Because……words.
"The letter, sent by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, was written after a Nov. 10 New York Times article referred to Sen. James Inhofe as “a prominent skeptic of climate change.†The group argues that “denier†and “skeptic†have been conflated by the media, and do not mean the same thing."
“Journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science”