The "environmental blogosphere" has inflamed this week after the publication on 15 February in the Washington Post of an article by George Will, a conservative political commentator in sight. The newspaper, whose circulation is 630,000 copies (5th largest national circulation), is accused of not checking the facts and propagate a position increasingly marginalized in the scientific world. The criticisms include the distortion of the findings of the World Meteorological Organization, about the lack of observed warming over the last decade. They also include the parallel drawn by Will the controversy between the 1970s around the cooling, and the current debate on

Of these three arguments, blogger complain of a lack of real facts on the part of Will, but the incompetence of the newspaper publishers meet their obligations "fact-checking." And the controversy swells because this is not the first time, according to the editors of specialized sites, the general media that disseminate articles containing falsehoods against. But the Post has responded to attacks by asserting that the facts had been checked by competent persons "to the greatest extent possible."

The blogger say they can no longer trust the media whose credibility is thus weakened. And the charge is not unfounded in the context of crisis for the American press and structural reduction plan. The ranks of science journalists are in fact more and more sparse in the press and the media's ability to understand complex scientific issues is reduced.

But the commentator Chris Mooney, author of a 2006 book (The Republican War on Science, Basic Books, ed.) Said in a solemn chronicle that blogger should not cry victory facing the dismay of the press' traditional ' because blogs are poorly equipped to supplant a real investigative journalism and analysis. In this sense, Mooney predicts that this is not a transfer of content and audience for the benefit of the blogosphere that is taking place, but probably the loss of a distribution channel and an impoverishment of information scientist who reaches the general public.