Science Journo Transformation Underway
A media scholar surveys an emerging science journalism trend:
The dominant way of thinking about the role of science journalists historically was to view them as translators, or transmitters, of information. Now, however, a powerful metaphor for understanding their work as science critics is to see them as cartographers and guides, mapping scientific knowledge for readers, showing them paths through vast amounts of information, evaluating and pointing out the most important stops along the way.
The question is, can they they do a better job than your average New York City double-decker bus tour guide? That all depends on who your guide is.
Based on their quoted sources, it would appear that too many ‘science journalists’ have become stenographers or PR reps for environmental groups.
Any analysis of their sources and the resulting content will confirm that.
I disagree. That list includes some advocacy bloggers, but many others who work for traditional media or new media outlets without such a political or ideological orientation.
Of course, as I’ve written elsewhere, the left and the right share a common disdain for journalists.
EdG Says:
September 28th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
it would appear that too many “˜science journalists’ have become stenographers or PR reps for environmental groups.
Sloppiness and laziness isn’t just confined to journalists. Lesson #1 in manufacturing for engineering majors many moons ago was that the best one could ‘reasonably expect’ from any workforce of any size was ‘mediocre’.
In daily journalism the editor calls down and needs X column inches filled in a hurry so sloppy lazy under-payed reporter just picks up whatever press release is sitting on the top of the inbox, paraphrases a few lines and submits it.
There isn’t a single profession that is ‘free’ of sloppy,lazy workers.
#2 – Keith
I did deliberately say “too many,” not all. But long time no Woodward and Bernstein in the ‘established’ media.
In any case, the objective evidence is who journalists choose to use as their sources.
The BBC’s Richard Black is a prime example. He is basically just a stenographer dfor Greenpeace, WWF and the UN, as is clearly evident in his chosen topics and sources.
And #3 harry, while I agree with your point, lazy journalists like Black could just as easily call a source from the ‘other side’ and parrot their press releases or message, but they don’t. Or, at best, add a token comment to make them appear balanced.
Must hand it to the environmental groups. While all advocacy groups work to cultivate friendly journalists, they have done an excellent job of that as well as creating helpful ‘news’ events to cover (Greenpeace stunts, protests, polar bear suits, etc.)
Sorry but I was a newspaper reporter for over a decade and no editor ever asked me to fill a certain number of inches. They did ask me to go cover publicity stunts, mostly because the folks who put them on have a list of activists who will write/call to complain that their sit-in for polar bears didn’t make the front page and the editors don’t like being badgered.
The danger is in defining a “science” beat. Oddly, no other “science” topic needs a guide- the coverage of space exploration, examination of fossils, or the experiments in the super-collider. Only environmental science seems to need a “guide” to carefully ensure the correct narrative is maintained. The end result of course is that “environment” is/was it’s own beat at many papers and we got a never-ending “world to end tomorrow, cuddliest animals to be hardest hit.” It’s gotten so bad that its’ formulaic- X issue will kill everything unless action is taken immediately, only Party Y’s candidate will do anything about X issue, remarkably the issue is entirely the fault of the last remaining factory in town, Party Z won’t shut down the plant, oddly nothing dies as a result but follow-up stories are determined to be unnecessary.
By-the-by, who do you think is drawn to apply for these beats? Given that the editors created it largely to appease the local greenpeace, Sierra Club, WWF, and Lefty-Advocacy Groups, what type of person do you think the editors are looking for in these beats? Remember, this used to be all harmless stuff- the worst they’d do is harangue the converted on page G32. It was when they started front-paging them and calling for the end of energy that the trouble started.
jeffn Says:
September 28th, 2011 at 4:57 pm Sorry but I was a newspaper reporter for over a decade and no editor ever asked me to fill a certain number of inches.
My Mother has been a reporter for 60 years, still is. The first question she asks is ‘how many inches’.
She also has a drawer full of ‘filler pieces’ she keeps handy. Generally public interest stuff that isn’t particularly time sensitive.
In order to be exempt from the US Postal Service Monopoly regulations(The postal service has a monopoly on residential delivery unless specific criteria for exemption are met) a ‘delivered’ newspaper has to have a certain percentage of ‘content’ vs ‘advertising’.
The amount of advertising determines how many pages will be printed. If there isn’t enough advertising to cover 60% of every page then the paper loses money. So how many pages is determined by how much advertising there is going to be on that day.
Sometimes the advertising department knows now many column inches of advertising they have well in advance of publication and sometimes they don’t.
Few publications turn down an advertisers last minute request for space.
Hence, if an advertiser requests space at the last minute a reporter is asked to supply additional content at the last minute in order to meet US Postal Service Monopoly Exemption Regulations.
Of course there is the other ‘interesting’ possibility. An advertiser drops an ad at the last minute, in which case the editor ‘cuts’ an article. Of course the editor, not having written the story him/herself may end up cutting a critical paragraph.
I spent a fair amount of my childhood waiting for ‘paste up’ to be finished so mommy and I could go home.
