Media Coverage of the Greenhouse Effect

Following brief reviews of (a) the decisive role of the media in American politics and (b) earlier studies of media partiality and superficiality, this paper examines media coverage of the greenhouse effect. It does so by comparing two pictures. The first picture emerges from reading all 100 greenhouse-related articles published over a five-month period (May–September 1997) inThe Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, andThe Washington Post. The second picture emerges from themainstream scientific literature. This comparison shows that media coverage of environmental issues suffers from both shallowness and pro-corporate bias. The biospheric implications of these two flaws are touched upon. Printers are educated in the Belief that when Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick; and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Editor, The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1729–1748 I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time. Thomas Jefferson, 1807 Third President of the United States, 1801-9