As Zurawski explains, television is the lens through which we see the world. How these lens influence science and our educational choices on the topic is vitally important. Indeed, our very survival depends on it. According to Nielson reports for November, 2009, 99 percent of American households possess television sets. These are often turned on for an average of seven hours per day. Despite the explosion of social networking on the internet, patterned after reality TV programming and other incarnations such as Youtube most content on either medium is constantly being reinvented with economic imperatives ensuring that real science news seldom wiggles to the surface. Rather than television being superseded by the internet it is the other way round. Because of computers and the internet, television is evolving into a greater force than ever before.

As a meteorologist, documentary film producer, television host and university lecturer with a background in physics, Zurawski deconstructs the ways in which scientific findings are programmed, usually by people in the field with nominal if any scientific credentials themselves. They are governed by journalistic practices that aim for controversy. “Both sides” of a non existent debate are presented in ways that only serve to confuse the viewer and discredit the scientific findings. He goes to great lengths to describe “the scientific method” and how it is antithetical to simplistic reporting of news which thrives on dissent. But while his analysis of the differences and how they cloud our understanding of vital scientific information is useful, he glosses over the academic debate over scientific method, itself, and how money and political objectives can often buy findings despite application of the most conventional and sophisticated methodological practices. In my own study of the process and how it is manipulated, three rules still seem key in assessing the validity of any research findings: Who is providing the funding? What is the purpose of the project? What kind of questions are being asked? Zurawski does, however, illustrate how journalists consistently ask the wrong questions, particularly when reporting on natural disasters and climate change. Details are also provided on how vested business interests colluded with the Conservative Government of the day in discrediting the green shift election platform offered to the Canadian public by Stephane Dion as liberal leader at the time.

On the whole, he reinforces important arguments already made by many scholars, scientific and otherwise. Whether it is the evolution of Fox News programs set up for an examination of “junk science” or the constant emphasis on feeding an increasingly illiterate audience what they will watch because ratings are what count, we are in a crisis. Simply put the media, itself, must change if we are to have a sustainable future. Viewer science literacy has been shown to be linked to televison programming in general and as the bar is lowered across the board, viewer science understanding is also lowered. The dumbing down of science often includes documentaries in consolidated environments which are reduced to nothing more than glorified reality shows where the emphasis is on actors in natural, green settings. We are reminded that we cannot continue to allow confusion to be deliberately created on vital issues such as climate change, the intrusion of pseudo science into the education system, vaccinations and autism, alternate energy, space research, alternative medicine, undirected scientific research versus applied science, among others. The reporting practice of using scientists in a stereotypical fashion and only as spokespersons for one side or another of what are usually artificial arguments is counterproductive to the growth of useful knowledge essential to meeting the challenges ahead. What is advocated is a solid background in both science and journalistic practices among those who make the news, especially television programming.

Zurawski concludes with a quote from Pulitzer Prize winning author, Chris Hedges’s book The Empire of Illusion in which the growing problem of functional illiteracy in North America is discussed. Canada has an illiterate and semiliterate population estimated at 42 percent of the whole, a proportion that mirrors the United States. These are, of course, ominous trends that underscore the urgency of changing the media in order to change the world. In this context, the book is a valuable addition to a growing emphasis on the need to reform the media in order to save the world.

—by Rose A Dyson, President of Canadians Concerned About Violence in Entertainment, Vice President Canadian Peace Research Association

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 The cover of Richard Zurawski’s new book, Media Mediocrity, contains a sly bit of fun in its subtitle. “How the television makes us stooped!” it proclaims. The internet-savvy reader recognizes the curious spelling of “stupid” as a reference to the rise of instant texting, messaging and the inability of many people to spell even ordinary words correctly. While the title might make us smile, the immaterial inside this book is far more explosive, serious…and important to read. 

Many people know Zurawski as the amiable meteorologist who has been on many television stations, or perhaps as host of a children’s science program called “Wonder Why” which ran for several seasons on Atlantic stations. He’s currently the on-air meteorologist for several private radio stations, but also is a documentary film producer, university lecturer and passionate advocate for putting the science back into science reporting in the media. His newest book, following several well-received books on Maritime weather and climate change, takes huge issue with the way science has been dumbed down in media reporting, particularly on television.

