False balance

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Among climate scientists in 2013, 97% of peer-reviewed papers that took a position on the cause of global warming said that humans are responsible, while 3% said they were not. Among Fox News guests in late 2013, this topic was presented in a contrarian way, with 31% of invited guests believing it was happening and 69% not. False balance in climate science.png
Among climate scientists in 2013, 97% of peer-reviewed papers that took a position on the cause of global warming said that humans are responsible, while 3% said they were not. Among Fox News guests in late 2013, this topic was presented in a contrarian way, with 31% of invited guests believing it was happening and 69% not.

False balance, known colloquially as bothsidesism, is a media bias in which journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence supports. Journalists may present evidence and arguments out of proportion to the actual evidence for each side, or may omit information that would establish one side's claims as baseless. False balance has been cited as a cause of misinformation. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

False balance is a bias which usually stems from an attempt to avoid bias and gives unsupported or dubious positions an illusion of respectability. It creates a public perception that some issues are scientifically contentious, though in reality they are not, therefore creating doubt about the scientific state of research. This can be exploited by interest groups such as corporations like the fossil fuel industry or the tobacco industry, or ideologically motivated activists such as vaccination opponents or creationists. [5]

Examples of false balance in reporting on science issues include the topics of human-caused climate change versus natural climate variability, the health effects of tobacco, the alleged relation between thiomersal and autism, [6] alleged negative side effects of the HPV vaccine, [7] and evolution versus intelligent design. [8]

Description and origin

False balance emerges from the ideal of journalistic objectivity, where factual news is presented in a way that allows the reader to make determinations about how to interpret the facts, and interpretations or arguments around those facts are left to the opinion pages. Because many newsworthy events have two or more opposing camps making competing claims, news media are responsible for reporting all (credible or reasonable) opposing positions, along with verified facts that may support one or the other side of an issue. At one time, when false balance was prevalent, news media sometimes reported all positions as though they were equally credible, even though the facts clearly contradicted a position, or there was a substantial consensus on one side of an issue, and only a fringe or nascent theory supporting the other side.

Today, in contrast to prior decades, most media are willing to call out false information as incorrect,[ citation needed ] such as the idea that the Earth is not warming, or that Donald Trump won the 2020 United States presidential election. For instance, claims that the Earth is not warming are regularly referred to in news (vs only editorials) as "denial", "misleading", or "debunked". [9] Prior to this shift, media would sometimes list all positions without clarifying that one position is known or generally agreed to be false.

Unlike most other media biases, false balance may stem from an attempt to avoid bias; producers and editors may confuse treating competing views fairly—i.e., in proportion to their actual merits and significance—with treating them equally, giving them equal time to present their views even when those views may be known beforehand to be based on false information. [10] Media would then present two opposing viewpoints on an issue as equally credible, or present a major issue on one side of a debate as having the same weight as a minor one on the other. [11] False balance can also originate from other motives such as sensationalism, where producers and editors may feel that a story portrayed as a contentious debate will be more commercially successful than a more accurate (or widely-agreed) account of the issue.

Science journalist Dirk Steffens mocked the practice as comparable to inviting a flat Earther to debate with an astrophysicist over the shape of the Earth, as if the truth could be found somewhere in the middle. [12] Liz Spayd of The New York Times wrote: "The problem with false balance doctrine is that it masquerades as rational thinking." [11]

Examples

Climate change

Although the scientific community almost unanimously attributes a majority of the global warming since 1950 to the effects of the Industrial Revolution, [13] [14] [15] there are a very small number – a few dozen scientists out of tens of thousands – who dispute the conclusion. [16] [17] [18] Giving equal voice to scientists on both sides makes it seem like there is serious disagreement within the scientific community, when in fact there is an overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change that anthropogenic global warming exists. [19]

