Science or Spin?: Assessing the Accuracy of Cable News Coverage of Climate Science

[Fast 0]

Science or Spin?: Assessing the Accuracy of Cable News Coverage of Climate Science

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Accuracy varies significantly across major cable news outlets. All of them can take steps to improve their coverage of climate science.

CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC are the most widely watched cable news networks in the U.S. Their coverage of climate change is an influential source of information for the public and policy makers alike.

To gauge how accurately these networks inform their audiences about climate change, UCS analyzed the networks' climate science coverage in 2013 and found that each network treated climate science very differently.

Fox News was the least accurate; 72 percent of its 2013 climate science-related segments contained misleading statements. CNN was in the middle, with about a third of segments featuring misleading statements. MSNBC was the most accurate, with only eight percent of segments containing misleading statements.

The public deserves climate coverage that gets the science right. Media outlets can do more to foster a fact-based conversation about climate change and policies designed to address it, rather than contributing to a broken and inaccurate debate about the established facts of climate science.

Thoughts?

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[wmw999 2,566]

I believe that would imply that Fox news viewers actually care what the Union of Concerned Scientists thinks

As long as they don't agree with Fox, then by definition they're either lyin' or spinnin'

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[jumpsalot-2 3]

After reading the article, I don't see any views on "what is the truth" as analyzed by the "Union of Concerned Scientists". This would be useful in determining the accuracy of the news networks. All, even UCS thoughts I'd imagine, are subjective.

Life is short ... jump often.

[Amazon 7]

wmw999

I believe that would imply that Fox news viewers actually care what the Union of Concerned Scientists thinks

As long as they don't agree with Fox, then by definition they're either lyin' or spinnin'

Wendy P.

Did Fox news have the report about the climate warming about 6 thousand years ago due to dinosaur produced methane emissions at the time of the Great Flood???

[champu 1]

Fast

Thoughts?

"Accurate" and "misleading" are not antonyms.

[quade 4]

Fast

Thoughts?

MSNBC is attempting to get the facts out without any concept of having to pretend to give equal time to the dissenters.

CNN is attempting to give equal time to dissenters.

FoxNews is attempting to deceive without any concept of having to pretend to give equal time to the facts.

Of the three you might think CNN is doing a "good job," but they aren't. It's like saying they need to give equal time to people who think the world is flat.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

Thoughts?

Seriously?

We are all engines of karma

[rushmc 23]

I was going to stay away from this thread because the whole premise was flawed at best
But then I say your post
So I though this need to be posted

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/10748667/The-game-is-up-for-climate-change-believers.html

and he is right on the money

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Most of us pay some attention to the weather forecast. If it says it will rain in your area tomorrow, it probably will. But if it says the same for a month, let alone a year, later, it is much less likely to be right. There are too many imponderables.

The theory of global warming is a gigantic weather forecast for a century or more. However interesting the scientific inquiries involved, therefore, it can have almost no value as a prediction. Yet it is as a prediction that global warming (or, as we are now ordered to call it in the face of a stubbornly parky 21st century, “global weirding”) has captured the political and bureaucratic elites. All the action plans, taxes, green levies, protocols and carbon-emitting flights to massive summit meetings, after all, are not because of what its supporters call “The Science”. Proper science studies what is – which is, in principle, knowable – and is consequently very cautious about the future – which isn’t. No, they are the result of a belief that something big and bad is going to hit us one of these days.

Some of the utterances of the warmists are preposterously specific. In March 2009, the Prince of Wales declared that the world had “only 100 months to avert irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse”. How could he possibly calculate such a thing? Similarly, in his 2006 report on the economic consequences of climate change, Sir Nicholas Stern wrote that, “If we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least five per cent of global GDP each year, now and forever.” To the extent that this sentence means anything, it is clearly wrong (how are we losing five per cent GDP “now”, before most of the bad things have happened? How can he put a percentage on “forever”?). It is charlatanry.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kelpdiver 2]

rushmc

and he is right on the money

but has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

72%!!! That's pretty impressive, no matter how subjective the UCS may have been with their counting methods. It's also perfectly believable, given the short but glorious history of Fox News.

