The latest issue of the Columbia Journalism Review contains an excellent piece by Chris Mooney, Blinded By Science: How Balanced Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality. I've been writing about the environment or helping environmental groups tell their stories for almost 15 years now. This is one of the finest pieces I've seen on how and why the media has failed so completely to educate the American public on the massive environmental dangers we face:
"The centrality of the climate change issue to the scientific critique of the press does not arise by accident. Climate change has mind-bogglingly massive ramifications, not only for the future of our carbon-based economy but for the planet itself. Energy interests wishing to stave off action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have a documented history of supporting the small group of scientists who question the human role in causing climate change as well as consciously strategizing about how to sow confusion on the issue and sway journalists.
"In 1998, for instance, John H. Cushman, Jr., of The New York Times exposed an internal American Petroleum Institute memo outlining a strategy to invest millions to maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours with Congress, the media and other key audiences. Perhaps most startling, the memo cited a need to recruit and train scientists who do not have a long history of visibility and/or participation in the climate change debate to participate in media outreach and counter the mainstream scientific view. This seems to signal an awareness that after a while, journalists catch on to the connections between contrarian scientists and industry. But in the meantime, a window of opportunity apparently exists when reporters can be duped by fresh faces.