“Big Business and Big Media have become inseparable,” Zurawski writes, backing this up with some of the myriad clever ways tobacco companies, neoconservative politicians and religious fundamentalists have been able to insert their agendas into media reporting. As he points out, one doesn’t have to be literate to watch television, and the unfortunate truth is that four out of five viewers get their science “knowledge” from watching television. With many television networks dropping their science reporters and dumping the workload onto already overworked general reporters who aren’t able to think critically about the subjects they’re called on to report, it’s easy for information to be manipulated into something palatable for the masses.

Zurawski must feel sometimes like Cassandra, crying a warning in the wilderness but unheeded by far too man. He posits no easy answers because educating ourselves with actual scientific facts and information can be difficult – the topic of global warming being a prime example. Learning to think critically, especially in a climate where critical thinking is attacked by opponents as being “naysaying” and “against progress”, is also no easy task. Zuraswki ends his book by writing that he hopes his work has been one small step in changing the way television presents science news for the better. Media Mediocrity is well-worth reading – Jodi DeLong, Atlantic Books Today, Fall 2011

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Science Fights Back–But is it really television that nurses our ignorance, or society more broadly?

Richard Zurawski is a very angry man. He is also deeply concerned. How concerned? Here is his statement a few pages into this blistering book: “Science has been systematically attacked, both from within and from without. And the attack has overwhelmed our society in a matter of decades and undermined centuries of progress and enlightenment … It is not an overstatement to say we are on the threshold of losing five centuries of progress and regressing backwards to a time when fear, superstition and vested interests, instead of science and scientific facts, dominate.”

He goes on to say that while we are not quite at the point of burning scientists at the stake, there are ongoing witch hunts against scientists. You get the picture and, on the surface and in general, one cannot disagree. There is, in contemporary North American society, a blithe disregard for accepted scientific facts. One only has to look at the cold prevention and anti-aging products sold during commercial breaks on TV to realize that many consumers do not know how colds or influenza are spread and have little grasp of the facts about aging bodies. And some governments, including the Conservative government in Canada, have made a point of diminishing scientific data, with examples ranging from the bizarre decision to scrap the long-form census to reduced research funding, to a concocted skepticism about some areas of environmental science.

As Zurawski sees it, the main culprit is television. This is not, however, a book by someone who is ignorant of the ways of television. (As the television critic for a national newspaper, I have come to the conclusion that the proudest boast of the Canadian intellectual is “I haven’t owned a television in years!”) Zurawski is media-savvy. He is the chief meteorologist for a group of radio stations in the Maritimes, an occasional TV host and the producer of many documentaries for television. He has also produced a science education TV series that has aired on countless channels. Thus he approaches the enemy, television, as an insider. This is good – there are enough Canadian crackpots attacking TV – but it also makes it a tad harder to accept some of his assertions.

Zurawski is correct about the urge to simplify things on TV, an urge that often means that truths established in science are abandoned in favour of an easily understood story. He cites the example of the enormous attention paid to two scientists who, in 1989, claimed to have discovered the secret of “cold fusion,” raising hopes of a cheap, new energy source. It was a great story—a huge scientific breakthrough using what he describes as “a set-up that a grade twelve high school science student could rig up.” The problem was that the “discovery” was made and announced without any peer review by other scientists and has so far not been successfully replicated.

Zurawski is also right about the scientific ignorance of many TV reporters, anchors and story producers. Mind you, most reporters and editors at newspapers, magazines and websites also lack a thorough grounding in science. So it seems a bit unfair to blame television, as Zurawski does in the main. It is a fact that most television operations have reduced their news staff and increasingly rely on other sources to generate their news content. Thus, when a piece of dubious science is offered as an item on the TV news, the originating frailty or false assumption begins not with television, but with somebody posting a pithy and probably dodgy item on a news website.

Essentially, Zurawski asserts that “educational TV” is an oxymoron. There is truth to that. The idea, prevalent in the 1950s, that the medium could educate as effectively as it entertained is now lost in the mists of time. The weekly PBS program Nova, devoted to scientific research, was launched in 1974, but its straightforward style of presentation—no colourful hosts, no wacky personal content—would never get past a pitch meeting at a TV network today, probably not even at PBS. The BBC, the CBC and public broadcasters all over the world play greatly reduced roles in education. However, this state of things has less to do with those who work in public television than it does with governments that want to see the value of taxpayer-funded broadcasters reflected in ratings success, not vague assurances that the next great intellectual is being nourished by nature documentaries and a friendly teacher offering advice on homework. Hardly the fault of the medium itself.

