Yesterday's controversy with Sinclair planning to give the Plandemic conspiracy theory an airing brings up the issue - how can the media cover scientific issues that feature misinformation & conspiracy theories without misleading the public?... 1/7
I address the issue of false balance media coverage with @Sander_vdLinden, @maibached & @stworg in the Consensus Handbook sks.to/chb 2/7 
The problem with false balance media coverage is it conveys the impression of a 50:50 debate amongst scientists, which conveys a misleading impression when there’s scientific consensus. 3/7
I also discuss this in my latest COVID video about false equivalence - false balance assumes both sides are of equal quality which is misleading when one view is based on scientific evidence & the other view is based on conspiracy theories 4/7
So how can the media cover issues with contrarian voices without false balance & misleading their audience? One suggestion is by communicating the weight-of-evidence or weight-of-scientists - put the tiny proportion of dissenting voices in proportion. 5/7
An entertaining version of weight-of-scientists coverage is the @LastWeekTonight climate change episode by @iamjohnoliver 6/7
More info on this issue is in our Consensus Handbook (pages 8, 9). sks.to/chb 7/7
