Can we teach them?  And if we can, should we?

A recent poll said that over half of Americans reject evolution.  The cause of this dismal state of scientific ignorance is, as we all know, complicated.  But where in this muddled mess of confusion do science writers fit in?  Is an attempt to educate futile?  According to Michael Lemonick, “we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can convince that 50% of the population.”

Of the rapture, Larry Gonick wondered if they believed that their bodies will physically ascend to the heavens.  And if so, he’s been “wondering how to make a bet on that.  The problem is that I won’t be able to collect when I win.”

Money-making schemes aside, what, if any, is our duty as science writers in education?  As people chimed in around the room with their take on this, I sensed an old argument re-surfacing.  “We are not educators,” Tom Siegfried said. 

Someone else mentioned that we can’t be burdened by being the “explainers,” and trying to change the culture is hopeless.  It is simply too hard.

The fact remains that the science stories in newspapers, on-line, and on the radio do educate the public, regardless of what we’d like our role to be.  So how much (if at all) does this impact the day-to-day work of a science writer?  Have you successful science writers learned to ignore this educational burden?  Or do you simply do the best you can?

Spread Thin

So, judging from the discussions of the last few days, a modern science writer should have:

- a deep knowledge of statistics and an ability to evaluate scientific studies
- photographic skills
- web layout skills, preferably with a specialty in Flash
- broadcast experience of some kind (or at least some experience with video)
- an ability to determine what aspects of a story are best told in text as opposed to image.

(anyone care to add any more?)

... I’ll stick with my PhD program in neuroscience, thanks.

An Editorial Everyone Should Agree With

by Andrew McGregor

Alan Boyle of MSNBC exhibited some of the new online technologies, such as audio slide shows, that can illustrate the theoretical look of a moon base and things of this nature.  The multi-media potential of the internet certainly has not been explored.  Yet, what everyone in the room seems to be ignoring is the role of good writing and good journalism in attracting an audience: basically, quality.

During my graduate studies in journalism I was often baffled at the way new technologies were blamed for the impending death of the newspaper.  This was exquisitely strong at USC as many a faculty member arrived there courtesy of a buy-out-deal from the tempestuous LA Times.  My demographic of the younger male variety was particularly called out as not reading newspapers in addition to variegated economic considerations like ad revenues from the employment and real estate sections.

I confess, I don’t subscribe to a single newspaper; instead I read them online.  However, the reasons for this have absolutely nothing to do with technology because you know what? I do read journalistic periodicals on real paper: for example every week I read ‘The Economist’.  A British weekly news magazine.  I do this because it is well-written and honest in its stances on news coverage and interpretation.  I also trust ‘The Economist’ over anything I read online.  It is a bit pathetic that I have to seek news from across the Atlantic Ocean because I don’t want to read articles that make me feel like I am bathing in processed food.  I don’t think I’m alone in this, I met with one of their editors a few months ago and he told me that The Economist’s circulation is up 46 percent in America.

Strange isn’t it? Good writing and good reporting leading to an increasing and loyal readership? Hmmm, something odd is afoot.

Many of the brilliant and talented writers in this room have voiced similar complaints to their higher-ups and the response they have ineluctably received is that, “the average American just doesn’t care about this.  The average American isn’t educated enough to understand this...” Has anyone considered the possibility that the average American would read the newspaper more if it didn’t suck?

Certainly there will always be a steady American Idol/Britney Spears portion of the population.  This perception cannot help but be encouraged by the fact that the companies that own newspapers own American Idol and if not Britney Spears herself then her likeness and persona.

However, the insistence on these new technologies is also a convenient sell for additional cost-cutting measures.  The internet and digitization of technology now allows one reporter to take photos, edit video, cut an online radio broadcast, and write a brief story.  The field of journalism should just take the US Army’s recruitment line: A Reporter of ONE.

The new technologies are making it possible to cut news staff even further and given that the internet is starving for content there is no logical way this will lead to an increase in quality.

It would be swell if the profound potential of the internet could be employed to the betterment of science writing and journalism in general.  However, I fear that all this talk of technological innovation online is actually a justification for further reducing the pool of available journalism jobs.

Technological innovation will not solve the current problems of science writing and journalism as a whole.  In what other field could one cut resources, remove local personnel and then when customers turn away blame the public for being too stupid to understand?

The road to quality cannot avoid hard work and sacrifice and the current batch of journalists are doing both; they are just having the road torn from beneath their feet.

Science Podcasts

Here’s just a short list of some science podcasts:

MSNBC “The Body Odd”

Nature

Science

NPR Science Friday

New York Times Science Times

BBC “The Naked Scientist”

Radio, Online

The general sentiment at this conference is that young people are no longer reading newspapers and listening to the radio.  They are glued to their computers, getting their news from who knows where- blogs, podcasts, YouTube among them.

The question is; how do you share your journalistic wares in this new medium?

“We can’t just say, ‘isn’t it terrible they’re not reading newspapers?’” declared Alfred Hermida this morning.  “We have to find ways to reach them”

“We’re experimenting,” said Vicky Valentine from NPR, “Everyone is still trying to figure out the web, and what really works.” She presented one of their experiments, an interactive site focusing on language.

The site used video and audio clips to explain different experiments on aspects of language.  One of the criticisms of this site, said Valentine, was that not all of the people who were interviewed for the site had video clips to share. 

Another interactive site that Valentine presented focused on the impact of the war in Iraq. 

One of the questions Valentine raised was how long the online clips should be.  How long are people’s attention spans when they’re online?  Is 2 minutes too much, too little?

