"Since the 1990’s, I’ve had a front row seat for TV news's abject failure in covering climate change."
"In the year 2000, I was overseeing CNN’s science and environment coverage. One day in our daily editorial meeting, one of the top bosses asked me why there seemed to be such scientific doubt about climate change.
I told him there was little doubt among credentialed scientists, but that news organizations tended to cover science controversies by the same standard as the one that decided criminal trials: Any reasonable doubt was entertained.
But science worked more on the standard of civil trials: A preponderance of evidence ruled the day. Reasonable doubt is what got O.J. Simpson criminally acquitted of murder, but a preponderance of evidence found him liable for millions of dollars in wrongful death judgements to the surviving family members of his (alleged) victims.
After a year and a half of wall-to-wall coverage of O.J.’s mid-90s criminal trial, a room full of cable news execs and middle managers needed no more explanation of how reasonable doubt worked."
Peter Dykstra writes for Environmental Health News July 10, 2022.
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