Media coverage of the evolution controversy

Seeing as to how the issue of evolution, creation, and intelligent design is catching attention in the United States, it is probably important to pay attention to how the media is portraying the issue. At the Discovery Institute website, the following accusation is made:

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A Blog about the Media and Evolution

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The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this new blog. The newsmedia in the U.S. seem to have rediscovered the evolution controversy recently. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in several cases, overtly biased.

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A more thorough criticism of media portrayal is presented here:
NEW BLOG: Media Coverage of Evolution Focus of New CSC BlogThis blog continually cites and criticizes a number of media articles, often available on the internet, that negatively portray intelligent design. An example is a criticism of this article in the highly respected TIME magazine, as discussed in this post, and in greater detail in this post.My question to all of you is, would you agree that the issue has been portrayed unfairly by the media? Specifically, would any of you agree that there is bias in favor of evolution defenders/ID attackers?

That's fair (in fact I generally agree), but I was hoping that some of the points raised in the CSC blog would be addressed. The blog raises many criticisms of media portrayal, which on the surface at least, sound valid.This message has been edited by Aximili23, 01-29-2005 23:46 AM

All right. For starters:Based on the TIME article that I mentioned earlier, and from the post in the CSC blog:

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1. Although a major focus of the story is whether intelligent design is science, Time doesn't bother to quote any scientists who support the theory. It's not because Time didn't interview any of them. Jeffrey Ressner told me that he had interviewed biochemist Michael Behe. But Time didn't quote him. Why not? Perhaps Behe didn't fit the preconceived stereotypes of Time's reporters? Or were they afraid that citing a professor of biological sciences at an American university might undermine their effort to stereotype design as a religious crusade?

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2. According to Time:

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The intellectual underpinnings of the latest assault on Darwin's theory come not from Bible-wielding Fundamentalists but from well-funded think tanks promoting a theory they call intelligent design, or I.D. for short.
  —TIME

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Actually, "the intellectual underpinnings" of intelligent design come not from any think tank, but from the biologists, biochemists, physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, philosophers, and other scholars who have developed design theory. When Discovery Institute started its program on intelligent design in 1996, many of the leading scholars supportive of design were already writing and researching in this area. The theory of design predates any involvement by a think tank. Time does its best to obscure the fact that the chief proponents of ID have been academics from a variety of scientific fields.

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Any thoughts?

And this complaint, though more trivial, perhaps more strongly suggests bias?

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7. Time's slanted reporting continues by distorting what I said...

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Putting God in the classroom is clearly illegal, but Discovery Institute strategists believe that even a push for I.D. might run afoul of zealous judges--as it has in Georgia. So the institute advocates that schools should continue teaching evolution but also present what West calls "some of the scientific criticism of major parts of the theory."

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The wording here is biased and misleading. Time claims that a concern about "zealous judges" is behind Discovery Institute's opposition to requiring the teaching of intelligent design. This is a serious distortion of what I told Time's reporter. The primary reason we oppose requiring the teaching of intelligent design is because it is a relatively new theory, and we think the focus right now should be on promoting the debate and discussion of ID in the academic community among scientists and other scholars. I made this point very clearly to Mr. Ressner. But Time does not quote it. Instead, it focuses on a minior comment I made responding to a point brought up by Ressner himself. It was Ressner, not me, who suggested that Discovery's position was somehow motivated by a concern about judges. It now appears that Mr. Ressner wanted to get me to provide him with a soundbyte that would confirm what he already planned to have me say. Even so, I did not say that a concern for zealous judges was the reason we didn't want to require the teaching of design. I did say (in response to his question) that although we think intelligent design is perfectly constitutional, who knows how certain judges would rule on the issue. But, again, my main point--which Time ignored and refused to print--was that we think the focus should be on promoting a vigorous debate about design in the academic community.

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The most common accusation that I encounter against media portrayal of the issue is that it doesn't present the so-called "scientific arguments" against evolution or for alternative theories such as intelligent design. For example, when National Geographic came out with a feature article last November titled "Was Darwin wrong?", I checked out the forum hosted by the NG website. I repeatedly came across posts from creationist readers who were outraged to find National Geographic to be so heavily biased in support of creationism. A good example is the most recent post (at the time of this writing):

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I am amazed at how quickly this forum got off the topic of "Was Darwin Wrong".

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I was disappointed that this article was so biased in its support of Darwinism. It's not just the American populace who have trouble accepting evolutionism. Many evolutionists & former evolutionists are recognizing big problems with the theory - for instance Michael Denton. Evolution is far from being universally accepted by scientists. There was no mention in the article about the question of how life originated in the first place. Science doesn't have a clue, much less a theory. There was also no recognition of the fact that many respected scientists are now leaning toward Intelligent Design.

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Even the famous atheist Anthony Flew has concluded that life could not have originated by chance or naturalistic means.

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What's apparent, especially to readers who really do know what evolutionary theory is about, is that there isn't any unfairness in the media. Rather, there's just a perceived bias because of the unfortunate ignorance that so many fundamentalist christians/creationists have regarding regarding true scientific opinion on these matters. This is due in large part, no doubt, to the ID propaganda mill.

This article seems to be broadly relevant to the topic:Blinded By Science: How ‘Balanced’ Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/6/mooney-science.asp