We're happy to see that the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has been concerned enough about the accuracy or, rather, inaccuracy of cable news reporting on climate change that they have issued a new report on their findings.
UCS looked intensively at how the three top cable news networks -- MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News -- reported on climate in 2013.
If you have a hunch as to who's doing what, right or wrong, you're probably right.
Fox News portrayed climate science accurately only 28 percent of the time in 2013. But that's an, um, improvement -- gulp. In 2012, Fox News was accurate only 7 percent of the time. Memo to Fox News: Check your sources, at least more than 28 percent of the time.
CNN was accurate in 2013 about 70 percent of the time Better, but not great. The biggest problem with CNN's coverage, according to the UCS report, is that the network continues to air debates about the reality of climate change. Memo to CNN: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that the science of climate change is settled and that climate change is being caused by humans. It's happening. Join the rest of the world, CNN, and drop the unhelpful debates.
MSNBC scored highest of the three networks, found to be accurate 92 percent of the time. Interesting but, again, not terribly surprising. MSNBC's inaccuracies are due to overstatements of the effects of climate change and extreme weather. Memo to MSNBC: The situation is not helped by crying wolf, nor are your inferences that climate change is at work in particular situations when scientists tell us we can't know that for sure. Science draws conclusions from looking at broad data patterns, not individual data points.
So, readers, there you have it. Keep educating yourselves on climate change science so you can discount the exaggerations from either side of the debate.
And thanks to UCS for doing the hard work of keeping the cable news networks honest and the rest of us informed.
Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia.
