Media ‘impartiality’ on climate change is ethically misguided and downright dangerous

In September 2019, the editor of The Conversation, Misha Ketchell, declared The Conversation’s editorial team in Australia was henceforth taking what he called a “zero-tolerance” approach to climate change deniers and sceptics. Their comments would be blocked and their accounts locked.

A catastrophic summer has brought climate change into
 sharp relief – and our media need to have clear policies about
how to report on it.

His reasons were succinct:

Climate change deniers and those shamelessly peddling pseudoscience and misinformation are perpetuating ideas that will ultimately destroy the planet.

From the standpoint of conventional media ethics, it was a dramatic, even shocking, decision. It seemed to violate journalism’s principle of impartiality – that all sides of a story should be told so audiences could make up their own minds.

But in the era of climate change, this conventional approach is out of date. A more analytical approach is called for.

Read the story from The Conversation by Denis Muller - “Media ‘impartiality’ on climate change is ethically misguided and downright dangerous.”