You asked about issues burning us, and there is one burning me (Dave) bad. It's been burning me for a while now, and, not surprisingly, it's the thing that really jumped out at me from An Inconvenient Truth. Gore talks about a recent survey which found that of the more than 900 peer-reviewed studies on climate change that have appeared in recognized journals not one has challenged the idea of global warming, but 53% of articles published in the mainstream media have presented it as a theory or debate. (my italics)
It's clear to me that journalists, both individually and collectively, are to blame for the atmosphere of doubt and apathy surrounding climate change. There is no editorial conspiracy. There are simply individual reporters and editors doing fantastically shitty jobs of covering and presenting these stories.
Over the last few months I've been buoyed up by a very few isolated articles (like this one http://www.charlesmontgomery.ca/mrcool.html from the Globe and Mail in August) in which reporters have simply stated that climate change is an accepted scientific fact. It seems like such a small thing, but being unequivocal about that fact is still a pretty bold thing to do inside a journalistic organization. CBC still can't seem to do it.
Here's the link to a story by Teddy Katz on the CBC web site as well: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/story/2006/12/08/skiers-climate.html.
The radio story begins by introducing the "debate" about global warming in the ski industry. It then describes the dissenting voice as one
"caution(ing) that people shouldn't be so quick to push the panic button,"and contrasts it with the scientists -- whose voices we don't even hear, but -- who "paint a picture" of an ugly future and "blame" global warming.
Seems to me that cautious voice reasoning against panic sounds a heap more reasonable than those artsy scientists and their nasty old blame. On the web they actually give that dissenting voice the last word, leaving readers with the suggestion that climate change scientists should be taken about as seriously as weathermen.
If you read the web story, and have anything to say I strongly urge you to send your comments to the CBC ombudsman as well. Apparently they like you to include your name, address and telephone number in your email. I guess so that they can call you, and then come to your house.
ombudsman@cbc.ca
After watching a feature news story on CBC at 6 tonight (Dec 15.2006) that talked at length of the bizarre weather all over Canada and saying "it was not clear what was causing it" I had to agree with him. Only a child of about 6 said "maybe it's global warming?"
I encourage everyone to demand real coverage of these issues on the news. I'm going to write the following letter to the ombudsman of the CBC. Want to do the same? Hurray! Power in numbers, people...
Here are some other popular media contacts:
National Post Editor
letters@globeandmail.com (the Globe and Mail)
lettertoed@thestar.ca (The Toronto Star)
editor@tor.sunpub.com (The Toronto Sun)
fanmail@ctv.ca (CTV)
globalnews.tor@globaltv.com (Global TV)
Please add your own!
Interested in submitting and issue? Email Gord at percystusk@yahoo.com
After watching a feature news story on CBC at 6 tonight (Dec 15.2006) that talked at length of the bizarre weather all over Canada and saying "it was not clear what was causing it" I had to agree with him. Only a child of about 6 said "maybe it's global warming?"
I encourage everyone to demand real coverage of these issues on the news. I'm going to write the following letter to the ombudsman of the CBC. Want to do the same? Hurray! Power in numbers, people...
Dear Ombudsman,
It is with dismay that I have noticed lately a reticence on your journalists' part to mention global warming in their articles on climate change. In an article on CBC radio about champion skiers Thomas Grandi and Sara Renner's publicizing of the damage they feel that global warming is doing to their cherished mountains, the last word is given to a global warming skeptic. In a feature article on CBC at 6 on the bizarre weather Canada has been experiencing over the last few weeks the only mention of global warming was a brief comment by a six year old child! This is not good enough.
According to Al Gore, of 900 peer reviewed articles to appear in scientific journals not one questions the veracity of global warming. Yet in 53% of articles published in the mainstream media global warming is presented as a theory or debate. I expect my tax subsidized journalists to present me with the truth. I expect articles about extreme weather, or vanishing natural wonders to present the fact of global warming not as an odd theory, but the clearest reason behind the issue. It is infuriating enough to watch members of the public stick their heads in the sand, but when our most respected journalistic institution does the same, it is sickening.
Thank you for your time.
Gord Rand
419 Euclid Ave
Toronto, ON
416 960 1454
percystusk@yahoo.com
Here are some other popular media contacts:
National Post Editor
letters@globeandmail.com (the Globe and Mail)
lettertoed@thestar.ca (The Toronto Star)
editor@tor.sunpub.com (The Toronto Sun)
fanmail@ctv.ca (CTV)
globalnews.tor@globaltv.com (Global TV)
Please add your own!
