false balance science journalism climate change economic impacts

Analysis: Is the New "False Balance" Coverage of the Economic Impacts of Climate Change?

nisbetmc | February 18, 2009

There's a must read Shorenstein Center white paper out by Time magazine contributor Eric Pooley, who spent Fall 2008 at Harvard researching how the news media covered the run up to the vote on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (paper, press release, Slate commentary). Note Pooley's conclusion about the new false balance in news coverage of climate change: Pooley concluded that the press misrepresented the economic debate over carbon cap and trade, failed to perform the basic service of making climate policy and its economic impact understandable to the reader, and allowed opponents…