Climate Change Reporting in Great Lakes Region Newspapers: A Comparative Study of the Use of Expert Sources

Frequent but Accurate: A Closer Look at Uncertainty and Opinion Divergence in Climate Change Print News

“…In the case of climate change, this balanced coverage underrepresents the overwhelming scientific consensus and results in "intentionally biased coverage of global warming" (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004, p. 134) or what Nisbet (2009b) calls false balance. Some scholars argue that this norm has decreased since the original wave of research (e.g., Boykoff, 2007;Hiles & Hinant, 2014), and recent analyses have reported that the existence or anthropogenesis of climate change is now disputed in 7% to 15% of climate change reporting (Takahashi, Huang, Fico, & Poulson, 2017;Zhao, Rolfe-Redding, & Kotcher, 2016). However, U.S. news continues to emphasize uncertainty, controversy, conflict, and skepticism significantly more than non-US news does (e.g., Painter & Ashe, 2012;Zamith, Pinto, & Villar, 2013).…”

“…Certainly, the former type of opinion divergence is likely to be both frequent and accurate, while the latter two would likely be misrepresentations of scientific opinion. Yet, the framing analyses that code the frequencies of some type of denier/oppositional opinion in climate change news do not make these distinctions between types (e.g., Brossard et al, 2004;Dispensa & Brulle, 2003;McComas & Shanahan, 1999;Takahashi et al, 2017;Zhao et al, 2016).…”

“…For example, Zehr (2000) and Kuha (2009) treat uncertainty and controversy as interchangeable. Takahashi et al (2017) code opinions about climate change as either "supporter" or "denier." Antilla (2005) reports the prevalence of frames of skepticism, uncertainty, or controversy as a whole, but does not distinguish between them or differentiate the types within each.…”

“…The entities, or "sources," to which an opinion is attributed are diverse (Hulme, 2009;Trumbo, 2009), and contribute contextual information that is necessary for accurate interpretation and evaluation (Boykoff, 2007;Takahashi et al, 2017). For example, portraying deficient uncertainty or opinion divergence about the existence of climate change among scientists would be a gross misrepresentation (IPCC, 2014).…”

Journalists and Communicators' Perceptions of Their Graduate Training in Environmental Reporting: An Application of Knowledge-Based Journalism Principles

“…For instance, some evidence shows that specialized environmental reporters cover environmental groups in a more positive light than other beat reporters, and that overall differences in the tone and portrayal of conflicts exist between reporters beats (McCluskey, 2008). Although this research does not clearly examine differences in regards to quality between generalists and specialists, some studies suggest that years on the job and number of stories on a topic are positively associated with diversity of sources and viewpoints (Takahashi et al, 2017). However, due to industry trends toward eliminating specialized reporting positions, generalist reporters most often cover environmental topics (Crow and Stevens, 2012).…”