“…In doing so, this study builds on the limited research investigating the portrayal of scientific evidence in the news (Zehr, 2000;Antilla, 2005;Ruhrmann et al, 2015;Guenther et al, 2019), and, more specifically, the portrayal of scientific uncertainty in such coverage (Ashe, 2013;Dan and Raupp, 2018;van der Bles et al, 2019). Previous studies have revealed a general tendency for news media to gloss over uncertainties and unknowns when covering science and health issues (Jung Oh et al, 2012;Hove et al, 2015;Schneider, 2016;Dan and Raupp, 2018). However, this tendency appears to vary by topic; unlike other science issues, media coverage of some controversial research areas, such as climate change and vaccine safety, often appears "falsely balanced"-that is, it overemphasizes scientific uncertainties, conflicting results, and contrarian perspectives in order to appear journalistically neutral (Zehr, 2000;Corbett and Durfee, 2004;Dixon and Clarke, 2013).…”