CSN PRESS ROOM - Critical Balance Reporting Test: Responding to Journalists

Encouraging Readers to Reach out to Newsrooms & Journalists if Critical Balance Reporting Indicators are missing

Now the work begins. If we are to introduce the Critical Balance Reporting Indicators to journalists, we need to be mindful of the constraints in which they operate these days. It seems that at some point in the past decades, the ‘old school’ understandings that we once shared re: media balance have gone out the window. It was refreshing to read this statement in the January 15, 2025 Letter to Canadians from Governor General, Mary Simon:

There are also people in Canada who are doing groundbreaking work to make social media platforms safer. During my symposium on digital respect, I learned about several organizations helping youth, parents and teachers across the country engage safely and critically with media and the internet. We need safe online spaces where we can have healthy social interactions. We need to engage in genuine and respectful dialogue with people who hold diverse opinions, experiences and beliefs, even if we disagree. It is both healthy and constructive. https://www.gg.ca/en/media/news/2025/letter-canadians

But this stands in sharp contrast to statements like this recent one being made by the Canadian Medical Association:

Canada has experienced stunning change over the past several years in the way Canadians receive information. In a short time, we’ve moved from a few single points of truth to a wildly fragmented ecosystem, often split into echo chambers driven by bias and preference, fueled by opaque algorithms, and plagued by polarization. https://healthproviders.sharedhealthmb.ca/events/how-healthy-is-canadas-information-environment-action-in-the-face-of-misinformation/

It appears that those who lament the fact that we now have such a variety of ways to communicate a variety of perspectives are trying desperately to block the natural flow of information. As they consider this lament, readers might wish to refer to the drawing in this post:

Especially when it comes to science and medicine, but also in all other fields of inquiry, it is NOT THE JOB of the media, or of professional organizations, or of government agencies to be the red X, i.e. to attempt to block information from flowing.

Instead, it is their job to ensure that a variety of viewpoints are presented ALONG WITH REFERECES TO THE EVIDENCE FROM WHICH THE VIEWPOINTS DERIVE, and to let the public learn about the knowledge creation process. Person A is telling us xxx, and is basing his arguments on yyy. Person B is telling us aaa and is basing her arguments on bbb. In response to Person B’s arguments, Person A brings up mmm. Meanwhile, in response to Person A’s arguments, Person B brings up nnn. The journalist is not supposed to take a side. Rather, the journalist is to provide the needed contexualization, and ensure a diversity of opinion is sought out, objectively evaluating the data. In this way, journalists model information literacy and critical analysis for the news-following public. In their work, journalists ensure source transparency, accuracy, professionalism and independence.

The media platform is not supposed to favour one viewpoint over the others. Advertisers who support the platform must be informed that if they wish to buy favourable coverage, they can do so ONLY within the context of paid commercials. News articles are NOT INFOMERCIALS or PROPAGANDA.

If sources being cited claim that those with opposing views are to be censored out, they may need to be reminded of the research process and questioned as to how and when they last looked at findings within the field they represent. Could it be that they are operating with an old understanding of the issues, one that has been frozen in time and not continuously updated with new understandings?

Consider this recent observation on the research process:

The scientific method is a dynamic process that involves objectively investigating questions through observation and experimentation. Applicable to all scientific disciplines, this systematic approach to answering questions is more accurately described as a flexible set of principles than as a fixed series of steps. https://www.aje.com/arc/what-is-the-scientific-method/

For the Canadian Medical Association to even claim that we once were sitting on “a few single points of truth” before everything supposedly deteriorated into a “wildly fragmented ecosystem, often split into echo chambers driven by bias and preference, fueled by opaque algorithms, and plagued by polarization” is purely non-sensical. In fact, it represents a total corruption of the ethics behind the much vaunted and ever so critical scientific method of inquiry.

As we referenced in our previous post, journalism schools have been scaring their students away from a natural impulse to ensure fairness in their coverage of news. They have been doing so by warning students against providing ‘false balance’ or ‘false equivalency’. Instead, they should be telling their students to present the key opposing viewpoints, and the supporting evidence cited by holders of the viewpoints, for the news-following public to come to their own conclusions.

