Wait, what? That was on 60 Minutes?!? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING US, CBS?
The report was so full of errors we were SURE it was Fox News. And we were prepared with like a million jokes about Bill O’Reilly making sweet love to Megyn Kelly on top of solar panels and getting run over by White Santa’s sleigh. Ugh, let’s sadsplore how CBS and 60 Minutes failed yet again at the very simple job of reporting a semblance of the truth.
In its latest segment of ‘Right Wing Lies We Will Report As True Because We Suck At Journalism,’ 60 Minutes explored the clean tech industry with a totally balanced segment, “Cleantech Crash.” And by ‘explore,’ we mean they bashed clean tech as having failed miserably without bothering even to mention any successes in the industry, via ThinkProgress:
But for 60 Minutes, this incredible boon is a bust. Here’s a transcript of a clip from the show:
LESLEY STAHL (over pictures of solar panels, biofuels, wind turbines): “It’s called clean tech. And the new technologies that were developed in the energy sector were supposed to create jobs, and help America break its reliance on fossil fuels. The government supported it, and billions of tax dollars were spent. So how is the investment going?
STAHL (to DOE interviewee): “Solyndra went through half a billion dollars before it failed. Then I’m going to give you a list of other failures. Abound Energy. Beacon Power. Fisker. VPG. Pfff…I’m exhausted.”
INTERVIEWEE: “As I told you at the beginning, the energy business is tough!”
That is very balanced reporting there about Department of Energy loan program on clean energy: THEY ALL FAILED. Taxpayers lost billions and this is just an example of how government sucks. Yep, them there’s the facts, and there is no way that there are any other facts that would contradict those facts, right?
Moreover, 60 Minutes is apparently unaware that the DOE Loan Guarantee Program has a whopping 97 percent success rate, while the companies CBS focuses on such as Solyndra and Abound Solar were just three percent of the portfolio.
Yeah, but that’s just the Department of Energy spewing liberal lies on behalf of failed programs. They probably cooked the books or something. It’s not like there are any conservative people out there saying that these programs are successful, right?
Every major independent review, including one by John McCain’s former National Finance Chairman, found the loan guarantee program was cost-effective for taxpayers.
Seriously, was there any ‘research’ done by 60 minutes? Well, they did do some reading:
Inexplicably, the 60 Minutes correspondent asserts that according to “everything I’ve read there were not many jobs created”
Really, 60 Minutes?!? Really, you’re going with the ‘everything I’ve read’ line? Because we did some reading as well and found out:
In fact, the Atlantic Wire reported last year that this one program successfully shepherded 28 companies with clean energy projects creating over 20,000 jobs — with a net cost to the public that will either end up being very low or zero. DOE projects that all of its clean energy loan programs taken together will generate some 55,000 jobs.
Wowsers, reading sure is fun!
There are plenty of other example showing that clean technology is doing well, from the increase in sales of electric cars to the increase in sales (and lowering in price) of energy-efficient light bulbs, but our main point is getting lost in ‘data’ and ‘facts.’
The main point is this: 60 Minutes has decided to abandon all journalistic integrity built up over decades of quality reporting in order to produce right-wing hit pieces. Bravo, guys. Could it maybe, possibly, have anything to do with your new-ish President of CBS News, David Rhodes? We only ask because before he joined CBS in 2011, he was Vice President of News at Fox News. We are disappointed that it took Rhodes a full 2+ years to ruin all the credibility that 60 Minutes built up — we thought he could have done it in one year if he really set his mind to it. Anyway, we totally look forward to a thorough exploration of how Obamacare will usher in an era of beheadings.
We have unconfirmed reports that Dan Rather is rolling over in his grave. Because according to everything we have read, he is dead.
Follow DDM on Twitter (@Wonksplainer), because why not.