MMR vaccine controversy

Observers have criticized the involvement of mass media in the MMR vaccine controversy, what is known as "science by press conference", [20] alleging that the media provided Andrew Wakefield's study with more credibility than it deserved. A March 2007 paper in BMC Public Health by Shona Hilton, Mark Petticrew, and Kate Hunt postulated that media reports on Wakefield's study had "created the misleading impression that the evidence for the link with autism was as substantial as the evidence against". [21] Earlier papers in Communication in Medicine and the British Medical Journal concluded that media reports provided a misleading picture of the level of support for Wakefield's hypothesis. [22] [23] [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MMR vaccine</span> Combined vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella

The MMR vaccine is a vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella, abbreviated as MMR. The first dose is generally given to children around 9 months to 15 months of age, with a second dose at 15 months to 6 years of age, with at least four weeks between the doses. After two doses, 97% of people are protected against measles, 88% against mumps, and at least 97% against rubella. The vaccine is also recommended for those who do not have evidence of immunity, those with well-controlled HIV/AIDS, and within 72 hours of exposure to measles among those who are incompletely immunized. It is given by injection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaccine hesitancy</span> Reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated or have ones children vaccinated

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Generation Rescue is a nonprofit organization that advocates the scientifically disproven view that autism and related disorders are primarily caused by environmental factors, particularly vaccines. The organization was established in 2005 by Lisa and J.B. Handley. Today, Generation Rescue is known as a platform for Jenny McCarthy's autism related anti-vaccine advocacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science journalism</span> Journalism genre

Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists and the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Causes of autism</span> Proposed causes of autism

Many causes of autism, including environmental and genetic factors, have been recognized or proposed, but understanding of the theory of causation of autism is incomplete. Attempts have been made to incorporate the known genetic and environmental causes into a comprehensive causative framework. ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by impairments in communicative ability and social interaction, as well as restricted and repetitive behaviors, interests, or activities not suitable for the individual's developmental stage. The severity of symptoms and functional impairment vary between individuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny McCarthy</span> American actress and model (born 1972)

Jennifer Ann McCarthy-Wahlberg is an American actress, model, and television personality. She began her career in 1993 as a nude model for Playboy magazine and was later named their Playmate of the Year. McCarthy then had a television and film acting career, beginning as a co-host on the MTV game show Singled Out (1995–1997) and afterwards starring in the eponymous sitcom Jenny (1997–1998), as well as films including BASEketball (1998), Scream 3 (2000), Dirty Love (2005), John Tucker Must Die (2006), and Santa Baby (2006). In 2013, she hosted her own television talk show The Jenny McCarthy Show, and became a co-host of the ABC talk show The View, appearing on the program until 2014. Since 2019, McCarthy has been a judge on the Fox musical competition show The Masked Singer.

Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper, authored by Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet, falsely claimed the vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaccine activists.

An availability cascade is a self-reinforcing cycle that explains the development of certain kinds of collective beliefs. A novel idea or insight, usually one that seems to explain a complex process in a simple or straightforward manner, gains rapid currency in the popular discourse by its very simplicity and by its apparent insightfulness. Its rising popularity triggers a chain reaction within the social network: individuals adopt the new insight because other people within the network have adopted it, and on its face it seems plausible. The reason for this increased use and popularity of the new idea involves both the availability of the previously obscure term or idea, and the need of individuals using the term or idea to appear to be current with the stated beliefs and ideas of others, regardless of whether they in fact fully believe in the idea that they are expressing. Their need for social acceptance, and the apparent sophistication of the new insight, overwhelm their critical thinking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Wakefield</span> Discredited British former doctor (born 1956)

Andrew Jeremy Wakefield is a British fraudster, discredited academic, anti-vaccine activist, and former physician.

<i>Autisms False Prophets</i> 2008 book by Paul Offit

Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure is a 2008 book by Paul Offit, a vaccine expert and chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The book focuses on the controversy surrounding the now discredited link between vaccines and autism. The scientific consensus is that no convincing scientific evidence supports these claims, and a 2011 journal article described the vaccine-autism connection as "the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media coverage of climate change</span>

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A manufactured controversy is a contrived disagreement, typically motivated by profit or ideology, designed to create public confusion concerning an issue about which there is no substantial academic dispute. This concept has also been referred to as manufactured uncertainty.

