Climate Change, Political Objectivity, and the “Liberal Media” Meme
KPCC’s Larry Mantle talked to Geneva Overholser and Eric Alterman on Thursday night about objectivity in journalism. (The conversation airs on Monday.)
Geneva said she favors a reporter that fights his inevitable biases and wrestles his mind (and published material) open to people and arguments with which he disagrees.
Eric said he favors a reporter that investigates, presents evidence, draws conclusions, and lets readers decide whether or not to trust her.
Larry tried to make sure that his program presented objectivity objectively. And, in my opinion, he tried too hard….
Eric, to illustrate his assertion that journalism’s insistence on objectivity has done big harm, brought up the way in which anthropogenic climate change has been covered over the past decade. Though almost all scientists agree that humans are destabilizing the climate, American mainstream media has given half of its climate reporting pagespace to “experts” that deny human involvement in global warming.
Geneva agreed. Debates make great stories, and media organizations have helped to create a widespread but scientifically irrelevant debate.
Larry, however, applauded the journalists whose reporting highlighted the “scientific debate.” There have been holes in the science all along, he said, and journalistic skepticism has helped push the scientists to address those holes and improve what is still an incomplete understanding of a complex phenomenon.
I was surprised. It seemed strange that an urban Californian public radio MC would react like that.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe it’s perfectly normal to be more concerned with nitty gritty scientific progress than the fact that half the country doesn’t believe the science at all.
Or maybe Larry doesn’t believe that humans are causing climate change, and he was trying to disagree with his guests without derailing a conversation that was supposed to be about journalism, not climate.
Or maybe, as I suspect, Larry was fighting to maintain AirTalk’s political objectivity. Fearing the “liberal media” label, he presented a somewhat absurd but also somewhat conservative-friendly viewpoint. He diluted truth with objectivity.
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