+
Journalism vs Science
Tue, 2015-02-17 16:06
#1
Journalism vs Science
Tue, 2015-02-17 16:08
#2
What's going on here?
Journalism vs Science
Show notes:
The Toronto Star's HPV fail reveals a wider problem: the journalists who inform us about science are increasingly scientifically illiterate. Vox.com health reporter Julia Belluz talks about why bad science journalism is perhaps the most dangerous kind of bad journalism.
Tue, 2015-02-17 18:18
#3
Timebandit
I haven't had time to listen to the podcast, but as someone who often works in science genre documentary, science-illiterate journalists are a huge problem and have been for years.
Tue, 2015-02-17 18:42
#4
I think it's fairly clear that the problem is a kind of conflict of interest for journalists. Should they hold off on a "breaking story" until there's better support for it (and risk a rival "scooping" them on it) or just go ahead and write an article about how coconut husk cures cancer, and sell some papers (or, these days, get some clicks)?
The other problem is that many people DO read newspapers or news websites, and they don't so much read medical journals or (bona fide) medical websites.
I was sad to see the Star go the Dr. Jenny McCarthy route. They've been otherwise doing some interesting and somewhat refreshing investigative journalism recently and then they had to piss their credibility away to woo some K00ks. Their apology was real swell, but it's a bit like shouting "Fire!" in a crowd, then a few minutes later shouting "wait, it's OK, there's no fire".
Tue, 2015-02-17 20:36
#5
Timebandit
Sort of, but not entirely. A promising new study comes out, it gets reported as something that settles the question - but it hasn't gone through peer review, it doesn't line up with other, similar studies and the reality is that they've created new questions, not answered the old one. All of that is apparent when you have some understanding of process. So some of it is a space issue - only room for a few paragraphs, so the details get lost - some of it is just that the journalist doesn't have a background understanding of how science works, and some of it is sheer laziness. After all, the information is readily available and I've rarely had a science professional turn down a request to clarify something when I'm developing a doc. Anyway, science gets a superficial treatment for a variety of reasons.
Tue, 2015-02-17 20:47
#6
So some of it is a space issue - only room for a few paragraphs, so the details get lost
I feel like there'd be all kinds of room for details, if they didn't need a half-page picture of Justin Bieber patting a koala or some aggrieved customer holding up the Tim Horton's cup they claim was only three-quarters filled.
Tue, 2015-02-17 21:23
#7
Well said Magoo, and thanks to both you and timebandit for your comments.
The other problem is that many people DO read newspapers or news websites, and they don't so much read medical journals or (bona fide) medical websites.
Tue, 2015-02-17 21:23
#8
Timebandit
I agree, but often the journalist is subject to the editor's allocation of space for their topic.
Here's an interesting article:
The bulk of contemporary science journalism falls under the category of "infotainment". This expression describes science writing that informs a non-specialist target audience about new scientific discoveries in an entertaining fashion. The "informing" typically consists of giving the reader some historical background surrounding the scientific study, summarises key findings and then describes the significance and implications of the research. Analogies are used to convey complex scientific concepts so that a reader without a professional scientific background can grasp the ideas driving the research.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/may/16/need-for-critical-sc...
ETA: http://www.sciencejournalism.net/informed_science_journalism.html
There is an ongoing debate between science journalists whether a science degree is necessary to write well-informed science stories.“We need more people with science backgrounds to go into journalism. I’m not sure, that after the fact, you can take a journalist with no science background and train them to do it very well,” says Helen Fallding, an assistant city editor from the Winnipeg Free Press She has both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science degree.
But some members of the media argue that having a science degree hinders their ability to explain research to the general public in layman terms.
“You can’t expect that [the audience] knows the full background [of a science story], which is why I think it’s good if we as journalists come from the naïve standpoint and expect that most things then need to be explained,” says Joseph Brean, who has a Bachelor of Arts and writes health and medical news for the National Post in Toronto.
Although she feels that having more journalists with science backgrounds wouldn’t hurt, Fallding agrees that it needn’t be an absolute requirement.
“I don’t think they need to have one, but I think they need to be capable of getting one. You have to have that kind of brain,” says Fallding. “Some of the Globe’s top science journalists don’t have a science degree, but they’re certainly people who, if they’d chosen to pursue that in university, would have done fine.”