Enviro/Science Reporting
nisbetmc | March 21, 2007 All eyes today are on Capitol Hill as former VP Al Gore testifies before Congress on global warming. Bill Broad's NY Times' article last week has launched a new narrative in coverage, as various journalists review whether "Gore got the science right" in Inconvenient Truth. Interviewed by host Renee Montagne, NPR's Richard Harris weighs in today with his view. Of note, it appears that Harris was first turned on to the possibility of unease among scientists when he attended last year's American Geophysical Union meetings, where Gore spoke:
I saw Al Gore give a talk at the American…
nisbetmc | March 12, 2007
Last week's Discovery Channel documentary on Jesus' family tomb represents a leading example of how science, journalism, and theology often arrive at different answers based on competing assumptions, incentives, and imperatives.
Disregard for the moment how this important debate was immediately dismissed by conservative interest groups like Fox News, with calls to ban the the Discovery Channel program because it might be "deeply offensive to Christians" (see the clip above).
What's really at issue is the statistical estimate by UToronto's Andrey Feuerverger that there is only "a one in…
nisbetmc | February 6, 2007
Last week, global warming cracked the top 5 news stories at Pew's media attention index, but only accounted for roughly 5% of the total news hole across outlets, dwarfed by the roughly 40% of news attention captured by the combined issues of Iraq, Iran, and the 2008 Presidential horserace.
nisbetmc | February 5, 2007
Friday's IPCC report represents history's most definitive statement of scientific consensus on climate change, yet despite the best efforts of scientists, advocates, and several media organizations to magnify wider attention to the moment, the report still only scored a modest hit on the overall news agenda.
Generating major attention to the report's release stood as an almost impossible task. First, it's a technical backgrounder, a massive literature review of the state of climate science. As exciting as that might sound to the small number of Americans who closely track the issue, it's…
nisbetmc | January 30, 2007
Scientists and environmental advocates will watch with excited anticipation on Friday as the policymakers' summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is released in Paris, France. The IPCC reports are designed to be the most important events in climate science and policy, gathering world experts to craft an authoritative summary of the state of human understanding. Yet here in the United States, if past trends are predictive, the IPCC report is unlikely to make a major dent in the news or public agenda, much less shift public opinion.
As the Pew analysis (pictured above) of…
nisbetmc | January 18, 2007In the days before the House vote to fund embryonic stem cell research, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times ran page one stories heralding a Nature Biotech study that indicated stem cells extracted from amniotic fluid might have "near pluripotent" like properties. Yet, despite the heavy attention from its competitive rivals, the New York Times was silent on the study. (For a full roundup.)
Not soon after the front page headlines appeared, as I predicted, the White House and various anti-abortion groups jumped on the study to claimed that it offered an important "middle way." Given the…
nisbetmc | December 30, 2006
In more than 20 articles over the past year, a team of New York Times reporters and editors have detailed many of the intersections between energy policy and the environment.
It's a tough issue to cover since it doesn't fit neatly any single traditional news beat. In fact, it spans many beats including science, the environment, business, regulatory agencies, and political news. Energy issues are also very technical, and frankly, while extremely important, can also be pretty boring. So for reporters who have to dramatize any issue to sustain reader attention, energy might be one of the…
nisbetmc | December 3, 2006
Over at the "ideas site" World Changing, David Zaks offers up an interview with the NY Times' Andrew Revkin. As I've written on this blog before, Revkin is one of the top science writers in the business, and the country's leading journalist covering climate change. For ScienceBlogs readers, the interview along with the World Changing site are definitely worth checking out. Here's how World Changing describes its mission and content:
WorldChanging.com works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are…
nisbetmc | November 27, 2006
A few readers have written in to ask whether tomorrow's AMS presentation will be recorded. My answer is "I don't know," but I will let everyone know if and when a recording is available. In the meantime, back in the spring I appeared on the Point of Inquiry program to talk about the framing of science debates. The podcast or MP3 file is available for download. Scroll down to the 5/19/2006 episode.
It's the best I can do for right now, but stay tuned. (If you are a Seed and ScienceBlogs enthusiast, and you have yet to discover The Point of Inquiry program distributed by the Center for…
nisbetmc | October 30, 2006
Over the weekend, I appeared on a stellar panel at the National Association of Science Writer's meetings in Baltimore that featured Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences, Dan Vergano from the USA Today, and Juliet Eilperin from the Washington Post. I will have more to say about this panel later, but apparently, while few fireworks flared in Baltimore, smoked filled the room at the Society of Environmental Journalists meetings in Burlington, VT. (Excuse the strategy/conflict frame.)
The panel featured Andrew Revkin of The New York Times, Bill Blakemore of ABC News;…
nisbetmc | September 2, 2006
In the latest issue of the journal Science Communication, David Sachsman, James Simon, and JoAnn Valenti report on their findings from a census survey of environmental reporters across the Pacific Northwest, New England, the South, and Rocky Mountain regions.
Here are some key findings from the study:
Pacific Northwest News Orgs Most Likely to Feature Environmental Beat
Audience demand seems to shape the decision to invest in the environmental beat. News organizations in the Pacific Northwest were more likely than their counterparts in other regions to have environmental reporters on…