When Good TV is Bad For Public Discourse
A military analyst/scholar, explaining why he’s recently turned down media requests to appear on TV, echoes Jon Stewart’s infamous diatribe.
Posts Under ‘Journalism’ Category
Nuclear Whiplash Journalism
A commenter sums up the media’s schizophrenic coverage of Japan’s nuclear disaster (as communicated via expert opinion) : “It’s horrible!” “It’s no big deal” “Worst thing Evah” “No, it’s minor and under control” “Run for your lives!” “You’re fine.” You can actually see the frustration on the journalists faces. “Science” says everyone’s dead and everyone’s…Continue Reading…
Blinded By Their Own Bunk
Some of the dead-enders in the climate change & communication debate don’t seem capable of recognizing their own bunk, even after it’s pointed out to them ad nauseum. So here we go again: we are looking at a bunk tsunami, and the press seems absolutely obsessed with finding little bugs on the other side (a…Continue Reading…
That's More Like It
John Broder, in his next day story, tries to [you choose] 1) atone, 2) appease, 3) fill in the blank. “We’ll never know what this president could have achieved,” said Joseph J. Romm, a former Department of Energy official who is one of the country’s most influential writers on climate change, “because he didn’t try.”
Everybody's a Critic
Climate blogger Joe Romm has published one of his worst misleading opening sentences: The New York Times has published one of its worst climate science pieces. Yes, I’m being playful, but also dead serious. Romm’s latest post knocking The New York Times coverage of global warming is about this John Broder article–which itself was about a…Continue Reading…
Is Environmental Journalism Trending Contrarian?
Over at Ecological Sociology, a supposition is put forth that the politicization of environmental matters has taken a new twist. Call it “everything good is bad for you reporting.” This is reporting that takes conventional wisdom about environmental matters — energy efficiency is good, recycling is good — and turns it on its head by…Continue Reading…
The Cabbie & Climate Change
Grist’s ace climate writer does some reporting in New York City…well, actually, he pulls a Thomas Friedman and talks to a taxi driver, who then becomes the symbolic Everyman in ace climate writer’s post. (For those not familiar with this device, Thomas Friedman, when parachuting into European capitals or Middle Eastern cities, is fond of…Continue Reading…
Climate Follies
Climate blogger Eli Rabett, presumably in response to this recent post of mine, let off some steam at his site. He begins: Kloor, Randy Olson and to an extent Andy Revkin, but a whole lot of other people appear to think that scientists are lousy communicators, and indeed, a whole lot of scientists agree and…Continue Reading…
Time to Embrace Shallow Journalism?
Those who pine for an idealized form (and era) of journalism that never existed (and never will), which would transform a nation of Snooki fans into a rationalist, scientifically literate citizenry, are going to looove this new article by James Fallows in the April issue of the Atlantic. At his media blog, Romenesko captures one…Continue Reading…
Why It's Called News
Bud Ward has a nice dispatch on the AAAS session I wrote about last month, including this revealing back-and-forth I had wanted to follow up on: Another exchange involving an audience member “” in this case Peter Gleick, the head of the Pacific Institute “” also helped illustrate fundamentally different approaches distinguishing the media and…Continue Reading…