Topic: CNSNews.com
A June 19 CNSNews.com article by Randy Hall repeats the Tennessee Center for Policy Research's claim that Al Gore's electricity usage has increased. Hall clearly takes the side of the TCPR:
- He fails to identify it as a conservative group, though CNS generally makes an effort to put ideological labels on such groups.
- He accepted the TCPR's claims at face value, even though, as Sadly, No! points out, TCPR offers no documentation to support its claims.
- Hall does offer a response from a Gore spokesman, but it's buried under 11 paragraphs of attacks, is taken from a newspaper article (Hall, by contrast, talked to the TCPR), and Hall allows the TCPR to respond to Gore's criticism by saying that "the Center stands behind its data" even though, again, the Center has offered no supporting documentation.
Further, Hall didn't check his numbers. He cited a February 2007 CNS article that repeated previous (unsubstantiated) TCPR claims that Gore's home "consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses an entire year." But the numbers in that story contradict the claims TCPR is making now.
In the Feb. 27, 2007, CNS article, Susan Jones reported the TCPR's claim that Gore's home in 2006 "devoured nearly 221,000 kWh -- more than 20 times the national average." But Hall reported that "Gore's mansion ... used 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity" in 2007, which the NCPR said had "increased more than 10 percent."
Last time we checked, 213,210 was less than 221,000. The TCPR is wrong, and CNS needs to issue a correction. (Again, h/t Sadly, No!).
Meanwhile, Newsmax just reprinted the TCPR's press release, false 10 percent increase claim and all.
