Why Evidence Doesn't Matter
Given that a good reporter is supposed to be both truthful and balanced, how should journalists cover an issue when opposing camps refuse to agree on the very nature of the truth? (In other words, in this current political climate, how should journalists cover literally any issue at all?) As psychology professor Derek J. Koehler explained last year in a piece for New York Times Sunday Review , “standard journalistic practice” is to represent both sides of an issue, but when the vast majority of qualified experts share one stance on a topic, while only a tiny minority disagree, giving equal weight to each viewpoint can be extremely misleading. The BBC has adopted “weight of evidence” reporting, which attempts a compromise by giving airtime to experts with both perspectives, while also being careful to inform the public that one school of thought is far more widely accepted. However, Koehler had his suspicions about how effective this really was, so he decided t...