Yesterday, a group of researchers from UC-Merced published a paper in Nature Communications finding that the media is still falling into the false balance trap, with deniers getting nearly 50% more attention than real scientists. The study catalogued 100,000 stories from 1990 to 2016 (ending in October to avoid stories about the Trump administration skewing the counts) and found that over 26,072 included content from deniers, whereas only 17,530 articles reported on real climate scientists.
The researchers got that number by looking at the whole media ecosystem, which includes blogs alongside more traditional media outlets. To narrow things down, the researchers also looked at how the top 30 mainstream publications have done, and found that while those top 30 outlets are only 11% of the total, they don’t give more ink to deniers than consensus scientists. Instead, they are about evenly split between the two groups--not great, but better than the disproportionate advantage deniers enjoy elsewhere. Turns out traditional journalistic standards, or the lack thereof, still count for something.
But that’s just the start. The researchers also found that, unsurprisingly, real scientists published tons of real studies that get cited, while deniers are, to put it mildly, much less productive. In fact, of the 386 deniers researchers initially counted, 162 had never published anything in peer-reviewed literature.
So the researchers then set up a subgroup of the 224 contrarians who were actually somewhat serious scientists, and compared their output and citations to 224 of the most prolific climate scientists. Contrarians who actually published studies averaged around 15 articles per individual, for a total of 3,367 studies. Their consensus counterparts, meanwhile, produced 12,665 studies- roughly 3.8 times more. And, again unsurprisingly, real scientists got cited far more in the peer-reviewed literature, roughly 7.6 times more than contrarians, a 660% difference the authors note that due to a number of nuances, is “a lower-limit estimation” in the difference in scientific authority between the two groups.
Despite this, when looking at the top 100 on either side, the study found that the most “popular” 100 deniers were discussed in an average of 104 articles, compared to real scientists only being featured in an average 57.5 articles.
Producing four times more science, unfortunately, doesn’t translate to more coverage, as real scientists who publish (a lot) and deniers who publish (a little) in the peer-reviewed literature get about the same quantity of coverage overall. But when the field was narrowed to stories about the set of 224, in the top-30 mainstream publications, real science finally came out on top, with real climate scientists getting 38% more coverage (2,235 stories) than their denier counterparts (1,619 articles.)
But that’s still a lot of coverage for deniers. And remember, this is before Trump gave reporters a reason to quote deniers to provide insight into the administration. The study notes that while non-mainstream media really boosts deniers, every one of the top 30 mainstream outlets “has provided [deniers] significant visibility, thereby increasing [denier] authority and credibility.”
And even though, the study states, “journalists often quote contrarians either to infuse objectivity or to dismiss their position outright,” these tactics still “detract attention from the relevant [climate change] narrative and provide the counterproductive impression that there is something substantial in contrarian arguments to be debated.”
Which is why, the authors conclude, “the time has arrived for professional journalists and editors to ameliorate the disproportionate attention given to [deniers]s by focusing instead on career experts and relevant calls to action.”
But of course, that says nothing about the fact that the vast majority of the stories come from new media--often websites that even on the best of days lack professional journalists. Given how intently the Kochs and other monied or ideologically-motivated interests fund “media” outlets, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight for false balance.
When you’re funded by people who pollute the planet, it’s your job to pollute the media landscape.
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