{"id":19476,"date":"2016-05-24T13:13:21","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T18:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/?p=19476"},"modified":"2016-05-24T14:01:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T19:01:47","slug":"scientists-getting-organized-to-sort-fact-from-fiction-in-climate-change-media-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/archives\/2016\/05\/scientists-getting-organized-to-sort-fact-from-fiction-in-climate-change-media-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists getting organized to help readers sort fact from fiction in climate change media coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Guest post by Emmanuel Vincent<\/strong><\/p>\n

While 2016 is on track to easily surpass 2015 as the warmest year on record, some headlines, in otherwise prestigious news outlets, are still claiming that \u201c2015 Was Not Even Close To Hottest Year On Record<\/u><\/font><\/a>\u201d (Forbes, Jan 2016) or that the \u201cPlanet is not overheating…\u201d (The Times of London, Feb 2016). Media misrepresentation confuses the public and prevents our policy makers from developing a well-informed perspective, and making evidence-based decisions.<\/p>\n

Professor Lord Krebs recently argued in an opinion piece<\/u><\/font><\/a> in The Conversation<\/i> that \u201caccurate reporting of science matters\u201d and that it is part of scientists\u2019 professional duty to \u201cchallenge poor media reporting on climate change\u201d. He concluded that \u201cif enough [scientists] do so regularly, [science reporting] will improve \u2013 to the benefit of scientists, the public and indeed journalism itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is precisely what a new project called Climate Feedback<\/a> is doing: giving hundreds of scientists around the world the opportunity to not only challenge unscientific reporting of climate change, but also to highlight and support accurate science journalism. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The project uses a new online annotation platform, called Hypothesis<\/a>, which allows scientists to apply \u201cpeer review\u201d-inspired analyses to influential climate change stories in the media. The annotation tool allows scientists to analyze each piece collectively; scientists\u2019 fact-check are layered directly onto the original texts so that readers can see the scientists\u2019 sentence by sentence critique right next to the article (see figure below).<\/p>\n

Scientists contributing to these \u201cfeedbacks\u201d are also invited to provide an overall credibility assessment of the article in the form of a \u201c5-star\u201d rating (ranging from -2 for \u2018Very low\u2019 to +2 for \u2018Very high\u2019). The rating measures<\/a> the accuracy of facts, the logic of the reasoning and the objectivity of the piece, and enables readers to know right away whether what they are reading is consistent with current science.<\/p>\n

\"cliamtefeedback1\"<\/a>
\nAn example of Climate Feedback in action. Scientists\u2019 comments (and ratings) appear as a layer over the article. Text annotated with Hypothesis is highlighted in yellow in the web browser and scientists\u2019 comments appear in a sidebar next to the article. Click here<\/a> to see it live.<\/em><\/p>\n

For an example of how it works, see how 14 scientists recently analyzed a piece<\/u><\/font><\/a> published by Bjorn Lomborg in The Telegraph <\/i>and rated its overall scientific credibility to be \u201clow to very low\u201d. Articles like this one are particularly misleading because they sound reasonable and scientific at first glance, due to the author\u2019s reference of scientific studies. But when scientists \u2013some of whom actually wrote the articles cited\u2013 were invited to provide feedback, they explained that the author had misrepresented scientific research to reach unsupported conclusions.<\/p>\n

By contrast Climate Feedback also highlighted insightful reporting on climate change. For instance, 7 scientists gave \u201chigh to very high\u201d credibility rating<\/u><\/font><\/a> to a New York Times<\/i> article by Justin Gillis on sea level rise; sea-level expert Prof. A Dutton concluded \u201cThis article is an accurate and insightful summary of the recently published research on this topic. Justin Gillis has a strong background in this topic which comes across through his careful language and nuanced understanding of the issues.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond informing readers, Climate Feedback provides feedback to journalists, contributors and editors about scientists\u2019 findings, thus pointing a way forward for more accurate science reporting. This approach has already improved journalistic standards; for instance, The Telegraph<\/i> issued a public correction<\/u><\/font><\/a> after scientists reviewed an article claiming that an ice age was on its way in the 2030s.<\/p>\n

Climate Feedback\u2019s analyses can also serve as a reference for those who want to uncover media misinformation, as members of the House of Lords did last month in their letter<\/u><\/font><\/a> to The Times of London<\/i> asking the newspaper\u2019s editor to report the reality of climate change more accurately.<\/p>\n

\"climatefeedback2\"<\/a>
\nMockup of Climate Feedback\u2019s \u201cScientific Trust Tracker\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

Climate Feedback recently proposed <\/a>to create a \u201cScientific Trust Tracker\u201d<\/a><\/u><\/font> that would
\naggregate all the scientists\u2019 ratings and comments attached to a given news source. This would serve as a reference to inform the public about a source\u2019s past track record, and whether they should be especially skeptical when reading climate news from sources that have a track record of publishing unsupported or misleading articles.<\/p>\n

While the project has been more of an experiment up until now, we now plan to scale up and are currently raising funds from the public to hire a Scientific Editor who will coordinate articles\u2019 evaluation on a regular basis. The campaign has already raised more than 85% of its initial $30k goal. If you wish to Stand with Science, you can support this initiative here: https:\/\/igg.me\/at\/Stand-with-Science<\/u><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest post by Emmanuel Vincent While 2016 is on track to easily surpass 2015 as the warmest year on record, some headlines, in otherwise prestigious news outlets, are still claiming that \u201c2015 Was Not Even Close To Hottest Year On Record\u201d (Forbes, Jan 2016) or that the \u201cPlanet is not overheating…\u201d (The Times of London, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-communicating-climate","7":"category-reporting-on-climate","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19476"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19497,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476\/revisions\/19497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}