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Articles by Curtis Brainard | Email the Author

 

1. The Observatory

   Keystone XL Jobs Bewilder Media

   January 24, 2012 04:30 PM

   God help the poor news consumers of America, especially the would-be voters. President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline last week incited a new wave of coverage and speculation about how many jobs the line would create. Unfortunately,... Continue reading

2. The Observatory

   Does Big Pharma Pay Your Doctor?

   January 19, 2012 02:30 PM

   How useful would a database cataloguing the money that doctors receive from medical drug and device makers—for speaking, research, meals, travel, etc.—be to journalists trying to ferret out potential conflicts of interest? Just ask ProPublica, which launched its... Continue reading

3. The Observatory

   Critical Juncture for HuffPo Science

   January 13, 2012 12:00 PM

   The Huffington Post’s announcement last week that it had launched a new section intended to be a “one-stop shop for the latest scientific news and opinion” incited a flurry of circumspect commentary about whether or not... Continue reading

4. The Observatory

   Down, But Not Out?

   January 10, 2012 10:00 AM

   Just how scarce was climate-change coverage in 2011? It’s hard to get a fix on the details, but the broad conclusion that it was even scarcer than in the year before seems to hold up. Last week, I wrote a... Continue reading

5. The Observatory

   Climate Coverage Crashes

   January 4, 2012 04:45 PM

   Twelve months ago, The Daily Climate, a website that produces and tracks media stories about climate change, declared that 2010 was “the year climate coverage ‘fell off the map.’” The downward spiral continued in 2011, a... Continue reading

6. The Observatory

   Best of 2011: The Observatory

   December 30, 2011 06:00 AM

   The Hottest Thing in Science Blogging: The hot ticket for science bloggers and online writers this year was ScienceOnline, a once-obscure North Carolina conference with only about 300 coveted seats available. It sold out in less than forty-five... Continue reading

7. The Observatory

   Methane Mysteries

   December 21, 2011 02:00 PM

   Methane—a potent greenhouse gas that could be released in vast quantities as climate change melts Arctic permafrost—has received quite a bit of media attention in the last month. But the coverage has caused a bit of confusion about where the... Continue reading

8. The Observatory

   Phone-Hacking Inquiry Eyes Science Journalism

   December 16, 2011 04:00 PM

   The Leveson inquiry into the “culture, practice, and ethics” of the British press resulting from the News International phone-hacking scandal has caught science journalism in its tractor beam. In the course of his opening statement in... Continue reading

9. The Observatory

   Newsweek Fetishizes an “Epidemic”

   December 15, 2011 03:30 PM

   A “sex addiction epidemic” is unfolding like a plague in the US, according a recent Newsweek cover story—but don’t reach for the chastity belt just yet. The over-stimulated article is weakly reported, superficial, and perpetuates confusion about sexual... Continue reading

10. The Observatory

    Frozen Planet’s Final Episode Will Air in US

    December 7, 2011 06:00 PM

    Discovery Channel reversed course on Tuesday when it announced that it would air all seven parts of a BBC series about Earth’s polar regions, including a final episode about climate change, which it originally said it would forgo.... Continue reading

11. The Observatory

    Besser to Oz: “You Were Right”

    December 6, 2011 11:00 AM

    After accusing Dr. Mehmet Oz of “fear mongering” for reporting that some brands of apple juice contained high levels of arsenic, ABC News’s senior health and medical editor, Dr. Richard Besser, was forced to concede last week that Oz was... Continue reading

12. The Observatory

    UEA E-Mails Fail to Provoke

    November 30, 2011 02:00 PM

    Uneager, perhaps, to provoke the type of criticism that followed the dreadful coverage the “Climategate,” journalists have treated the emergence of a new cache of e-mails (apparently collected at the same time as the first) with a skepticism... Continue reading

13. The Observatory

    Congress Nixes Climate Service

    November 21, 2011 03:45 PM

    Congress has denied the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) bid to create a promising “one stop shop” for data and information about climate, according to a scoop in The Washington Post. NOAA’s budget request for... Continue reading

14. The Observatory

    WSJ Marginalizes Muller

    November 17, 2011 05:00 PM

    Media Matters, a group dedicated to bird-dogging conservative spin in the press, made a good catch last week when it pointed out that The Wall Street Journal didn’t publish a wave-making op-ed that disavowed global-warming skepticism in its... Continue reading

15. The Observatory

    Frozen Planet Freezes Out Climate

    November 16, 2011 02:45 PM

    The BBC is taking a mild pummeling for giving foreign television networks the option not to buy an episode about climate change when purchasing rights to air a nature and wildlife series about Earth’s polar regions. British viewers will see... Continue reading

16. The Observatory

    The Kochs and Keystone XL

    November 9, 2011 04:45 PM

    Koch Industries, a giant oil and energy conglomerate, has InsideClimate News, a four-year-old online news startup, in its crosshairs. In October, the company launched an online ad campaign via Google, Facebook, and its KochFacts.com website (which rebuts coverage it finds... Continue reading

17. The Observatory

    Like the Odds of a Heart Attack?

    November 3, 2011 12:30 PM

    With the latest death toll from floods in Thailand reaching nearly 400 people, reporters have had yet another opportunity to explore the connection between climate change and extreme weather events. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times published an... Continue reading

18. The Observatory

    Cracking the Case

    October 28, 2011 02:00 PM

    The federal civil and criminal investigations of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continue to be a source of frustration for the press, not in and of themselves, but rather because they thwart reporters’ access to certain... Continue reading

19. The Observatory

    Salazar Calls for Coverage

    October 25, 2011 04:15 PM

    Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had a few tips for environmental journalists last week about under-covered stories on their beat. Speaking at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ twenty-first annual conference here in Miami, Salazar said... Continue reading

20. The Observatory

    The Scientist Lives

    October 18, 2011 11:30 AM

    A potential buyer has emerged to save The Scientist from early retirement. A week after it was reported that the life-science magazine’s twenty-fifth anniversary issue would be its last, LabX Media Group announced that... Continue reading

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