Tenure, University of Colorado, and the Local Newspaper
April 25th, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Many of my colleagues at the University of Colorado are convinced that our local Boulder newspaper, The Daily Camera, carries some grudge against the university. Today’s front page headline in the Camera on the release yesterday of a report on tenure here does not hurt their case:
CU tenure flawed: Independent study says it is too hard to fire tenured professors
Here is how the Chronicle of Higher Education headlined their coverage of the same report:
Outside Report Applauds Tenure System at U. of Colorado
Interesting difference in perspective. For those interested in the tenure report itself, you can find it here.
April 25th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
A reporter at the Camrea asks me to look at the coverage by the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News:
Rocky:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_4648538,00.html
editorial:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/editorials/article/0,2777,DRMN_23964_4647470,00.html
Post:
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3749345
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3746480
The Chronicle seems to be the outlier here.
April 25th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Well gee whiz, the Chronicle of Higher Education wouldn’t have a vested interest in this, would they?
April 25th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
You can have lots of fun hunting down all the little biases in media reporting (especially headline choice). Here is one that I noticed today that is relevant to this website:
“Global warming blamed for 2005 hurricanes”
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/25/global.warming.hurricanes.reut/index.html
You have to go half-way down the article (which many people don’t do!) before you find quotes like this:
“While many of the conference’s 500 scientists seem to agree that a warming trend in the tropics is causing more and stronger hurricanes than usual, not all agree that global warming is to blame.”
Frankly, the relationship between hurricanes and GW is not well understood. While it is likely that there is some increase in intensity and/or frequency, we really don’t know and definitely can’t blame individual or a small set of hurricanes on GW, as the headline seems to indicate. Of course, I couldn’t even find a corresponding article on foxnews.com. I am not sure which bias is worse.
April 25th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
As an unbiased observer of the media scene (cough cough) I observe that all the denizens of any institution that is involved in even mild controvservy (that includes y’all there at the U of C, I think) believe that their local media carries some grudge against them.
This does not mean that said denizens are wrong.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Colorado? Controversy?
I actually tend to agree with John’s perspective on this issue. However, when I saw the two headlines today I had to throw a bone to my colleagues who make the other case.
April 25th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
You do not have a problem. This is a problem http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dickeson2.pdf