CJR, Yale Forum: On weathercasters, decline of enviro reporting, etc.
Two sets of long form writing and reporting on environmental news, from journalism-focussed outlets, merit attention.
First, the Columbia Journalism Review and writer Charles Homans (whose regular job is as an editor at Washington Monthly) visit a topic that has gotten attention before but not with quite this depth or sharpness of blade: the disconnect between the people that the public trusts most for weather and climate info, and the people that most reporters on the beat trust the most on climate. The first group comprises television meteorologists – with a well-known and well-liked San Diego man the lead example – who tend to doubt the reality of global warming as a problem. The second is academic climatologists with PhDs who tend to think the evidence is rather persuasive that we have a big problem. Homans’s piece leaves one thinking the reason for the vast gulf is that while they act like experts in the public eye, most TV weather forecasters are sincere, informed people savvy in the lingo of science and the interpretation of barometers and jet streams, but who rarely have educational qualifications or histories as scientists – must less climate scientists. That is, one deduces, a little over-inflated on their own popularity and over-impressed by their trade’s internal credentialing system. That makes them a little bit like us science journalists including those on the enviro beat – or like ex-newspaperman Al Gore for that matter. But people like Gore and journalists seldom say they have figured out climate change on their own.
Second, at Yale University’s forum on Climate Change and the Media are a set of reports that anybody covering climate and the environment should take a look at. Reports include:
- John Daley: Why the Decline and Rebirth of Environmental Journalism Matters ; Its sections on CNN, its primary example of decline, are terrific. Its overall industry numbers are not a surprise, but are staggering to read.
- Bud Ward: Andy Revkin, Cory Dean Seen Contributing In Some Way to Ongoing Times Coverage ; One thinks, as it says here, and hopes we’ll see Dean’s byline still (just as retirees John Wilford and Larry Altman’s signers still appear regularly, among others). A useful review of the nation’s leading newspaper and its enviro beat. The piece does a nice job, too, slowly laying out what Revkin considers the most egregious error of his climate-reporting career at the Times.
- Charlie Petit
