In an interview with Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore yesterday on the Today show, criticized Meredith Vieira and other reporters who use discredited climate skeptics in their reporting for the sake of simply presenting an “opposing view” in order to make global warming a “story”.

Vieira used a recent op-ed by John Christy, a former member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which shared the Nobel this year with Gore), as a form of opposition research on the matter.

Replied Gore: “…[John Christy is] an outlier. He no longer belongs to the IPCC, and he is way outside the scientific consensus. But, Meredith, part of the challenge the news media has had in covering this story is the old habit of taking the on the one hand, on the other hand approach. There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat, but when you're reporting on a story like the one you're covering today, where you have people all around the world, you don't take — you don't search out for someone who still believes the Earth is flat and give them equal time.”

Think Progress offers a few more examples of media sloppiness on the issue:

“Last month, for example, Colorado State University professor Dr. William Gray sharply criticized Gore, saying that he is ‘brainwashing our children' on global warming. His comments were covered by multiple major cable networks and newspapers (with no mention that he also once compared Gore to Hilter). Additionally, Media Matters documented that the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, CNN, and Fox News all recently reported that a British judge pointed out nine ‘errors' in Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth, without “mentioning that he also stated in the ruling that the film is ‘substantially founded upon scientific research and fact.'”