I loved paste-up, with the hot wax machine an an exacto to hack out my excess commas. We didn’t mail the paper so weren’t particularly worried about per enraged other than from a profitability standpoint. We had evergreen stuff for filler if necessary on the small papers and wire service on the larger ones.0
Science is a complex business and in general the public is not educationally equipped, nor do they have the time, to absorb the necessary scientific evidence in order to evaluate the evidence for an against AGW. The sort of background information required is hard to put in news stories. So reporting on a new paper in a correct and balanced way is difficult. The temptation is too sensationalize the story , and heighten conflict in order to gain viewer attention. The idea of providing a map is great in theory, but it doesn’t sell well.
EdG: Based on their quoted sources, it would appear that too many “˜science journalists’ have become stenographers or PR reps for environmental groups. Any analysis of their sources and the resulting content will confirm that.
Damned right. Take James Randerson, who, like all of Nisbet and Fahy’s interviewees, declined to self-identify as playing the advocacy role they had posited: ‘The advocate reports and writes driven by a specific worldview or on behalf of an issue or idea, such as sustainability or environmentalism.’
Last year, Oxfam paid for Randerson to go to Uganda, from where he filed two stories*, one for the Guardian and one for its Sunday sister the Observer. Both appeared in the newspapers’ ‘Environment’ sections and both were pure Oxfam: impoverished but picturesque Villagers X and Y are having a hard time because of climate change so for the love of all that’s right and decent please let’s have an agreement in Cancun. The claimed climate change links were very tenuous; the actual climate change links were non-existent. They were invented. No scientific validity whatsoever. If they weren’t invented by Randerson himself then they came from his sponsor, Oxfam, which had made similar claims in one of its pamphlets about poverty in Uganda.**
Like the best NYC tourist guides, Randerson sometimes prefers oomph to the truth.
===
*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/21/climate-change-uganda-salt-miners
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/07/climate-change-rerouting-semliki-river
**
Randerson’s Ugandan climate change claims: Dry seasons in Lake Katwe are becoming wetter; and the river Semliki has changed its course because of increasingly erratic rainfall. The scientific facts: There aren’t any. The likely explanations: The problems at Lake Katwe in 2010 were due to land-use malpractice, not climate change, with too many people building too many salt-ponds and cutting too much grass from the fringes of the lake; the Semliki river changed its course because that’s what rivers do and have always done when they meander across seasonally flooded plains. The likely future: Picturesque Ugandan salt-harvesters will continue to don condoms and tight panties while their government continues to accept millions in international aid to, on the one hand, industrialise salt-extraction from Lake Katwe and, and on the other, keep the lake pristine for tourism (this collision of aid programmes is the story a proper journalist would have covered); the Semliki will continue to change its course.
EdG and Vinny,
If you are going to complain about stories favoring the side of environmental groups, I need to put my two cents in to complain about Delingpole, The Telegraph, Fox News, and The Australian, who are flacks for anti science global warming deniers.
Eric- Delingpole, The Telegraph, Fox News and The Australian do what newspapers used to do- ask questions, show a little curiosity, and question authority.
Just a couple of decades ago, an editor who gave news space to an Oxfam pr flack to spit out BS would have lost his/her job- even at the NYTimes. Now it’s not only common, but you’re actually defending the practice.
Here’s a hint- notice how you pay no attention to the media outlets that carry items that you consider spin (at the least the spin you disagree with)? Yeah, well, that cuts both ways.
Jeffn,
@11
They don’t really ask questions. The papers I mentioned merely accept the stuff told them by anti science global warming denier cracpots without question. That doesn’t constitute public service.
Eric Adler: They don’t really ask questions. The papers I mentioned [Delingpole, Telegraph, Fox News, Australian] merely accept the stuff told them by anti science global warming denier cracpots without question. That doesn’t constitute public service.
You’re wrong about the Telegraph. When it comes to parroting unsupported assertions by doom-mongering NGOs, the Telegraph is in some ways even worse than the Guardian. At least the Guardian tries to understand what it’s parroting. Occasionally, it even looks for a second opinion. But the Telegraph’s climate coverage is usually uncomprehending, mangled press-release churnalism. If you’re going to report activists’ alarmist speculation or invention as scientific fact, at least get those wrong facts right.
Delingpole? He’s irrelevant. This is about supposedly factual reporting. Delingpole is a columnist. I think he might have described himself as a journalist once or twice, but he’s not. He’s a court jester. There is no way that such a prancing fool’s misreporting is equivalent to that of a respected and supposedly trustworthy journalist like Randerson (so respected and trustworthy that Nisbet and Fahy asked him for his views on the current and future practice of science journalism).
Fox News and the Australian? I don’t know enough about them. If their news reports deny or ignore what is known about global warming and those reports are taken seriously by policymakers then they are as malign as the hugely influential news reports of Randerson & co inventing or exaggerating what is known.
(I perhaps should point out that I’m posting from Britain, where those promoting climate-change denial have a small influence on popular opinion and none at all on policymakers. Here, it’s the climageddonist industry that is welded to the Establishment and has the ear of government. I don’t deny the existence of hugely influential denialist industries elsewhere. It’s just that I can’t get too worked up about what goes on in bizarro world.)