While there is much to admire in Zurawski’s well-articulated rage against television—he knows his McLuhan—the book tends to blame television for reflecting what is going on in the world. Blaming TV shows for airing the anti-science views of religious fundamentalists is rather like blaming The Globe and Mail for publishing ridiculous horoscopes every day. The horoscope predictions are not responsible for what Zurawski calls “the resurgence of superstition, the paranormal, fringe medical practices, creationism, global warming denial, anti vaccination and conspiracy theories and a host of other quackery.” But Zurawski says the resurgence in these issues “can be laid directly at the foot of our television broadcasters, who value ratings and profit over fact.”

Well, excuse me, but television is about as guilty of creating an acceptance of superstition and science denial as the horoscope-printing newspaper. Surely the existence of medical quackery is neither new nor is it television’s responsibility, and the same applies to the paranormal. What is missing in this fascinating and argumentative book is the matter of viewers taking responsibility for what they consume and being educated enough to tell quackery and quasi-science from scientific truth. In reading some of Zurawski’s rants about the lack of rigour in alleged scientific information presented on TV, I was reminded of a droll comedy bit by Canadian comic Norm MacDonald. He “read somewhere” that men think about sex every twelve seconds or so. He then describes a day in his life, walking down the street, thinking about the shoes he is wearing and the fact that his underwear is uncomfortable. He notices a new building, then some guy he recognizes. It is a long time before he thinks about sex. He concludes that the term “every now and then” is not one that scientists like to use. Not everything can be measured rigorously, and suggesting that it can is an assault on the truth of human experience.

Oddly, in his conclusions—perhaps having got his frustrations off his chest—the author finally acknowledges the limits of television as a device for explaining and spreading scientific information. He even has praise for some programs on the cable channel Discovery that allow scientists to talk at length and avoid the tendency to dumb down. He also concludes that training in science journalism needs to be taken seriously and he outlines some useful tenets for that. He still says that “TV needs to change drastically,” but he marshals several relevant proposals for scientists and viewers to make that happen.

This is a cogent book, a worthwhile lambasting of TV in some key areas of responsibility. (There is an excellent “references and further reading” section.) It is correct about large issues and wrong about small ones. It tends to paint television in broad strokes and forget that, as a medium, television is only as powerful as its audience. What blame is laid on television should properly be laid on those who watch it. That is, all of us. Even those Canadian intellectuals who fib about not watching it. If TV is mediocre, then we are. TV might help make us lazy consumers of information, but it does not make us “stoopid,” as the book’s full title suggests. That is just not a scientific fact.

—John Doyle is the television critic for The Globe and Mail and the author of A Great Feast of Light: Growing Up Irish in the Television Age (Anchor, 2006) and The World Is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer (Doubleday, 2010).

—Literary Review of Canada, June 2011

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It is often said you shouldn’t believe everything you see on television, and with good reason.

”Everybody thinks television is benign, it is an entertainment source, it is one of those things that doesn’t have much of an effect on society,” says Richard Zurawski, the noted meteorologist and media personality. “What I want people to realize is that television is the most influential medium we’ve ever had.”

Zurawski is the author of Media Mediocrity: Waging War Against Science, a fascinating new book which looks at the negative effects television has on people’s understanding of science.

”If you think you’re getting . . . good information from television, to quote NBC: You’re dreaming in technicolour,” says Zurawski.

He says this problem is further compounded by the fact most journalists don’t have backgrounds in science.

”Today, we have very serious science issues all over the place and nobody that’s reporting this stuff on television really understands it,” says Zurawski.

The inspiration for the book came from his realization that most people get their science information from television. To many, Zurawski is best known for his work on Wonder Why?, a television science show that ran in the early 1990s.

”We’re not much of a reading society anymore,” notes Zurawski.

As a broadcaster, Zurawski is well known for his ability to communicate complex ideas in an easy to understand manner. Media Mediocrity isn’t any different and it is one of the things that should make this book mandatory reading material for students (and adults alike).

—Richard Woodbury is a writer and editor from Halifax.

—Chronicle Hearld, May 1 2011

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