MediaShift's science journalism coverage is sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School, which offers an innovative specializedM.A. for experienced journalists who want to cover science, business, arts or politics in a sophisticated, nuanced manner. Learn more here.
If you regularly do a Twitter search for the words "science journalism," like I do, you'll be amazed, amused and sometimes shocked by the amount of bashing science journalism takes in the Twittersphere. It shows that not all science journalism is created equal, and it's a sign of the times, really: Not all journalists who write about science are actually science journalists. They're general journalists who were -- willingly or out of necessity -- given a science story to cover that day.
Newsrooms are under pressure. Revenues are down, budgets are being cut, and journalists are losing their jobs. Sadly, it's often the specialists whose jobs get axed, which is a bit puzzling. It's with specialized content, not with general news, that magazines and newspapers can compete for niche dominance. Yet in the face of cuts, some media resort tochurnalism, where press releases from the ever-expanding PR departments of universities and research institutions are published unchecked. Others make the journalists who are left behind pick up the beats -- beats they've never specialized in before.
Yet, never more than today has the need for sound science journalism been so great.
Sure, knowing whether cows line up with the Earth's magnetic field will probably not change your life, but climate change and electric vehicles will. Knowledge drives the economy of most developed countries and more and more developing countries; academia creates jobs and exports products like technological innovations and scientists. In the face of all this, people need trustworthy and critical science journalism now, and more so in the future.
Journalists need the intellectual tools to counter the claims on science by even presidential candidates. Michele Bachmann in 2008 said that global warming is a hoax.
For example, science has once again become a ball in the game of the upcoming presidential elections. Some of the candidates try to use medieval ideas about science to woo their followers. Since the book "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre, British doctor and critic of scientific inaccuracy, is not compulsory reading for high school students (it should be, by the way), we need journalists with a proper knowledge of science to separate fact from fiction.
WHY SCIENCE NEEDS A SPECIALTY
So why should science journalism be considered a specialism? What sets it apart from general news coverage? For starters, just like journalists who cover economics or politics or sports, science journalists require a more than average knowledge of the field they're covering.
Today's multitasking journalists cannot be expected to cover all beats equally well. Their editors-in-chief will say that all journalists should be able to cover science; it's a matter of asking the right questions. That's partly true, but only a good understanding of the field you are covering lets you know what the right questions are.
Science requires a lot of explaining, since the metabolism of the human body or the workings of quantum mechanics cannot be considered general knowledge. It helps when a journalist knows the difference between an atom and a molecule, correlation and causation, knows what a p value, the placebo effect, control groups and randomized trials are. They should know that reporting on a phase one clinical trial is premature, that not everything that's found in rats can be instantly translated to humans, and that most studies on diet should be taken with a pinch of salt.................
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/11/why-the-world-needs-better-science-journalism333.html
(Sent from Flipboard)
No comments:
Post a Comment