In trying to uphold journalistic norms of objectivity, fairness, and balance, does the news media inadvertently leave the public with a skewed impression of reality? A series of studies investigates the impact that “balanced coverage” has on perceptions of scientific consensus. In Experiment 1, 248 participants were asked to read a news article covering an obscure scientific debate. One side of the debate was described as being held by a majority of scientists, and the other by a minority. All that differed between participants was the percentage of space in the article devoted to each side of the debate. Findings suggest that participants became increasingly skeptical of the majority view as coverage of the minority increased. Follow up studies explore potential ways of overriding this coverage effect. Most notably, a simple parenthetical enumerating the exact percentage of scientists in the majority decreased participant skepticism, even for those low in numeracy.