Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler ripped into a Yahoo News reporter in a Friday interview over a tweet he believed took remarks he made out of context.
Yahoo national correspondent Alexander Nazaryan tweeted Monday that Wheeler had said during a National Press Club event that "'The media does a disservice to the American public' by reporting on global warming."
"The media does a disservice to the American public" by reporting on global warming, says EPA head Andrew Wheeler. Wants more positive coverage.https://t.co/YYVs4vqTwi
— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) June 3, 2019
But in the full quote in the article, Wheeler didn't actually say the press did a disservice by "reporting on global warming," full stop, but for not also reporting on the strides the country had made. "The media does a disservice to the American public, and sound policymaking, by not informing the public of the progress this nation has made," he said.
Wheeler did not care for the mischaracterization and vented to the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard Friday. "I mean, is Yahoo even a real news service?" he asked. "Anybody online thinks that they're a reporter these days."
"It tells me that most reporters are lazy these days," he continued "What does it say about the state of journalism today? It's atrocious. I get stuff out of context all the time. All the time, every single day, almost every single article written about me by the mainstream media takes something out of context."
Wheeler's critique comes after he went off-script during a Wednesday speech and accused reporters of working in tandem with environmental activists to push the false quote. Nazaryan—who previously was rebuked when as a reporter at Newsweek he compared Ted Cruz and his supporters to Nazis—responded by sarcastically quote-tweeting the quote and tweeting "NO COLLUSSION."
NO COLUSSION!!!!!! https://t.co/X1qnstiJQO
— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) June 5, 2019