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Vijendra Kumar Singh is a neuroimmunologist who formerly held a post at Utah State University, prior to which he was a professor at the University of Michigan. While affiliated with both institutions, he conducted some controversial autism-related research focusing on the potential role of immune system disorders in the etiology of autism. For example, he has testified before a US congressional committee that, in his view, "three quarters of autistic children suffer from an autoimmune disease."

The gateway belief model (GBM) suggests that public perception of the degree of expert or scientific consensus on an issue functions as a so-called "gateway" cognition. Perception of scientific agreement is suggested to be a key step towards acceptance of related beliefs. Increasing the perception that there is normative agreement within the scientific community can increase individual support for an issue. A perception of disagreement may decrease support for an issue.

The Lancet MMR autism fraud centered on the publication in February 1998 of a fraudulent research paper titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" in The Lancet. The paper, authored by now discredited and deregistered Andrew Wakefield, and twelve coauthors, falsely claimed causative links between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and colitis and between colitis and autism. The fraud involved data selection, data manipulation, and two undisclosed conflicts of interest. It was exposed in a lengthy Sunday Times investigation by reporter Brian Deer, resulting in the paper's retraction in February 2010 and Wakefield being struck off the UK medical register three months later. Wakefield reportedly stood to earn up to US$43 million per year selling diagnostic kits for a non-existent syndrome he claimed to have discovered. He also held a patent to a rival vaccine at the time, and he had been employed by a lawyer representing parents in lawsuits against vaccine producers.

Extensive investigation into vaccines and autism has shown that there is no relationship between the two, causal or otherwise, and that vaccine ingredients do not cause autism. Vaccinologist Peter Hotez researched the growth of the false claim and concluded that its spread originated with Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 paper, with no prior paper supporting a link.

Disinformation attacks are strategic deception campaigns involving media manipulation and internet manipulation, to disseminate misleading information, aiming to confuse, paralyze, and polarize an audience. Disinformation can be considered an attack when it occurs as an adversarial narrative campaign that weaponizes multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value-laden judgements—to exploit and amplify identity-driven controversies. Disinformation attacks use media manipulation to target broadcast media like state-sponsored TV channels and radios. Due to the increasing use of internet manipulation on social media, they can be considered a cyber threat. Digital tools such as bots, algorithms, and AI technology, along with human agents including influencers, spread and amplify disinformation to micro-target populations on online platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Google, Facebook, and YouTube.

Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A large proportion of internet sources on the topic are mostly inaccurate which can lead people searching for information to form misconceptions relating to vaccines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-vaccine activism</span> Activism against vaccination

Anti-vaccine activism, which collectively constitutes the "anti-vax" movement, is a set of organized activities proclaiming opposition to vaccination, and these collaborating networks have often fought to increase vaccine hesitancy by disseminating vaccine-based misinformation and/or forms of active disinformation. As a social movement, it has utilized multiple tools both within traditional news media and also through various forms of online communication. Activists have primarily focused on issues surrounding children, with vaccination of the young receiving pushback, and they have sought to expand beyond niche subgroups into national political debates.

