New York Times Faces Cancelled Subscriptions Over Climate Column

May 1, 2017 1:22 pm
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Sunlight eclipsing planet earth (Getty Images)

The New York Times is facing criticism and backlash from readers who are threatening to cancel their subscription to the paper over a column on climate change by brand new Times staffer Bret Stephens, CNN Money is reporting.

Formerly a deputy editorial page editor for the Wall Street Journal and a 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner, Stephens argued in his first column for the paper that climate policy advocates should take note of Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign and her reliance on data to predict the election’s outcome.

“We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris,” Stephens wrote. “Claiming total certainty about the science traduces the spirit of science and creates openings for doubt whenever a climate claim proves wrong.”

Many scientists, environmentalists and climate change activists immediately bristled, with some taking to social media with the hashtag #ShowYourCancellation to air grievances and publicly cancel subscriptions to the New York Times in protest.

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