Media coverage of climate change: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:31, 12 August 2024

Revision as of 14:01, 30 December 2024

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According to Shoemaker and Reese, controversy is one of the main variables affecting story choice among news editors, along with human interest, prominence, timeliness, celebrity, and proximity. Coverage of climate change has been accused of falling victim to the journalistic norm of "personalization".<ref>{{cite book|vauthors=Shoemaker PJ, Reese SD |title=Mediating the message: Theories of influence on mass media content|year=1996|publisher=Longman.|___location=New York |page=261}}</ref> W.L Bennet defines this trait as: "the tendency to downplay the big social, economic, or political picture in favor of human trials, tragedies and triumphs".<ref>W.L Bennet, "News: The Politics of Illusion" 5th edition, (2002). Longman, New York. p.45</ref> The culture of [[political journalism]] has long used the notion of balanced coverage in covering the controversy. In this construct, it is permissible to air a highly [[Partisan (political)|partisan]] opinion, provided this view is accompanied by a competing opinion. But recently scientists and scholars have challenged the legitimacy of this journalistic core value with regard to matters of great importance on which the overwhelming majority of the scientific community has reached a well-substantiated consensus view.

In a survey of 636 articles from four top United States newspapers between 1988 and 2002, two scholars found that most articles gave as much time to the small group of [[climate change denier|climate change doubtersdeniers]] as to the scientific consensus view.<ref name="Boykoff2004" /> Given real consensus among climatologists over [[global warming]], many scientists find the media's desire to portray the topic as a scientific controversy to be a gross distortion. As [[Stephen Schneider (scientist)|Stephen Schneider]] put it:<ref name="Schneider"/>{{Blockquote| "a mainstream, well-established consensus may be 'balanced' against the opposing views of a few extremists, and to the uninformed, each position seems equally credible."}}

Science journalism concerns itself with gathering and evaluating various types of relevant evidence and rigorously checking sources and facts. Boyce Rensberger, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Knight Center for Science Journalism, said, "balanced coverage of science does not mean giving equal weight to both sides of an argument. It means apportioning weight according to the balance of evidence."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rensberger|first=B|title=Reporting Science Means Looking for Cautionary Signals|journal=Nieman Reports|year=2002|pages=12–14|url=http://niemanreports.org/articles/reporting-science-means-looking-for-cautionary-signals-2/|access-date=2018-02-05|archive-date=2019-08-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190806225452/https://niemanreports.org/articles/reporting-science-means-looking-for-cautionary-signals-2/|url-status=live}}</ref>