On Friday The Charlotte Observer published an “objective” account of a lunchtime presentation by Joel Schwartz, which read more like a feeble refutation of factual data, and included a minimization of Schwartz’s qualifications.

Schwartz spoke at John Locke Foundation-sponsored events in Charlotte and Winston-Salem on Thursday, and another in Raleigh on Friday. Reporting on the Queen City event, the Observer’s Bruce Henderson nebulously identified Schwartz as “a former California air-quality official” and as “a fellow at a Washington think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.”

Headline writers put more effort into discrediting Schwartz, labeling him an “analyst” and in a sub-headline calling him a “think-tank staffer.” A think-tank staffer?

To set the record straight, Schwartz:

* Is currently an environmental consultant based in Sacramento, Calif., on air pollution, transportation, and chemical risks

* Was senior scientist and director of the Air Quality Project for the Reason Public Policy Institute in Los Angeles from Dec. 2000 to April 2002

* Was executive officer for the Inspection and Maintenance Review Committee for three years in Sacramento

* Has served as a staff scientist or environmental consultant in many other capacities in California

* Investigated European solutions to transportation-related air pollution problems as a German Marshall Fund Fellow in 1993

* Was a California Master of Science in Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology

* Earned his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry at the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences

Henderson concluded his extremely brief article with a quote from John Bachmann, associate director of science policy for the Environmental Protection Agency’s air-quality office in Research Triangle Park. Seems his credentials mattered, whereas Schwartz’s didn’t.

“It’s always easy to cherry-pick studies, pick out one or two you like and find contrarian results,” Bachmann said.

Had The Charlotte Observer given Schwartz’s presentation more than a passing thought, their readers would have learned that “cherry-picking” is exactly what the EPA uses to construct misleading presentations of data and formulate policies that make people believe that the air is getting worse when it has clearly, for decades, been getting better. They also would have learned that Schwartz used EPA’s own data to prove that air-pollution claims about most cities are exaggerated.

Paul Chesser is associate editor of Carolina Journal. Contact him at [email protected].