A new study shows that two of the top U.S. cable news companies are guilty of airing misleading reports about climate change. The study also showed that of the top three cable networks, MSNBC aired the most accurate reports on climate issues.
The study was conducted by Aaron Heurtas and Rachel Kriegsman from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Huertas is the press secretary of the union while Kriegsman is part of the union's climate and Energy Program. The aim of the study was to asses the accuracy of cable new coverage relating to climate science, climate change and other climate-related issues.
"Our national debate about climate policy is broken," said Huertas and Kriegsman. "Too often, policy makers and other public figures make misleading statements that question whether climate change is human- induced-or is even occurring at all-rather than debating whether and how to respond to risks from climate change that scientists have identified.
Huertas and Kriegsman also studied the results of the top news networks' coverage on climate science with regards to public perception.
"Media outlets can do more to foster a fact-based conversation about climate change and policies designed to address it," the pair added.
The researchers found that all three news networks aired inaccurate results. However, CNN and Fox News aired reports that were mostly biased against climate science while MSNBC leaned more toward the opposite end of the spectrum.
"To gauge how accurately elite media outlets inform audiences on climate science, we analyzed climate science coverage across the three major cable news networks: Cable News Network (CNN), Fox News Channel, and MSNBC," Huertas and Kriegsman said. "We found that the accuracy of this coverage varied significantly across networks. In 2013, 70 percent of climate-science-related segments on CNN were accurate, 28 percent of Fox News Channel segments were accurate, and 92 percent of such segments on MSNBC were accurate."
Fox News came out on top when it comes to airing misleading reports. Moreover, a large percentage of the inaccurate reporting from Fox News was caused by discussions on "The Five," a talk show. On the other hand, Fox's "Special Report with Bret Baier" and "The O'Reilly Factor" were found to provide the most accurate reporting on climate science of all the shows on the network.
For CNN, the study found that the network generally aired accurate reports on climate science. However, the fact that the network regularly airs interviews and discussions with climate change deniers skewed the study's results. A majority of CNN's errors were from climate "debates" and the study's authors recommended that the debates should be minimized.
MSNBC yielded the most promising results and the network consistently showed an almost flawless track record when it comes to accurate coverage on climate issues. However, the network did air reports that contained a few misleading statements. Most of these statements came from guests and hosts that tended to overstate the effects of climate change.
"Climate science can be complex and can be difficult to cover. Still, each of these networks, regardless of its overall performance, has shown that it can get the science right," said Huertas and Kriegsman. "This is a trend to build upon. Each can - and should - do more to achieve higher levels of accuracy."
