One of modern journalism’s biggest problems is, as I’ve mentioned on a few occasions, an awkward and unnecessary search for “balance.” Every controversy must have two co-equal sides, which readers/viewers must judge on their own. “He said, she said” rules the day, even when one side of a divide is obviously right or transparently lying. Contemporary rules tell us that reports that help readers/viewers cut through the spin and learn the truth are, by their very nature, biased, unfair, and examples of poor reporting.
In politics, this happens practically every day. But it’s also common in other areas of interest. This may seem a little off-topic for me, but I’d nevertheless like to recommend Chris Mooney’s latest article in the Columbia Journalism Review on how foolish demands for “balance” distort reporting on science, leading to reporting that actually misleads the public.
Political reporting hardly presents the only challenge for journalists seeking to go beyond he said/she said accounts, or even the most difficult one. Instead, that distinction may be reserved for media coverage of contested scientific issues, many of them with major policy ramifications, such as global climate change. After all, the journalistic norm of balance has no corollary in the world of science. On the contrary, scientific theories and interpretations survive or perish depending upon whether they’re published in highly competitive journals that practice strict quality control, whether the results upon which they’re based can be replicated by other scientists, and ultimately whether they win over scientific peers. When consensus builds, it is based on repeated testing and retesting of an idea.
Journalists face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. First, reporters must often deal with editors who reflexively cry out for “balance.” Meanwhile, determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate requires considerable expertise on the issue at hand. Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may know little about other ones they’re suddenly asked to cover.
It’s particularly problematic when dealing with the Bush White House.
[T]he question of how to substitute accuracy for mere “balance” in science reporting has become ever more pointed as journalists have struggled to cover the Bush administration, which scientists have widely accused of scientific distortions. As the Union of Concerned Scientists, an alliance of citizens and scientists, and other critics have noted, Bush administration statements and actions have often given privileged status to a fringe scientific view over a well-documented, extremely robust mainstream conclusion. Journalists have thus had to decide whether to report on a he said/she said battle between scientists and the White House — which has had very few scientific defenders — or get to the bottom of each case of alleged distortion and report on who’s actually right.
No wonder scientists have often denounced the press for giving credibility to fringe scientific viewpoints.
The news-consuming public sees reports that lend equal weight to legitimate science, which has been tested, peer-reviewed, and put through rigorous trials, up against pseudo-science, which is often driven by a political and/or theological agenda. People who don’t know better are led to believe that both are equally plausible approaches, or just as troubling, that the truth lies somewhere in between.
The stories turn out artificially balanced, but wrong. Mooney’s article is well-worth the read if you’re interested in this.