Media Outlets Scrutinized for Reporting Practices
Several news groups are being looked at for how they told stories about climate change, politics, and world events. See what happened.
#MediaEthics, #NewsAccuracy, #Journalism, #ClimateReporting, #PoliticalNews
Some news companies are being reviewed for how they reported on important events like climate change and political news. This review looks at accuracy and fairness in their stories.
#MediaEthics, #NewsAccuracy, #Journalism, #ClimateReporting, #PoliticalNews
As the US government sabotages its own climate web site (along with many other science-based or truth-based sites), a new site is the phoenix borne of its ashes. May it thrive. Please consider donating or otherwise supporting their efforts (e.g., by sharing notice of the site).
#climate #ClimateDenial #resist #science #truth #media #journalism #ClimateData #ClimateReporting #propaganda #hope #politics #USPolitics #fascism #PostTruth
Here's another URL that might be worth sharing:
#ClimateChange #ClimateReporting #TheGremlinZoo
Trump administration says it won't publish major climate change reports on NASA website as promised
The Trump administration has made it harder for people, local and state governments to find critical climate change reports. On Monday, NASA announced it would not host the National Climate Assessments, reversing earlier plans. These reports detail climate impacts across the U.S. and were previously available on government websites that went offline earlier this month. NASA stated it has no legal obligation to host the data. Critics, including scientists, accuse the administration of trying to bury vital information. The 2023 report highlights how climate change threatens health, security and livelihoods, with marginalized communities facing disproportionate risks.
This specific article has some badly structured wording in places. Better care is called for. I had to go back several times re-reading the confusing sentence "At least one congressional Republican is ready to take action in the face of increasing extreme weather events. " to realize this wasn't a change in pattern but rather a CONTINUATION of GOP broken policy by Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG).
If we are going to tell this story, it needs to be told with clarity. It is important to NOT just toss in these details as if they are stories that tell themselves. False narratives have been told that require careful unwinding. The fact of extreme weather events is an opportunity to say "there is an objective way to see who is telling the truth here".
Another part of this story we have to get better at telling is the part about probabilities. A lot of people are not good at math, but they still should intuitively understand the important parts if it's explained well:
People sometimes say of bad weather "well, that sometimes happens. even extreme events sometimes happen". That's true of gambling situations, too. There are low-probability events that do happen. But it's very different to say you know that an otherwise low-probability event is going to happen, that is, to be able to say "I will now roll double-sixes three times in a row." While it can happen that you do, if you say it's going to happen, one starts to suspect that it's not just random, that maybe it's the dice.
In this case, the effect is all that carbon pollution having an effect. It's what scientists have been predicting.
MTG offers the preposterous alternate explanation of weather being controlled by adverse political forces, but she is still speaking to the set of people who can tell something is amiss and demand an explanation. News media has hammered these stories into a segment of our population, and it cannot be taken for granted that people will suddenly see the folly of it. More careful hand-holding is essential.
The GOP and its associated propaganda sources have become an engine for offering bizarre conspiracy theories, but the Dems are the party of offering little or no narrative at all and assuming that the gaps will be filled by common sense. That's just not enough.
#Climate #ClimateReporting #ClimateJournalism #journalism #politics #USPolitics #ExtremeWeather #propaganda
This article highlights the importance of linking extreme weather events with government actions and inactions.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/nws-cuts-texas-floods
I have some concerns with the presentation of this specific article that I'll attach as a follow-up message in the comment on this thread, but I'm glad to see this getting reported in this general form.
People need help to understand what's happening, and the peddlers of propaganda know this so will be right in there with their misinformation. It must be countered by good information in a form that is clear about what's happening, how to understand its implication, and what to do in response. Each of these is a point of weakness if it is left unfilled because the propaganda folks will be right there filling the gaps.
It's a horrible thing that DOGE (and now also the ironically-called Big Beautiful Bill that just passed in Congress) have done to climate funding in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies in terms of cutting funding for measuring, tracking, and reporting climate and weather phenomena. This will mean, over time, a lot more incidents like the one this article reports, and one of the good things this article does is call that out so that people can see that having good government policy matters.
We used to have a world where we know a lot less about what the weather was going to do with us, and a lot more people were injured by weather for lack of prediction capability. It is a terrifying thing to think of returning to that, and outrageous to have to see it as a voluntary act, a self-inflicted wound, by our politicians.
See also my 2020 essay Humanity's Superpower for the importance of integrating science into our societal decision-making. That's increasingly under assault now, which can only lead to bad places.
https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2020/03/humanitys-superpower_28.html
#Climate #ClimateCrisis #ClimateReporting #journalism #probabilities #weather #WeatherReporting #ExtremeWeather #ClimateEmergency #DOGE #NOAA #NWS #NASA
"Experts warned for months that drastic and sudden cuts at the National Weather Service by Trump could impair their forecasting ability and endanger lives during the storm season," said one critic.
In this episode of Decoding Disinformation, we explore the alarming trend of attacks on meteorologists and climate journalists, who are increasingly targeted for their science-based reporting on climate change. The conversation highlights the political motivations behind these attacks, the impact on climate journalism, and the broader implications for democracy and public trust in science. Christian […]
I used to think actuaries would cause the insurance business to speak loudly about Climate, and that in turn would cause Government to see that the problem was not imagined because real dollars were at stake.
But gerrymandering insurability is not a form of awareness, it's a form of denial. It's Martin Niemöller's "First They Came..." poem, played out along the Climate axis.
#Climate #ClimateDenial #ClimateReporting #ClimateScience #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #LateStageCapitalism #economics
I just put up an essay on my blog. It's cobbled together from various bits of text I wrote Thursday morning in several mastodon posts (including one haiku) about the issue of scientific consensus, climate reporting, the 1.5 degree threshold, the need for action, and the fact that the weather/climate distinction is working against us here.
Must We Pretend?
https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2025/05/must-we-pretend.html
#climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #ClimateReporting #journalism #consensus #science #ClimateAction #ethics
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