[billvon 3,092]

>Most of us pay some attention to the weather forecast. If it says it will rain in
>your area tomorrow, it probably will. But if it says the same for a month, let alone
>a year, later, it is much less likely to be right. There are too many imponderables.

>The theory of global warming is a gigantic weather forecast for a century or more.

Yet someone else who doesn't understand the difference between weather and climate.

[quade 4]

Rush, you realize that's a book review and not a science review; right? By the biographer of Margaret Thatcher, no less.

What, precisely, do you think gives Charles Moore any credibility to judge scientific accuracy?





OR is it just possible he's just another shill for the "conservatives"?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Stumpy 284]

As Margaret Thatchers biographer? Surely not!

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[Amazon 7]

You really should not call him Surely

[lawrocket 3]

quade

Rush, you realize that's a book review and not a science review; right? By the biographer of Margaret Thatcher, no less.

What, precisely, do you think gives Charles Moore any credibility to judge scientific accuracy?





OR is it just possible he's just another shill for the "conservatives"?

I see. You've decided that he doesn't have credibility because he wrote Margaret Thatcher's biography.

Which is what the whole climate discussion is: assholes on both sides calling each other biased assholes and proving each side to be totally correct.

Thanks for adding something constructive to the equation, Paul. Nothing is ever, ever more useful or definitive than ad hominem.

Me? I think the guy was just plain wrong. But it actually requires conscious thought and effort to point out the differences between a weather forecast and a climate projection. Nope. Just focus on the person.

Which boggles my mind because you could just point out how he's wrong and leave that to speak for itself! Instead, you went ad hominem.

You would make a fine member of the climate alarmist clique.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[quade 4]

lawrocket

***Rush, you realize that's a book review and not a science review; right? By the biographer of Margaret Thatcher, no less.
What, precisely, do you think gives Charles Moore any credibility to judge scientific accuracy?
OR is it just possible he's just another shill for the "conservatives"?

I see. You've decided that he doesn't have credibility because he wrote Margaret Thatcher's biography.
Not halfway nearly as much as reviews of books don't count as "climate science." His history as Thatcher's biographer is simply an added bonus to the ridiculousness of Rush's faith in this guy and icing on the cake.

lawrocket

Nothing is ever, ever more useful or definitive than ad hominem.

snip...

lawrocket

You would make a fine member of the climate alarmist clique.

Uh . . . bravo, sir. Accuse others of ad hominem then immediately proceed to perform such yourself.

Again, bravo. No hypocrisy there. No, sir.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[champu 1]

I think if you toss out the commentary about the networks and just take the recommendations as generally applicable you end up with a more productive message.

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When programs want to host debates about climate change, it is important that hosts frame those debates not in terms of established science but rather in terms of climate action or climate policy. When finding and choosing guests for such debates, producers and hosts should seek out people who disagree with one another about policy, but who do not dispute or overstate the science...

...The most productive step that the network could take to improve the accuracy of its coverage of climate science would be for hosts and guests to differentiate between scientific facts about climate change and political opinions about climate policy...

...In addition, hosts may wish to seize more opportunities to hold politicians who reject climate science accountable in more robust ways. In some cases, hosts and guests briefly criticized politicians for rejecting climate science. In other cases, they used rejection of climate science as an opportunity to reaffirm to their audiences what is known scientifically. Less commonly, they took time to explore why people are rejecting science in the first place. Ultimately, the latter two types of accountability coverage may do more to advance public understanding of climate science and public dialogues around climate policy than brief criticisms of policy makers who dispute established science.

I think it's ironic that this article causes readers of it to get into arguments about this or that network or author.

[Fast 0]

StreetScooby

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Thoughts?

Seriously?

I know, it's asking a lot isn't it.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka