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Author Topic: what we need here is a bias in favour of truth
Snuckles
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Babbler # 2764

posted 05 May 2007 11:58 AM      Profile for Snuckles   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The pressure to present balanced accounts of controversial issues shouldn't extend to nonsense

Peter McKnight, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, May 05, 2007

"Journalism itself is a science, and ... a properly qualified, responsible journalist is a practicing scientist."

Physicist Lawrence Cranberg (1989)

Two years ago a Scientific American editorial announced that the magazine would institute a sweeping policy change, a change so radical that it would completely reorient the magazine's approach to science journalism.
Noting that "good journalism values balance above all else," the editors said they owed it to their readers "to present everybody's ideas equally," because "to do otherwise would be elitist and wrong."

The editors then admitted that they had been guilty of elitism in the past in that they failed to present a "balanced" presentation of issues like creationism, missile defence and global warming. Indeed, in response to the many letters they received from creationists, the editors described the magazine's coverage of evolution as "hideously one-sided."

But those bad old days would soon be over, the editors promised, as they advised readers to "get ready for the new Scientific American," which "will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science."

Some readers were delighted with the policy change, others were appalled. And more careful readers realized what was going on when they read that the editorial was posted on the Scientific American website on April 1, 2005 -- April Fools Day.

The editors were, of course, not really suggesting that they intended henceforth to put science and non-science -- and nonsense -- on equal footing; they were, rather, ridiculing those who demand that journalists do so, those who argue that good journalism involves merely presenting both sides of an issue and letting readers decide the truth.

Certainly, there is considerable pressure to offer a balanced presentation of controversial issues. This is nowhere more apparent than in the case of global warming. Witness Mike Chernoff's recent attempt to get copies of The Great Global Warming Swindle into high school classrooms to "balance" Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and his statement that "without balanced information on a subject, an unbiased decision is difficult."

Similarly, when I write about evolution and creationism, I am invariably accused of bias -- a lack of balance -- for explaining that evolution is a scientific theory and creationism is not. To repair this problem, certain letter writers tell me that I should simply present both positions equally, without editorial comment, and let my readers decide the truth.

Doing that would amount to an abdication of my role as a columnist, since I have a responsibility to offer an opinion. It would also represent an affront to science, but I understand where my letter writers are coming from; journalism has long promoted the view that journalists ought to present both sides in a dispute and keep their opinions to themselves.


Read it here.


From: Hell | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged

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