tag:www.cjr.org,2011-09-12://4 2012-05-21T15:24:33Z Columbia Journalism Review: Strong Press, Strong Democracy Movable Type Pro 4.34-en tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30462 2012-05-21T15:00:33Z 2012-05-21T15:24:33Z

KQED Quest, Pacific Standard keep their eyes on the other coast

Curtis Brainard American media may cluster in the east, but the west is still the land of pioneers, even in the domains of multimedia and long-form science journalism. Two young trailblazers—Quest, a multimedia science and environment series created in 2007 by KQED, a radio and TV station serving northern California, and Pacific Standard, a research-oriented, bimonthly magazine launched as Miller-McCune in 2008 tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30444 2012-05-17T10:50:00Z 2012-05-17T17:48:01Z

Detailed cover story a bit too rosy about ‘energy independence’

Curtis Brainard USA Today sees an oily, gassy rainbow on America’s energy horizon. “Energy independence isn’t just a pipe dream,” read a large, bold headline on Wednesday’s front. It was draped over an image of oil drums stamped “Made in USA,” laid out like bowling pins in front the US flag. The nearly 2,000-word cover story, by Tim Mullaney, described the current tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30436 2012-05-15T18:15:52Z 2012-05-17T12:22:20Z

Time’s titillating cover overshadows article’s substance

Curtis Brainard Time touched a nerve this week with its provocative cover photo of 26-year-old Jamie Lynne Grumet and her 3-year-old son standing on a chair next to her, nursing her left breast while both stare directly (and unapologetically) at readers. The underlying story focused on the “attachment parenting” method developed by Dr. William Sears, which advocates prolonged breastfeeding, “baby wearing” (carrying tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30424 2012-05-11T19:45:56Z 2012-05-13T04:05:22Z

But flawless coverage about happenings in Antarctica has been rare

Curtis Brainard A variety of news outlets has covered two papers published this week indicating that the Weddell Sea area of Antarctica might be susceptible to faster-than-expected ice loss, but most went astray in one way or another. The most troublesome of the bunch was the piece from Reuters whose lede reads: Scientists are predicting the disappearance of another vast ice shelf tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30411 2012-05-09T18:30:00Z 2012-05-10T14:46:49Z

The San Francisco Chronicle’s muddled swipe at GE crops

Curtis Brainard If you’re worried about pesticides, then the San Francisco Chronicle has a sweeping indictment of genetically engineered (GE) crops to sell you. At the end of April, the paper published an article by its Washington correspondent, Carolyn Lochhead, on its front page that used narrowly defined concerns about a new type of GE corn to mount a weakly reported tirade tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30378 2012-05-03T16:35:07Z 2012-05-04T16:20:17Z

Most media treat BSE discovery with appropriate concern

Curtis Brainard A few days after the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) announcement last month that it had discovered a case of “mad cow disease” in California—the first in the US since 2006—its media liaison took a swipe reporters, says the website Food Safety News. According to its report: On the same day it promised to make the findings of its investigation tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30361 2012-05-01T16:13:08Z 2012-05-01T17:00:20Z

Articles about neuroscience push ideology, inflame divisions, study says

Curtis Brainard From advice about “exercising your mind” to treatises on “the gay brain,” media coverage of neuroscience in the UK often pushes “thinly disguised ideological arguments” and reinforces artificial divisions between social groups, according to a new study. A team of researchers at University College in London reviewed 2,931 articles published between 2000-2010 in the three best-selling British broadsheets and tabloids—the tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30335 2012-04-26T21:26:57Z 2012-04-27T21:04:42Z

But reporters will probably have to keep asking

Curtis Brainard Three cheers to Rolling Stone cofounder Jann S. Wenner for getting President Barack Obama to utter the words “climate change” for the first time in a long time. In a wide-ranging interview published Wednesday, Obama used the term six times in responses to three different questions, surprising many pundits and environmentalists who’d come to believe that the chief executive had tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30283 2012-04-25T10:59:30Z 2012-04-26T17:36:59Z

Article overlooks green group’s close ties to Walton Family Foundation

Curtis Brainard A recent New York Times article about the Environmental Defense Fund’s efforts to help Wal-Mart “cut waste” painted an incomplete picture of the group’s relationship with the retail giant, offering an instructive lesson in “green business” coverage in the process. The article, which ran on the front of the paper’s business section on April 13, described Wal-Mart’s “mixed degree of tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30212 2012-04-18T16:30:54Z 2012-04-18T17:10:19Z

Some articles fail to stress bottom line of electric-vehicles report

Curtis Brainard A new report outlining regional differences in electric cars’ contribution to climate change is drawing a lot of media attention, but a few articles have overlooked some important context about how the electric cars compare to all-gas vehicles. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a research and advocacy organization, released the results of a nine-month analysis last week, which found that tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30197 2012-04-16T19:00:17Z 2012-04-17T14:07:58Z

The 100th anniversary of one of the world’s most-covered stories

Curtis Brainard You can’t sink a good story. The past few months have produced countless articles, columns, photo galleries, videos, and sundry media clips about the 100th anniversary of the RMS Titanic striking an iceberg and foundering in the frigid North Atlantic in the early hours of April 15, 1912. The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach reported that the president of the Titanic tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30161 2012-04-09T18:30:26Z 2012-04-10T00:04:03Z

From red meat to white rice, not enough skepticism of observational studies

Curtis Brainard The incessant coverage of nutritional studies that make tenuous claims about the harms or benefits of consuming various foods and beverages has come under heavy fire from critics in recent months. On Thursday, science writer Gary Taubes launched the latest broadside against credulous reporting of flimsy epidemiological research. “The last couple of weeks have witnessed a slightly-greater-than-usual outbreak of extremely tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30128 2012-04-02T15:00:41Z 2012-04-02T16:54:24Z

The recent Oakes Award winner talks about how to keep climate on the front page

Curtis Brainard At the end of March, Columbia University awarded the 2011 Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism to New York Times reporter Justin Gillis for his ongoing multimedia series, Temperature Rising, examining the fundamental tenets of manmade climate change. Articles in the series, most of which appear on the front page, provide in-depth, back-to-basics assessments of global warming’s effects on glaciers, tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30107 2012-03-27T21:43:29Z 2012-03-28T23:36:22Z

Local reports present a war of words without much fact checking

Curtis Brainard Unchecked accusations about gas prices and oil production defined local coverage of President Barack Obama’s speech at Ohio State University last week, the final stop on a four-state tour promoting his administration’s energy policy. The president’s address—which followed a visit to the university’s Center for Automotive Research, where he viewed the Buckeye Bullet, the world’s fastest electric car—touted his “all tag:www.cjr.org,2012://4.30087 2012-03-22T18:00:00Z 2012-03-28T16:00:20Z

Resources to help journalists stop the spin

Curtis Brainard Every year, news stories about US gasoline prices appear in the early spring and remain popular until the end of the summer driving season in September. But “pain at the pump” takes on special significance during presidential election years, as Republicans and Democrats use gas prices to attack one another’s energy policies and curry favor with voters. This year, the