Science is at the heart of many of the world’s greatest crises, including infectious disease outbreaks, weather- and climate-related catastrophes, and energy sector exploitation and accidents.
When science journalists are called upon to report these stories, lack of familiarity with local contexts raises the risk of biased, inaccurate and insensitive reporting. Examples of this bias are seen in some of the portrayals of people and societies affected by disease outbreaks and in coverage of confrontations over resource extraction on lands owned or occupied by indigenous communities.
This session, presented on October 28, 2017 at the 10th World Conference of Science Journalists in San Francisco, CA, convened a diverse panel of journalists from around the world to explore how science journalists can anticipate and avoid these pitfalls to drive more accurate, and unbiased, coverage of global crises.
