Over at Skeptical Inquirer online, two of your ScienceBlogs denizens have teamed up in a major article about the pitfalls in the way the press covers the issue of hurricanes and global warming. And this isn't simply some pat story about avoiding robotic "balance" in coverage, such as one might tell about reporting on evolution or reporting the basic issue of whether we're causing global warming. Matt's and my argument is much complex and nuanced this time, because the subject requires it:
Although journalists have framed the story from three main angles--an emphasis on breaking scientific news (defined by the release of a study at Science or Nature), an emphasis on conflict between scientists (by playing up personal tensions at conferences), and an emphasis on government accountability (the control of media statements made by agency scientists)--in each case they have been far too trapped by what Revkin has called the ...
