The Observatory

The Scientist Closes

25th anniversary issue of the venerable magazine will be the last

By Curtis Brainard   Oct 7, 2011 at 04:00 PM

Having just published a special twenty-fifth anniversary issue in October, employees of the The Scientist, a venerable monthly magazine and... More

Plant Food: Does Carbon Count?

Admirable NYT article on forests misses one important point

By Curtis Brainard   Oct 6, 2011 at 11:30 AM

On Saturday, The New York Times ran a front page story about the state of the world’s forests, their role... More

CJR Event: Science News and Government Transparency

Access denied

By Curtis Brainard   Oct 3, 2011 at 11:03 AM

Has the Obama administration lived up to its promise to make science more transparent and accessible to the public? An... More

Skeptical of Science

Among other new roles, journalists becoming more critical of research

By Declan Fahy   Sep 28, 2011 at 10:05 AM

The recent coverage of the subatomic particles found to have travelled faster than the speed of light—tentative evidence that could... More

A Frustrating AP Series on Nuclear Safety

The industry’s blunder-buss response doesn’t help; public left confused

By Irene M. Wielawski   Sep 28, 2011 at 01:40 AM

Editor's note: This is an installment of our Audit Arbiter series, which looks into complaints about business news stories.... More

LAT On Why Solyndra Dazzled the Private and Public Sectors

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 26, 2011 at 06:23 PM

The Los Angeles Times has a really good look at the failure of Solyndra, the solar-power company that went bankrupt... More

NYTimes Misleads on Pace of Flood Relief

FEMA’s disaster delays are structural, not Congressional

By Erika Fry   Sep 26, 2011 at 02:04 PM

Congress: dysfunctional, broken, mad, maybe even the worst. Ever. But The New York Times went one too far today in... More

Reporting on Solyndra

Missing basic concepts about the government’s loan-guarantee program.

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 16, 2011 at 03:24 PM

Much of the press coverage of the Solyndra bankruptcy has been poor on some basic concepts at the heart of... More

CJR Rewind: Hot Air

Why don’t TV weathermen believe in climate change?

By Charles Homans   Sep 15, 2011 at 11:24 AM

This story, which recently won a Science in Society award from the National Association of Science Writers, originally ran in... More

Starving for Coverage

Unlike the 1980s, journalists pay little attention to famine ravaging the Horn of Africa

By James Fahn   Sep 13, 2011 at 03:40 PM

What a difference a generation makes. Back in 1984-85, groundbreaking media coverage of the terrible drought and famine that affected... More

SolveClimate Goes Inside

How an environmental news startup found its way to investigative reporting

By Alysia Santo   Sep 8, 2011 at 10:58 AM

After experimenting with a variety of quick-hit approaches to environmental coverage, a four-year-old online news startup focused on climate change... More

Fuzzy Kittens, Fuzzier Science

Claims of hypoallergenic cats continue to go unchallenged by press

By Jonah Comstock   Sep 6, 2011 at 11:00 AM

In October 2008, Mike Sela, a lifelong sufferer of cat allergies, discovered a company called Allerca Lifestyle Pets. According to... More

Why the Sun Set on Solyndra

How the bad news about green jobs could be better

By Curtis Brainard   Sep 2, 2011 at 08:00 AM

With Labor Day on the horizon, it was another grim week in green-job news, as a solar panel manufacturer in... More

Media Hurricane Hype?

Irene spurs debate about the quality of news coverage

By Curtis Brainard   Aug 31, 2011 at 10:00 AM

Anderson Cooper and a CNN crew covering Irene on Sunday, August 28. Photo by Sean Hemmerle. “An Epic Deluge,” read... More

After Irene: How a Hyperlocal Is Helping

In the Catskills, the Watershed Post is coordinating relief efforts

By Alysia Santo   Aug 30, 2011 at 03:07 PM

In the Catskills region of upstate New York, where flooding from Hurricane Irene wiped out entire towns, a hyperlocal site... More