The Australian this morning made science journalist baby Jesus cry.
Thankfully, the Guardian
has done the best part of the necessary analysis of this for me,
because clearly like News Corp websites, no one is coming to Blogspot (or tumblr) for
scientific exposition from the largely unqualified. Thankfully.
Journalism struggles with technical fields. It seems like as the resources for print and investigative journalism have declined, the level of expertise required to cover the science and technology beats has only increased. For
the average punter, this means a higher proportion of press-releases
making it barely altered into the mass media, it means more
break-through stories about obscure foods curing cancer, and it means
more science debate/proclamation by media release. It means more thinly-veiled advertorial posing as breaking scientific news.
Science
journalism also suffers from the infliction of journalistic ideals
which are appropriate only for other beats. I want objectivity in my
news and current affairs. I want equal time given to equally weighted
but alternate viewpoints. I
don't, however, need to see a flat-earther on the program every time someone
makes the point that the Earth is spherical in the pursuit of mythical
balance. Some controversies are well and truly resolved. Being objective in a scientific field means being able to
adhere to the scientific method, considering the weight of peer-reviewed
evidence, and coming to a view informed by these things.
The
Australian suffered more from agenda than ignorance. We know this
because frankly, even the under-resourced science beat writers know
citing the Daily Mail as your primary source for some kind of credible science
analysis is at best, a crude circle-jerk of ignorance. Putting "according to the Daily Mail" might be appropriate attribution, but you may as well put "according to my abusive drunken uncle who thinks the moon landing was faked and that women belong on page six and in the kitchen"... If you quote an idiot, you're responsible for giving an idiot further undue prominence. It does not absolve you of a duty to ensure what you're reporting actually bears some slim relation to the truth. Nor does it absolve you of seeking some comment directly from the people you're quoting as confessing they're wrong. You can do it here alarmingly easily.
"The IPCC was forced to deny it was locked in crisis talks"
- because it wasn't in crisis talks. This is the journalistic
equivalent of beating your sister with her own fist, shrieking gleefully
"stop hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself!?" The writer of
the Oz article is presumably forced to deny his paper is made
predominantly from the excrement of rabid swine mixed with the leavings
of mining magnates, or he would be if I put this question to him and it
was not in fact the case.
If you didn't go there at the start of this article, go read what the 97% have to say
about the tropes of climate denialism that have been on rampant display
in failed science journalism across the globe this week, crudely and
uncritically rehashed by the Australian.
The Australian (and the writers of the media releases uncritically reproduced by the Daily Mail and then republished to support the Oz's confirmation bias) achieved the linkbait success it was after. Since we all know the Strine's take on science is pretty clearly that it is a thing which can be won or lost by media prominence and not through any objective empirical method, today's climate denialism linkbait is the Australian's WIN FOR SIENS!
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