Climate change

Paul Holmes is absolutely right about Media Matters for America’s conclusion that Reuters coverage of climate change worsened in the past six months and continues to decline [Reuters climate change coverage ‘worsened’ - study]. How can you possibly reach that conclusion without taking into account what actually happened in the comparable periods?

Under Media Matters’ standards for judging quality of coverage, should we say Reuters coverage of Crimea has improved in the past week and continues to grow, thus ascribing an unjustified quality distinction just because nothing happened there in the previous week?

Clearly, to be taken seriously, Media Matters needs to carry out a far deeper contextual examination before making a judgment call. Then we could at least know if this particular conclusion is justified or not. ■