Currently, journalism students are being told to sniff out “where the consensus lies”, to report on that consensus only and to avoid reporting on any voices shouting from tiny molehills. “They should only report scientifically outlier positions if solid evidence supports it, not just because someone is shouting it from their own tiny molehill.” This statement is positively dripping with irony, given that it was made by a highly regarded science journalist, adjunct professor of journalism, and contributing editor at the Scientific American. Apparently, she is unaware of the struggles of those consummate professionals following the systematic approach of continual observation and experimentation inherent in the scientific method. These people are “shouting from their own tiny molehills” with all the might they can muster, simply because the corporate system backing the industry she is fully part of, is working hard at keeping their voices and their scientific findings off the pages of their publications.

Unbeknownst to her, and to the many reporters who think as she does, what was once a molehill (for example in the case of mRNA injection adverse events, or even climate science) has quickly become a large mountain of peer reviewed and validated evidence, pointing to everchanging realities. Continuous interactions of the cycle that demands scientists observe/hypothesize/test/review/observe/hypothesize/ test/review/observe/… should never allow journal editors, medical associations, or anyone else, to simply sit on last year’s findings and claim them to be the ONE TRUTH, WHOLE TRUTH and NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.

This is all so very confusing for journalists wanting to get paid every two weeks. Who is to be believed? Those organizations which claim a monopoly on the truth and who have the financial connections to those ‘fact checking’ controllers of the internet? Or those who have been officially cast aside in mainstream reporting as ‘misinformation providers’? People so deep in their work of following the science, often those who have been placed on leave or even fired by their captured employers, that they are looking to side jobs and family fundraisers to pay the bills to allow them to continue the research on an unpaid basis…

Readers of this post who have not yet heard of the struggles of scientists such as University of Guelph virologist Dr. Byram Bridle are invited to scan the list of Homegrown Heroes we included in Issue 40 of Canadian Sharaeble News for further investigation. Who had the gall to put red Xs in their way, in order to prevent their findings from reaching the public? To have members of the ‘establishment’ warn AGAINST ‘outliers’ AFTER the ‘establishment’ puts all sorts of barriers in their way, preventing them from publishing in the high value journals for example, is neither ethical nor scientifically defensible.

In her 2016 article Facts vs Opinions - Beware of False Balance in your Reporting, science journalist Tara Haelle wrote: “a case of classic false balance: using outliers’ voices to state opinions that contradict the facts simply to provide “balance” to a story.” She warns journalists not to give any prominence to voices whose experiences and observations contradict settled science, citing a concern that to do so would damage public health reporting and public health.

Interestingly, she does invite new studies that might suggest risks “that we haven’t seen before.” AND she uses the shouting from the molehill analogy a few years before it was used by the Scientific American editor.

Avoiding false balance doesn’t mean journalists take off their skeptical hat in covering these issues – it’s worth exploring whether the Flint crisis is overblown or what a new study might suggest regarding a risk to a vaccine we haven’t seen before. But they should only report scientifically outlier positions if solid evidence supports it, not just because someone is shouting it from their own tiny molehill.

EXAMPLE LETTER

To: Name of Journalist, Email address

Thank you for your recent article on (TOPIC) published here (URL) on (DATE). I read it with interest because (WHY the topic matters). I noted however, that when you consulted expert sources to provide their insights, you limited yourself to those with the view that (VIEWPOINT). Is there a reason you did not seek out other viewpoints?

I understand that newsrooms are very busy places with everyone in a perpetual time crunch, and that editors may have a distinct bias to have controversial issues covered from a single angle. Perhaps you have not yet learned of the value brought to the discussion by those who are aware of growing evidence pointing at (OPPOSITE VIEWPOINT).

I am writing to inform you of the newly introduced draft Critical Balance Reporting Test. It has been proposed as a tool to elevate the quality of journalism, to rebuild trust in the media and to provide Canadians with a better understanding of the iterative nature of the scientific method. Science can never be ‘settled’. To hint otherwise might be to tacitly support those who profit when other viewpoints are censored out of the discussion.

To learn about the 8 indicators that make up this test, and to refer to them as you put together your next articles, see Introducing the Critical Balance Reporting Test. These indicators are being proposed by a small Canadian PDF/Substack publication that for over 40 weeks has been highlighting concerns around censorship and Information Omission in Canada. Your feedback would be welcomed.

Sincerely

Name/Location