References

  1. ↑ Nuccitelli, Dana (23 October 2013). "Fox News defends global warming false balance by denying the 97% consensus". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
  2. ↑ Boykoff, Maxwell T; Boykoff, Jules M (2004). "Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press". Global Environmental Change. 14 (2): 125–136. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2003.10.001.
  3. ↑ Witynski, Max (22 July 2022). "False balance in news coverage of climate change makes it harder to address the crisis". Northwestern News. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
  4. ↑ Imundo, Megan N.; Rapp, David N. (June 2022). "When fairness is flawed: Effects of false balance reporting and weight-of-evidence statements on beliefs and perceptions of climate change". Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 11 (2): 258–271. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.10.002. ISSN   2211-369X . Retrieved 15 June 2023.
  5. ↑ Grimes, David Robert (2019). "A dangerous balancing act". EMBO Reports . 20 (8): e48706. doi:10.15252/embr.201948706. PMC   6680130 . PMID   31286661..
  6. ↑ Gross L (2009). "A broken trust: lessons from the vaccine—autism wars". PLoS Biol . 7 (5): 756–9. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000114 . PMC   2682483 . PMID   19478850.
  7. ↑ Thomas, Ryan J.; Tandoc, Edson C.; Hinnant, Amanda (February 2017). "False Balance in Public Health Reporting? Michele Bachmann, the HPV Vaccine, and "Mental Retardation"". Health Communication. 32 (2): 152–160. doi:10.1080/10410236.2015.1110006. ISSN   1532-7027. PMID   27192091. S2CID   3437969.
  8. ↑ Scott, Eugenie C. (2009). Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction (PDF) (Second ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN   9780313344275 . Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  9. ↑ Tabuchi, Hiroko (2 March 2020). "A Trump Insider Embeds Climate Denial in Scientific Research" . The New York Times .
  10. ↑ Krugman, Paul (30 January 2006). "A False Balance" . The New York Times .
  11. 1 2 Spayd, Liz (10 September 2016). "The Truth About 'False Balance'" . The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 13 September 2022.
  12. ↑ Deutschland, RedaktionsNetzwerk. "Dirk Steffens zu Umgang mit Corona- und Klimaleugnern: "Falsch, Verblendeten das Wort zu erteilen"". www.rnd.de (in German). Retrieved 13 September 2022.
  13. ↑ Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council (2006). Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years . Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. ISBN   0-309-10225-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ Unger, Nadine; Bond, Tami C.; Wang, James S.; Koch, Dorothy M.; Menon, Surabi; Shindell, Drew T.; Bauer, Susanne (23 February 2010). "Attribution of climate forcing to economic sectors". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . 107 (8): 3382–7. Bibcode:2010PNAS..107.3382U. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0906548107 . PMC   2816198 . PMID   20133724.
  15. ↑ Edenhofer, Ottmar; Pichs-Madruga, Ramón; Sokona, Youba; et al., eds. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change: Working Group III contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107415416. ISBN   9781107058217. OCLC   892580682.
  16. ↑ Anderegg, William R. L.; Prall, James W.; Harold, Jacob; Schneider, Stephen H. (6 July 2010). "Expert credibility in climate change". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (27): 12107–9. Bibcode:2010PNAS..10712107A. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107 . PMC   2901439 . PMID   20566872.
  17. ↑ Oreskes, Naomi (3 December 2004). "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". Science. 306 (5702): 1686. doi: 10.1126/science.1103618 . PMID   15576594.
  18. ↑ Doran, Peter T.; Zimmerman, Maggie Kendall (20 January 2009). "Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change" (PDF). Eos. 90 (3): 22–23. Bibcode:2009EOSTr..90...22D. doi:10.1029/2009EO030002. S2CID   128398335. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 September 2019. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  19. ↑ America's Climate Choices: Panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change; National Research Council (2010). Advancing the Science of Climate Change . Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. ISBN   978-0-309-14588-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  20. ↑ Moore Andrew (2006). "Bad science in the headlines: Who takes responsibility when science is distorted in the mass media?". EMBO Reports . 7 (12): 1193–1196. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400862. PMC   1794697 . PMID   17139292.
  21. ↑ Hilton S, Petticrew M, Hunt K (2007). "Parents' champions vs. vested interests: Who do parents believe about MMR? A qualitative study". BMC Public Health . 7: 42. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-7-42 . PMC   1851707 . PMID   17391507.
  22. ↑ Speers T, Justin L (September 2004). "Journalists and jabs: media coverage of the MMR vaccine". Communication and Medicine. 1 (2): 171–181. doi:10.1515/come.2004.1.2.171. PMID   16808699. S2CID   29969819.
  23. ↑ Jackson T (2003). "MMR: more scrutiny, please". The BMJ . 326 (7401): 1272. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7401.1272. PMC   1126154 .
  24. ↑ Dobson Roger (May 2003). "Media misled the public over the MMR vaccine, study says". The BMJ. 326 (7399): 1107. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7399.1107-a. PMC   1150987 . PMID   12763972.
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