It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality

Rating:
Summary: For victims of misleading media stories
Review: Don't believe what you read in the popular press or hear on the media - that's the lesson affirmed by the authors. They review a gaggle of cases where the reportage of some issue or event was obviously filtered, through intent or incompetance, to fit the story the author wanted to state.

Rabid liberals who don't realize how far left the media has seemed to come will view this book as a subtle right-wing treatise. However, these are people who, like their reactionary counterparts, internally filter out anything that doesn't fit into their own paradigm, and they are better ignored. Nothing will help people who are too tilted in either direction, but this is not a reason to dismiss important work.

In all, this should be required reading for every newspaper and television reporter and editor and journalism student, not to mention every adult who wants to think independantly.

Rating:
Summary: Informative and instructional
Review: There have been several books out lately about bias in the news, but they tend to focus on political bias. This book instead looks at the same concept--how news media have unwritten scripts that determine what is and what is not news, and how it is covered--but instead focuses on the reporting of research, both scientific and sociological. That's what makes this book worth reading even if you've read some others on media bias.

It was interesting to read about various reports on research, how seemingly conflicting reports came into being, how reports that are on the same topic would seem to get equal coverage but don't, how research with barely detectable results ends up being reported as earth-shattering discovery, and other such topics. The examples were informative, and the authors gave some tips on how to decipher what you read in the news...how to read between the lines, so to speak.

Some reviewers have dissed this book because the examples used are those which conservatives would find most satisfying to learn how media distorted research. Fortunately, most such reviewers have also acknowledged that the book is still worthy of reading due to the way it points out general methods for discerning accuracy in reporting. Still, I feel the "conservative bias" charge is unwarranted. Other books have documented well the powerful politically liberal scripts of mainstream news media; is it any surprise that there are so many examples of such bias in scientific reporting too? If news media carefully filter societal issues to only make their side look good, why would this not be done in reporting on research too? What I'm trying to say is, I am certain there are much more plentiful examples of this kind of thing for the conservative side. I would gladly welcome a book, though, that would reveal such shortcomings that would similarly satisfy liberals, for I simply want to know how things get distorted, whichever direction they get distorted.

My ranking of this book is a 3, which is "good" (see About Me for a complete description of my rating policy), meaning this is a book worth reading. Its weakness is that the authors' writing style is a bit dry and sometimes they repeat their point too much, making me mutter, "Okay, I get it already!" But these are minor drawbacks; the book is something consumers of news should definitely read.

Rating:
Summary: It Ain't Necessarily Worth Reading
Review: This book is not riddled with factual errors, but information is presented in an extrememly misleading way. For instance, in its treatment of climate change, a long section (pp. 49-52) criticizes the media for reporting a story on the northward range shift of a California butterfly. "One swallow does not a summer make," the authors state, and argue that the media should not jump on a story like this in association with climate change because it reports information from just one butterfly species. This sounds reasonable, but there is a problem.

The book ignores a study that was published only a year after the original butterfly report, in 1999, by the same author in the same journal. This second study reported that in a total of 35 butterfly species examined, 63% showed a poleward shift (indicative of climate change) while only 3% shifted toward the equator. (Parmesan, C, N et al. Poleward shift of butterfly species? ranges associated with regional warming. Nature 399:579-583) Since this study was published 3 years before my 2002 edition of "It Ain't Necessarily So" these authors have had ample time to update their discussion of this issue. That they have not would indicate that they are incompetent, inattentive, or biased, none of which flatters their overall reliability.

In a wider sense, the butterfly range shift is one of the most innocuous issues the media could have possibly addressed regarding climate change. As a instructor in environmental science at the University of California, I am well-read in both the primary scientific literature on climate change and the media's coverage of climate change, and overall I'd argue that the media has failed to raise sufficient awareness regarding the dangers of climate change, which by any scientific consensus will dominate human affairs in a very detrimental way for years to come.

The butterfly example is symptomatic of most of the book. A political agenda is suggested instead of mere incompetence by the authors' affiliations. One author, Joel Schwartz, is a fellow at the Hudson Institute, which PR Watch ... says has an "agenda of (its) own: debunking global warming, extinction reports, and other issues that paint an unflattering issue of their corporate sponsors."

Another author, Robert Lichter, is president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), which PR Watch calls "a deeply hypocritical organization that pretends to be objective, empirical, and impartial when in fact it is a right-wing organization with a permanent agenda of hostility to environmentalists and consumer advocates."

The book is not bad in the sense that most of us think of the word; rather, it is bad in a calculated and negligent fashion, pushing what can only be interpreted as an agenda that matches that of the groups that employ its authors. If you want insight into how the media covers critical issues, you won't find it here.

Matthew Orr, PhD