Engaging across blogging divides on climate

Last week, an anthropology PhD student in New Zealand wrote a summary and response to a paper I gave at the Association for Journalism Education annual conference, in September this year. I though her commentary was a thoughtful piece with a fair set of conclusions: that bloggers self-select their networks based on beliefs. And that [...]

Hockey Stick: the first climate change metaphor

In his Public Understanding of Science 2000 article ‘Knowledge, Ignorance and Popular Culture’, University of Toronto Professor Sheldon Ungar suggests the reason that public understanding and concern could coalesce around the ozone hole, where it has failed to do so for climate change, was in part due to two things: first, that the ozone hole [...]

Third of Conservatives don’t accept climate change

Yesterday the Guardian published figures showing that a third of Conservative MPs don’t believe, or don’t know what they believe about, climate change. This on the same day that Gordon Brown gave the keynote speech to the Guardian’s ‘Climate Change Summit: how to beat Green Fatigue’ conference.
Writing in yesterday’s Guardian, Brown says climate change “is [...]

Climate reporting: good, bad, experimental: 1

A number of posts this week from Fiona Fox, Charlie Beckett and the Knight Science Tracker have gone into the writing of these two linked entries (second one tomorrow). My subject is responsible, well-researched journalism that remains aware of its power to influence its audience. Practice of this journalism is an essential part [...]

‘Cheaper to cover Britney than the IPCC’

Considering the undressed lengths that Britney has been reaching for press coverage recently, this is not a surprising. But thanks to Alisa Miller, CEO of Public Radio International in the US, this fantastic Friday headline is now legitimately used.
In a five minute talk to the TED conference, Alisa neatly visualises the American mainstream news media [...]

‘An honest reckoning’ for climate discourse

I’m not holding it together very well today. Natural personal sensitivities aside, I’ve this morning read James Risbey’s excellent paper: “The new climate discourse: Alarmist or alarming?” published in the peer-reviewed Global Environmental Change, (Issue 18: 2008, pages 26-37). It is, well, alarming.

A quick summary. The papers asks: is the discourse that talks of climate [...]

‘Balance as bias’ in climate change reporting

In a New York Times Dot Earth post on ‘Climate and the Web’, author Andy Revkin reflects on how digital media and culture can contribute to the tackling of climate change. But the article continues to support the journalistic norm of reporting with ‘balance’ which, in the case of climate change, distorts the real [...]