CJR : The Observatory

Chronicle Gives “Climategate” Probes Their Due

2010-07-23T20:23:27Z

By Curtis Brainard I've complained twice in the last month that the press is not giving recent climate-change news its due. Today, I lamented that Senator Harry Reid’s decision to pull the plug on climate legislation was not getting enough analysis. Two weeks ago, I carped that a series of reports rebutting the so-called “Climategate” affair were also not...

Climate Bill Blowout

2010-07-23T20:00:20Z

By Curtis Brainard Following Senator Harry Reid’s decision to pull the plug on climate legislation Thursday, news sites lit up with lit up with analyses of who was to blame. As well they should; this is a major story. But if you don’t get your news online, you were likely out of this story’s loop. Democrats don’t have the votes to...

Stephen Schneider: Climate Communicator

2010-07-20T22:48:09Z

By Cristine Russell Stephen Schneider was not an American household name. But within the ranks of science journalists and scientists, this Stanford University climatologist was a celebrity with the rare talent—and passion—for communicating with the public and politicians about the global threat of climate change. He was brash, outspoken, critical, and sometimes seen as a Cassandra over his long career. But as one...

Obits for Schneider Roll In

2010-07-19T22:00:18Z

By Curtis Brainard The obituaries for Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider, who suffered a fatal heart attack early Monday morning, are beginning to roll in, with a number of reporters paying their respects to a man who spent a significant amount of his time dealing with the media. Schneider, who was sixty-five, was a vocal advocate for confronting manmade global...

Oil spill, climate coverage drive growth at Mother Jones

2010-07-19T17:24:55Z

By Curtis Brainard Science and environment coverage, often marginalized in daily newspapers and news magazines, has helped drive exceptional growth at Mother Jones recently, the magazine’s editors said last week. Publisher Steve Katz announced a 125 percent increase in unique visitors to the publication’s Web site and 61 percent growth in total digital revenue (including a 339 percent increase in online contributions)...

Pachauri Revises IPCC Media Plan

2010-07-19T16:58:45Z

By Curtis Brainard Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has sent a letter to the 831 lead authors and editors of the panel’s fifth, and next, assessment report apologizing for a previous letter, which advised them to “keep a distance from the media.” In it, he wrote: I want to reassure everyone the IPCC...

“Two Stories” of Gulf Seafood

2010-07-16T16:40:02Z

By Curtis Brainard

Inside BP’s Media Blockade

2010-07-14T20:00:27Z

By Curtis Brainard A former BP contractor who blocked a New Orleans TV news reporter from talking to cleanup crews working on a polluted beach in Grande Isle, Louisiana in June contacted the same reporter last Friday in order to criticize BP’s handling of the Gulf oil spill. Adam Dillon, a former Army Special Forces solider who lives in North Carolina,...

I’ll Have the Climate Coverage, Please

2010-07-13T15:09:32Z

By Curtis Brainard On Sunday night, CNN’s Howard Kurtz seconded CJR’s call for more coverage of the series of inquiries and investigations rebutting recent controversies stemming from minor errors in an international climate report and e-mails leaked from a British climate research center. (Kurtz did not mention CJR.) Last Wednesday, we pleaded for reporters to pay...

Mediaphobia at the IPCC

2010-07-12T20:44:37Z

By Curtis Brainard The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seems to have caught a touch of mediaphobia from last year’s largely debunked controversies stemming from a couple minor errors in its 2007 report and from a batch of leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia. New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin had an important scoop on Saturday highlighting...

Meet the AP’s New Oil Spill Editor

2010-07-09T15:40:48Z

By Curtis Brainard At the end of June, the Associated Press announced that it had named an oil spill editor, Steve Gutkin, to supervise coverage of the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. CJR’s Curtis Brainard sent Gutkin—in the process of moving to Atlanta after spending the past six years as AP bureau chief in Jerusalem—a number of questions via...

Shameful Obstinacy at The Sunday Times

2010-07-08T21:00:42Z

By Curtis Brainard On Wednesday, I argued that the mounting rebuttal of the recent controversies related to the so-called “Climategate” e-mails and alleged errors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) landmark 2007 report deserves more high-profile coverage. One piece of evidence that I did not mention was The Sunday Times’s recent retraction of article published in January, which set...

Uproar at ScienceBlogs.com

2010-07-08T13:00:03Z

By Curtis Brainard At least two well-respected science journalists and a handful of scientists have canceled their blogs at the popular and heretofore highly respected ScienceBlogs.com community, protesting Seed Media Group’s decision to give PepsiCo a nutrition blog. On Tuesday afternoon, ScienceBlogs.com’s editor, Evan Lerner (who has contributed to CJR), posted a short note announcing...

Wanted: Climate Front-Pager

2010-07-07T21:30:27Z

By Curtis Brainard Over the last two days, two reports have, respectively, reaffirmed the integrity of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the scientists involved in the so-called “Climategate” affair. Unfortunately, while the reports have received a lot of attention in the blogosphere, high-profile coverage in newspapers and magazines has been woefully lacking. On Tuesday, the Netherlands Environmental...

ProPublica and Frontline with a Save on BP

2010-07-06T13:27:29Z

By Ryan Chittum