Personally, I didn't have an issue with the way media headlined the fraud. It certainly made high profile mockery of those particular academics, and frankly, if they tampered with the data then they deserved a roasting. Everything especially science must be held up to scrutiny. Put it down to human frailty, I suppose.
The hoax news conceivably threw advocates of global warming into a spin as it did me. I have to say for a moment I felt doubt. I recovered. My big question was about the ramifications, how could the movement recover from that? All that effort gone into educating and persuading the unbelievers was decades in the making. The whole affair demonstrated how easily it could have all fallen apart.
Well, as we witnessed the hoax scare was merely a deviation, shortly corrected. Somehow we as humanity just move on. I suppose we just get tired and apathetic with some things. Overall, the hoax news didn't alter the major commitment to the global warming movement, certainly not as the sceptics would have wanted it to pan out. I think they would have liked to have scored a coup.
I will leave you with a link to an article posted by The Tech Online Edition which outlines some of the debate that has ensued. I think it is healthy to broaden the discourse.
In Wake of Climate Research Controversy, MIT Faculty Discuss Validity of Concerns:
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