A related strand of early research on the media coverage of climate change relates to concerns of journalistic accuracy. Research into media miscommunication of science has its origins in the 1930s, when the method of inquiry involving sending news clippings to the scientists concerned and asking them to evaluate their accuracy (Bell, 1994). A study of journalists’ accuracy when reporting climate change in the New Zealand media in 1988 found that the coverage was largely accurate (1994), and also noted that scientists had a negatively biased view of media reporting on science in general. Environmental journalists in the US were found to have an adequate working knowledge of the greenhouse effect, but they did not properly understand other related climate processes (Wilson, 2000). A survey of Danish broadsheet coverage from 1997 to 2009 showed that the reporting was “moderately inaccurate” (Vestergård, 2011). The question of sources used in media coverage of climate change is also of concern to scientists and science communicators: “Journalists frequently adopt (in the scientists’ view) an overly broad definition of who is qualified to comment on scientific issues” which “raises the question of evidence over assertions” (Weigold, 2001, pp. 181–2).
Many scientists believe they are poor communicators and are wary of engaging with the media. One climate scientist who presented a case study of how research was reported in the Australian media, states that while scientists may be adept at communicating science, this does not equate to facility in communicating through the mass media. “There are very few scientists who have the natural ability, and learn or cultivate the talents of
effective communication with and through the media…” (Henderson-Sellers, 1998, p. 430). Scientists suffer from “a widespread perception they [they] are not effective communicators, at least when the audience is the general public.” (Weigold, 2001, p. 172). Scientists “regard journalists with suspicion” (Gascoigne and Metcalfe, 1997, p. 278), often because they are “shocked by the ‘inaccuracies’” (Henderson-Sellers, 1998, p. 431) they see in science reporting.
Most journalists in the United States who write about science have no qualification in a science subject, but learn about science reporting on the job (Weigold, 2001, p. 169). Research also shows that fewer than three per cent of American journalists majored in mathematics, physical or biological science (Weaver and Wilhoit, 1994). However, more recent research suggests that 14 per cent of science reporters who were members of the Society of Environmental Journalists held degrees in environmental science (Wilson, 2000, p. 3). Despite these differing figures, we can say that the level of formal science education among American science journalists is low. This does not mean that their knowledge of science subjects is lacking. Indeed, one survey showed that all science journalists were familiar with the term “global warming”, and most knew that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas. However, knowledge of the other greenhouse gases, or of the state of scientific consensus on a number of climate change issues was not so complete (Wilson 2000). Despite a lack of scientific qualification and incomplete knowledge on the part of science reporters, “the studies that have examined the issue have found general satisfaction among scientists with news story accuracy” (Weigold, 2001, p. 184). Indeed, scientists may have an unnecessarily negative stereotype of journalists: they consistently rate science reporting in general as inaccurate, yet often rate the stories in which they themselves are quoted as entirely accurate. (Bell, 1994, p. 271). Indeed, Bell concludes
that science reporting in general, and climate change reporting in particular is probably “largely accurate”.
Many of these early studies of media coverage of climate change view the media’s “performance” on the issue from the scientists’ side of the table: did the reporter get the facts right? Was the science of climate change accurately reported? Were scientists consulted in the first place, or given adequate status in the story? The incident that forms the basis of a paper by Henderson-Sellers on science-media miscommunication is instructive (Henderson-Sellers, 1998). The author was involved in issuing a press release related to research on the frequency and power of tropical storms. The press release mentions, near the end of the document, that a projected 10-20% increase in the intensity of tropical cyclones may have implications for the insurance industry in Australia. The author expresses chagrin that some media outlets decided to base their news coverage on this insurance angle, rather than on the climate science behind it. She is surprised that other parties (e.g. insurance industry spokespersons) were asked for comment. She is aghast that a newspaper used the phrase “supercyclones” in a headline referring to the possible 10-20% increase in storm intensity in a climate-changed world. The “lessons learned” have mostly to do with how someone in her position will be judged by their peers in the scientific community. In other words, dealing with the media is judged entirely in the light of the norms of science. It may be argued that the author has strayed into an error identified by Wilkins: much science communication research has “analysed media coverage of science according to the standards of science itself. Coverage which is accurate according to the standards of the scientific community has been praised. Little effort has been made to link the coverage itself with an underlying value system that spans both mass communication and science.” (1993, p. 74).