Interested in submitting and issue? Email Gord at percystusk@yahoo.com
2 comments:
From my friend JH:
The problem is simple: journalism is storytelling, and conflict is the soul of story.
You're quite right that there is no journalistic conspiracy, but a serious collective action problem has emerged from the coverage of climate change (a term, lest we forget, which the Bush administration essentially commissioned from pollster Frank Luntz to draw the public conversation away from the grim reality of global warming).
Any given journalist may have no doubt as to the reality of global warming, but each one knows (ask your sister in law) that an editor is more likely to publish a story with conflicting views than one which blandly states an uncontroversial view. The resulting message is conflict, which distorts the reality of consensus, but the message of ALL news is conflict. This doesn't pose such an obvious problem when the issue is state relations in the Middle East (mind you, the problem is no less profound there, and I'd suggest that the universal adoption of a different narrative structure would do a world of good to perceptions of the issues in that region), but when you're telling the story of climate, communicating conflict the way much of the media has done is dangerous.
If you doubt the truth of my assertion that the essential message of news is conflict, consider Gore's movie (which I still haven't gotten around to seeing) - and ask yourself, is the message that there is a conflict over the truth? It's just a different story of conflict. But therein lies a possible solution - one which documentarians from Michael Moore and Robert Greenwald all the way up to Gore himself have embraced - by choosing more carefully the conflict which is to be expressed, the media can tell the stories about global warming without giving voice to the wingnuts and profiteers who have hijacked the debate...
I'd love to see the focus turn away from them altogether, and have a media which dives into the bloodbath of competing solutions to the problem. Ignore the naysayers for long enough (not without focusing on a real compelling conflict, however, because they won't be quiet, and the media will have to drown them out) and the frame can shift from "is it happening?" to "what can be done?"
Rona Ambrose might actually be the environment's (and responsible journalists') best friend - 'cause her ridiculous assertions about the impossibility of Kyoto (the discussion of which, it should be stressed, has been hijacked as well - it is ridiculous to fault it for not being a solution for global warming because on its own it WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE - Kyoto is a solution to a POLITICAL problem, not an environmental problem, and that political problem must be addressed before the environment can be tackled) will continue to make for great conflict for as long as the Reform party is in power.
It's a simple problem and the solution is no less straightforward. Journalists need conflict, so we have to demand that they focus on more worthwhile conflicts.
I think the inaccurate reflection of the nature of the scientific 'debate' on global warming is part of a larger problem. It as become de riguer in various intellectual circles to accuse science of being 'just another kind of faith', akin to a chosen metaphysics, religion or sociologial theory. So people think that science does not have any higher ground or priviledged claim to 'truth' than any other discipline. Hence, the scientists have a debate, just like any other community - poets, playrights, psychologists, or priests - and the truth is supposed to be relative to their interests. Journalists are just reporting on that debate.
Science doesn't work like that. The key element in the scientific method is the very public access to results and methods, and the need to have any kind of findings made repeatable by anyone, anywhere. Science is refutable. Openly, rigourously and structurally refutable.
When papers are published in reputable journals, they are vetted by peers in a public process. The claims made in the paper are meant to be repeatable in any place, in any lab, by any person.
That there is 'debate' is an indication that the process whereby claims are established is a vigourous one - but one that leads, step by step, to something as close to 'truth' as we can get - intersubjective consensus with agreed upon evidence. That the public is not aware of this process is a reason why the press is able to present, as an intersting 'story', both sides of an issue that is apparently not decided. Consensus, though, is what establishes the relative 'truth' of some theory.
There is a Flat Earth Society. There are two members of that society that hold phds in their respective fields. The existence of these people, and this society, does not indicate consensus - it indicates that you can find a nut to back any theory you want.
The point of all this is that the public needs to regain the respect that science deserves as a method of investigating our shared world, and needs to be aware of how claims to truth in science are settled. That awareness is an important part of our intellectual toolkit, by which we learn to communicate with each other. Science may not be able to deal with the art of living, morality, love, poetry and existential angst - but it's certainly the best way we have to understand the extent of our environmental problems. People should know enough not to put up with the crappy journalism that shows up the reporters scientific ignorance.
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