Climate Journalism Q & A

In the super-charged, heavily politicized climate change debate, we journalists often find ourselves getting scorched from all sides: We suck, we're biased, we're stupid, we're clueless, we're a pack of conflict junkies, a blob of false-balance jello. Yeah, we've heard it all. So what about it? It's all true. But not all the time. Which makes many people crazy delirious. To which I say, as I do to both teammates and opponents on a basketball court when I throw an errant pass or elbow: sorry, my bad. Or I can assemble some colleagues who I hope will offer something more meaningful and contrite. And so, without further ado, here's Charles Petit, science reporter and critic at the MIT-Knight Science Journalism Tracker website; Curtis Brainard, Editor of The Observatory, CJR's online science and environment news desk; Bud Ward, a veteran environmental journalist and editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change ...