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Summary of the Article: Journalism, climate science, and the public: Towards better practices
The media play a pivotal role in informing the public about ongoing scientific innovations and advancements. In the extremely extensive and insightful essay, Steve McIlwaine criticizes the role of journalists and their shortcomings when it comes to climate change reporting. He cites that the complex matter of climate change and its indicators are by far the most crucial subjects that the media covers today. Be that as may, the media seems to be fixated only on the political and social controversies of the issue ending up gravely misinforming the public. While journalists have indicated the will and the dedication to reporting everything regarding climate, ‘the lay public also requires that they underpin this reporting with reliable accounts of what is driving the debate’ (McIlwaine 48). The study thus majors on the thesis that journalistic reports regarding the same should be concise and based on clear comprehension of the subject matter for it to inform the public, as it should.
One would then wonder why there exists the lack of information. It then follows that despite the extensive media coverage on such an area dominated by new inventions, there seems to be a stagnation of knowledge growth among the people. When all that the reporters can gather about this field regards scientist’s duels and political clashes, the rest of the world can only be left bewildered (Antilla 241).

For reporters to create genuinely impactful content, they must start by fully understanding the separate but overarching tenets of the area that include global warming, the ocean and atmosphere, greenhouse effect, and vegetation. They should also acquire specialist knowledge regarding the same to be in a position to interpret the abstract data that is availed. Instead of assigning this sophisticated area journalists with mere human understanding, media managers can instead use more knowledgeable and enthusiastic people who can decipher the subject and interpret it into news that people can relate to.
He notes that the media thrives on uncertainty framing and the false ideas regarding scientists’ perennial disagreement on the contributors of greenhouse gases. It is clear that the argument that these ideas boil from scientists’ lack of consensus is only unfounded and misleading. In affirmation, he indeed, quotes Oreskes 2004 study saying that ‘unequivocally, the consensus was that Earth’s climate was being affected by human activities’ (1686). Further, essential studies carried out by American Association for the Advancement of Science, American meteorological society, and the American Academy of Sciences, all reiterated that, human activities like the growing population, urbanization, industrialization, nuclear testing, and energy use depleted natural resources and led to the emission of carbon gasses. Indeed, science attracts change in the society, but when ideological groups exploit the former, innovation dies out.
In conclusion, the study offers the media a piece of advice urging them to be wise enough while obtaining information to avoid malicious misinformation as well as misleading, self-centered pipers whose interest in the issue is purely personal. In regard, he advises that legitimate details can only come from the scientists themselves. Going to their chambers consistently and incessantly motivates them into communicating the most crucial ongoing innovations and researchers. Other recommended sources of subject information can be climate journals and blogs. The rather convincing and educative study thus concludes that since climate change reporting goes far and beyond ordinary reporting, it must be accorded the seriousness that it requires. The author urges the auditors to take the discussion seriously if they are to create content that indeed changes policies on climate change globally. In effect, he urges them to base their deductions on the international climate phenomena’s like patterns of storms and drifts other than focusing on the clichéd daily weather happenings. Lastly, he touches on the most effective ways of disseminating this data, namely, tactical and strategic. Accordingly, reporters can engage technological reporting, new metrics like ecological footprints, as well as hotspot mapping as these, will bring more extensive coverage to the diverse and, as it stands, unformed masses.
Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY Antilla, L. “Self-censorship and science: A geographical review of media coverage of climate tipping points.” Public Understanding of Science 19.2 (2010): 240-256.
McIlwaine, Steve. “Journalism, climate science and the public: Towards better practices.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 9.1 (2013): 47-58.
Oreskes, N. “Scientific consensus on climate change.” Science 306 (2004): 1686.