This research paper is five years old, but is an interesting glimpse into the reasoning and justifications for lopsided reporting of AGW. Read the paper, discuss. Yuck~ctm
Climate Change in the Newsroom: Journalists’ Evolving Standards of Objectivity When Covering Global Warming.
Sara Shipley Hiles1 and Amanda Hinnant
DOI: 10.1177/1075547014534077
Full Paper here:
Abstract:
This study investigated how highly experienced environmental journalists view the professional norms of objectivity when covering climate change over time. Elite journalists were sought, and all had a minimum of 10 years of experience in climate coverage. In-depth interviews revealed a paradox: Most still profess belief in objectivity even as they reject or redefine it. Participants said that journalists should use objective practices and refrain from revealing their own biases, including advocating for the environment. However, participants have radically redefined the component of objectivity known as balance. They now advocate a weight-of-evidence approach, where stories reflect scientific consensus.
Introduction:
Climate change is arguably the world’s biggest environmental story—and for journalists, it may be the toughest (Ward, 2008). Not only is the story scientifically complex, it is politically treacherous. With American opinion about anthropogenic climate change polarized along partisan lines (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 2012), journalists have suffered withering criticism left and right—even veiled death threats (Revkin, 2009). Traditionally, journalists could shield themselves from attack through practicing “objectivity” (e.g., Mindich, 1998; Schiller, 1978; Schudson, 1978; Tuchman, 1978). A key component of traditional journalistic objectivity is “balance,” in which reporters try to tell “both sides of the story” (Tuchman, 1972, p. 665). With climate change, however, traditional balance led journalists and the public massively astray. Public relations (PR) firms and dissenting scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry sowed doubt and misinformation about the reality of human-caused climate change (Gelbspan, 2005; J. Greenberg, Knight, & Westersund, 2011), and journalists repeated the information in an attempt to be “balanced” (Gelbspan, 2005). This pattern led to the charge of “balance as bias,” in which Boykoff and Boykoff (2004) skewered the media for creating an appearance of significant scientific debate over anthropogenic climate change, when, in fact, there was little disagreement. This lopsided coverage falsely framed climate change as a “debate” in the public eye (Boykoff, 2010). Scholars have noted problematic climate coverage from the 1980s through about 2005 (Antilla, 2005; Brossard, Shanahan, & McComas, 2004, Liu, Vedlitz, & Alston, 2008; McComas & Shanahan, 1999; Trumbo, 1996; Zehr, 2000). However, not long after Boykoff and Boykoff’s (2004) influential study, coverage appeared to change. By 2007, Boykoff (2007a) found that media coverage more closely reflected scientific consensus.
By 2010, Block (2010) noted that most journalists had stopped covering climate change as a scientific controversy.
How do journalists perceive this shift? A number of previous studies have examined climate change coverage through content analyses of U.S. newspapers (e.g., Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004). This study asked journalists themselves to explain the evolution—and to discuss what role their perception of journalistic norms played. More specifically, this study asked how an elite group of expert U.S. environmental reporters perceived the professional norm of objectivity when covering climate change and how they say this perception changed during a period of apparent shift from 2000 to 2010. Participants were probed on eight dimensions of traditional objectivity gleaned from the literature, such as neutrality and balance (e.g., Schudson, 1978). Results show that mainstream environmental journalists developed a modified norm of objectivity but do not claim to have abandoned it completely. This discovery is important in an era when traditional notions of journalism are being challenged and new definitions are coming forward. Both journalists and the public deserve a thorough understanding of the values that contributed to this most crucial story.
Before turning to the journalists’ perspectives, we provide a conceptual review of objectivity, a history of climate change coverage, and a review of research on environmental journalists.
HT/Brian M
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Regarding the “Green” propaganda, I think that about 80 % of the Green supporters are truly concerned about the condition of Planet Earth. About 15 % are in it for the money, here in Australia the owners of coal fired power station also own the windmills, as there is a government busy supporting renewable.
And the remaining 5 % cent are joust like the late Maurice Strong, are hoping that just like in Germany in the 1920 tees, first the collapse of the democratic Weimer republic, followed by the Wall Street crash, lead to Adolph Hitler getting legally elected . In Russia it was armed takeover of a weakened Democratic government.
First you need to weaken the economy of a Country, then you take over and we get a dictatorship
We need big business to realise that they too are going to be destroyed, then perhaps they will support the anti warmers lobby with money. because we need money to run our antic propaganda campaign.
MJE
This line of thought might help.
All my life I have admired the beauty of the female face. I was sure, when I saw a beautiful face, that I would remember it forever, with joy, simply because it was so striking it could not, should not, be forgotten.
Then, aged 17, came a few years of lectures in advanced Pure and Applied Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geology and employment using Science. Much of the name of the game was accurate observation and measurement.
Blessed with the working tools of Science, I should have been able to quantify and to record for posterity, the factors that combined to make a beautiful female face.
That was theory. It met reality. There was no way to know if a face was beautiful for all observers, even if the measurements of faces were available as a guide.
Subjectivity met objectivity. Accuracy met belief.
Much of the global warming scare can be understood this way. The poor scientists from the Climategate emails saw beauty in their life work, when measurement and observation should have prevailed. Scientists are allowed to surrender their badges when so compromised.
Similar considerations apply to journalism. Those lily-livered authors of the paper under discussion here are or were under the influence of the subjective beauty idiom, when society expected them to write ‘Just the facts M’am’ because that is what they were hired to do.
So, be philosophic as you age, ignore the dreamers of pretty faces when you expect hard Science, but always remember conundrums as you contemplate the next beautiful face. As another once wrote, ‘If little girls are made of snips and snails and puppy dog’s tails, how come they smell of anchovies?’
I like that, “…dissenting scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry …“, with the hidden implication that scientists funded by the “fossil fuel industry” cannot be trusted, whereas those funded by (presumably)governments can be. A simple glance at the evidence would surely indicate that the reverse is closer to the truth.
Follow the Money. The “Media” hates “Big Oil” because the oil industry no longer spends billions of dollars on advertising. After WWII, the oil industry and the automotive industry spent more money on advertising than any other industries. Decades later, we can still remember the slogans.
“You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.” — Texaco
“Put a tiger in your tank.” — Humble/Esso/Exxon
“You expect more from Standard [Amoco] … and you get it.” — Standard Oil of Indiana/Amoco
This made the media incredibly rich (and powerful). But after the oil shortages of the 1970s and the mergers and consolidations of the 1980s and 1990s the oil industry cut way back on advertising. Thus they became “evil”.
Auto companies still spend a lot on advertising, so they are given a pass. It’s ok to sell fossil fuel consuming devices, but it’s evil to sell fossil fuels.