Communicating on Climate Change is thus rationally organized into eight chapters over seventy-odd pages, which offer something for everyone (even those concerned with scientific topics other than climate). For journalists, it provides a summary of the scientific method, scientific “uncertainty,” and the peer-review process. For scientists, it explains the basic ground rules for information gathering (including on- and off-the-record interviews) and why reporters do not always write their own headlines (which, more often than the stories themselves, tend to provoke scientists’ ire), and defines jargon such as the term “news peg.” It also covers some areas where science coverage should break with traditional journalistic norms, explaining why customary, reportorial “balance” is not a good fit with climate coverage and why it is permissible (and even desirable) for reporters to let scientists review selected excerpts of their copy.
Ward, who was recently named 2009 Climate Communicator of the Year by George Mason University, wraps up with a point-by-point list of ways that journalists, scientists, and institutions can better convey information to each other and to the public at large. It’s a long list, comprising solutions for those with resources to burn and those operating on shoestring budgets. The book can be downloaded and ordered in hard copy, free of charge, at the Metcalf Institute’s Web site.
Oh crap. There isn't any urgency because the climate isn't changing.
Reporters need to ask where the underlying data came from.
Turns out, there isn't any.
Instead of playing kissyface in academic conference centers, reporters need to get out in the field and down in the archives. When reports come out with "infilled data" (like the warming Antarctica study in Nature last week), reporters need to write leads that say, "Using imaginary data, climate researchers . . . ."
#1 Posted by Harry Eagar, CJR on Thu 29 Jan 2009 at 11:32 PM