Unlike basic science, studies conducted for the purpose of societal decision-making require the involvement of broad publics (Gibbons, 2000). The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), mandated by Congress in 1990 to provide decision-relevant climate science, spurred the establishment of some of the longest-running and most geographically diverse programs to conduct these types of applied research. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Adaptation Partnerships (CAP), Department of the Interior (DOI) Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Climate Hubs (Pulwarty et al., 2009; USGCRP, 2023) represent some of the most prominent examples. These federal programs may shed light on an issue that is increasingly recognized as a significant challenge to decision-relevant scientific research: the involvement of people who historically have been underserved by government programs and/ or have experienced discrimination and exclusion (Early & Kotzebue, 2021). Public administration and political science scholars have long warned that conditions of social inequity and inequality may worsen if the quality of governance and public services is dependent on community participation (Einstein et al., 2019(Einstein et al., , 2022Rosentraub & Sharp, 1981). When the voices of marginalized groups are unlikely to be heard and to influence policy
Broadcast meteorologists—highly skilled professionals who work at the intersection between climate scientists and the public—have considerable opportunity to educate their viewers about the local impacts of global climate change. Prior research has shown that, within the broadcast meteorology community, views of climate change have evolved rapidly over the past decade. Here, using data from three census surveys of U.S. broadcast meteorologists conducted annually between 2015 and 2017, is a comprehensive analysis of broadcast meteorologists’ views about climate change. Specifically, this research describes weathercasters’ beliefs about climate change and certainty in those beliefs, perceived causes of climate change, perceived scientific consensus and interest in learning more about climate change, belief that climate change is occurring (and the certainty of that belief), belief that climate change is human caused, perceptions of any local impacts of climate change, and perceptions of the solvability of climate change. Today’s weathercaster community appears to be sharing the same viewpoints and outlooks as most climate scientists—in particular, that climate change is already affecting the United States and that present-day trends are largely a result of human activity.
The journalistic norm of balance has been described as the practice of giving equal weight to different sides of a story; false balance is balanced reporting when the weight of evidence strongly favors one side over others—for example, the reality of human-caused climate change. False balance is problematic because it skews public perception of expert agreement. Through formative interviews and a survey of American weathercasters about climate change reporting, we found that objectivity and balance—topics that have frequently been studied with environmental journalists—are also relevant to understanding climate change reporting among weathercasters. Questions about the practice of and reasons for presenting an opposing viewpoint when reporting on climate change were included in a 2017 census survey of weathercasters working in the United States (N = 480; response rate = 22%). When reporting on climate change, 35% of weathercasters present an opposing viewpoint “always” or “most of the time.” Their rationale for reporting opposing viewpoints included the journalistic norms of objectivity and balanced reporting (53%), their perceived uncertainty of climate science (21%), to acknowledge differences of opinion (17%), to maintain credibility (14%), and to strengthen the story (7%). These findings show that climate change reporting from weathercasters sometimes includes opposing viewpoints, and possibly a false balance, but further research is necessary. Moreover, prior research has shown that the climate reporting practices among weathercasters are evolving rapidly and so the problem of false-balance reporting may already be self-correcting.
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