Notice that all of these sceptic bloggers are self-employed businessmen. Their strengths are networks and feedback: mistakes get quickly corrected; new leads are opened up; expertise is shared; links are made. Prejudice and ignorance abound too, but the good blogs get rewarded with scoops and guest essays so they tap into rich seams of knowledge. When Montford first ran his now classic post called ‘Caspar and the Jesus paper’, about the shenanigans the IPCC had to resort to in order to get a flawed paper rebutting McIntyre into the peer-reviewed literature in time to use it in their report, word of mouth caused interest in his website to explode.
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The common theme in these three accounts is that journalists have lost their position as information gatekeepers. If people don’t trust journalists, they’ll go somewhere else. So it’s up to journalists to regain trust.
Some would say journalists can do so by being more honest about their own agendas and the limits to their knowledge. Others say journalists can win back the public by “framing” science in a way that uses the public’s emotions and fears. Read more.
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