Lee Fang speculates that CNBC is solicitous of climate change deniers because the fossil fuel industry buys a lot of advertising time from them. It could really be that simple. The company is no longer owned by General Electric and we see no corresponding solicitation of global warming deniers on MSNBC or the various other network outlets, which also sell a lot of advertising time to the fossil fuel industry. So, there isn’t any clear-cut pattern that seems directed from the top down. Rather, it appears to be a problem that is isolated to CNBC’s particular corporate or management structure.

The current flap involves a (so far) anonymous booker for the network who sent an email to the wrong address seeking a response from Alan Carlin to the Risky Business report on the future costs of climate change.

Hi there. Given this new report on the cost of climate change, wanted to extend an invitation to Alan Carlin to write an op-ed for CNBC.com. Can be on the new report or just his general thoughts on global warming being a hoax. If he’s interested, please email me directly .

It would be bad enough if they were asking Alan Carlin to come on the network and debate a climate scientist, but this booker wasn’t even seeking balance. They wanted an op-ed for the website. They are literally soliciting disinformation, which is malpractice for an editorial staff. We complain about the media’s tendency to push he said/she said angles to disputes that aren’t really disputes, but this goes further than that and actually takes sides with the propagandists.

One has to ask: to what purpose? Click-bait? Chasing a particular demographic? Is it to further hits on the website or for a broader corporate purpose? Is it to make advertisers happy, as Lee Fang speculated?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that the editors at CNBC should be subjected to ridicule and moral censure.

They are horrible people who are a discredit to their profession.