You tell me, she says, showing us another interactive site, this one a slide show with audio about child brides in Ethiopia.  This one is great, she says, partly because it was so cheap to produce. Yet the vivid pictures accompanying the radio story add a whole new perspective to the story.

New media, new role?

This morning, internet pioneer Alfred Hermida reminded the group that it does no good to bemoan the fate of newspapers and other traditional media if the next generation simply isn’t reading them. He encouraged everyone to face the challenges and get excited about the opportunities presented by the internet.

It’s about “retaining the skills we have, but operating in this new medium,” he said.

He mentioned the participatory nature of the internet as a prime example of its potential to engage a new audience.

But participation is not what journalism has been about. It seems that the internet demands a whole new set of skills, and poses an important set of questions for what the role for science writers will be in the future.

The morning’s next presenter, Dan Grossman, gave excellent examples of various web sites (on Antarctica and Madagascar). If journalism can be likened to screenwriting, this is more like set design or directing.

Furthermore, the kind of content that Mr. Grossman illustrated has none of the ephemerality of a newspaper story. They stay put, and become part of a whole readily-available structure. Web pages like these provide an excellent bridge between working scientists and a curious public, but they represent a vast departure from the day-to-day nature of print media stories.

The fundamental questions here are:

Is the role of science writers online to create a structure for scientific education? Or is it to continually update the public on the advances and consequences of modern science?

... and is this a financially feasible process?

(I’d love to see some statistics on the viewing of these sites).

An embargo on science?

Will science coverage suffer if the embargo system is abandoned? If science reporters no longer have the advantage of several days to research their articles and talk to sources, will they start churning out crap?

This topic was touched on several times today.  Over lunch, Alexandra Witze from Nature was kind enough to explain the basics of the embargo system to us (me, Laura and Mark).

In the embargo system, everyone gets a list of journal articles, PDFs and supporting information in advance, on the condition that they will not publish anything until the agreed-upon date.  Each news organization then decides what to write about, and the stories are all published the same day, coinciding with the publication of the journal article. These tip sheets from the major journals, said Witze, are the “bread and butter” of science journalists.

Nowadays, journals are beginning to publish some articles online ahead of their print edition.  Don Kennedy of Science said that this trend was likely to continue, and that the media might soon be receiving science information in “driblets,” rather than the nice packages they are accustomed to.  This could put science journalists in the position of scrambling to put a story together, perhaps even leaving out important pieces of the puzzle. 

Scientists, after all, are not easy creatures to catch hold of. They are rarely in their offices, more likely to be found lurking in the back of a committee meeting, lecturing to undergrads, or perhaps even looking over their graduate students’ shoulders.  I can only imagine working on a deadline, trying to get ahold of an expert to provide you with some context or an explanation on a difficult topic.

It’s not necessarily about being first, though.  Alfred Hermida pointed out that even if a story has already been reported, a thoughtful analysis will always add value.  The addition of expert voices and context will be a welcome explanation to those readers whose interest was aroused by the initial short news stories on a newly released paper. 

Perhaps, in an ideal world, science journalists could specialize further, and really get to know what they are talking about in a specific field.  Trying to know everything about science is like trying to know every word in a dictionary.  If a writer already has a good understanding of the context in their field, they can put a new finding into perspective more easily.

Web Cred

In the first session of the afternoon, Larry Gonick brought up the idea of credibility, and how web sites get it. People tend to trust people around them, and the people that those people trust. He suggested that participation by journalists (or scientists) in popular sites like MySpace or Facebook could lend credibility to scientific arguments in circles where such ideas are not usually be debated.

This is a very appealing idea. One imagines the causally curious public being convinced by eloquent arguments from distinguished PhDs or lauded science writers. The multitudes then share these arguments with their friends and start grass-roots movements to enact policies that will stop global warming, fund more science, and save the world.

But such forums are a double-edged sword for scientists and serious writers. Arguing on MySpace would pit them against all manner of rabble. If they resorted to the kind of forceful, direct language that would win arguments in a lay audience, they’d lose professional credibility. If they stuck with exactly accurate, qualified, and respectful terms, they wouldn’t convince a public accustomed to political pundits’ ad hominem attacks.

Still, it’s at least amusing to imagine real professionals dropping their scientific / journalistic gloves and bare-knuckling it in the trenches ("You moron! Do you even know where milk comes from?!?")

And more seriously, MySpace and similar sites may provide a real opportunity to speak to an audience that doesn’t read the New York Times science section.

The Public is Too Stupid to Understand this Article

“There’s nothing more important than knowing how an atom bomb works,” said Dan Vergano, “Yet 95% of people don’t understand it.”

“They don’t know the difference between an atom and a molecule!” interjected Elizabeth Weise.

“They don’t know where milk comes from,” called a voice from the other side of the room.

Adam Frank mentioned that one of the problems with scientists sharing their science is that they are too snotty. They think, “Ahh, you don’t understand it,” and they refuse to explain it in plain English. 

Are the readers really that stupid?  Maybe, some of them.  But if they’re reading, then at least they can read. And if they can read, they can probably think.  And if they read something interesting, and they think about it, they might just decide to find out more.  If science writers write interesting, well-researched stories, people will learn from them.  They might remember a bit of it the next time they pick up a paper and see another story on the same topic. 

When I meet people for the first time, they are often a bit intimidated when I tell them that I’m getting my PhD in Neuroscience.  But when I tell them about what I study- neurotransmitter transporters that drugs like antidepressants (and cocaine) bind to- they usually have at least a vague idea of what I am talking about, and they are usually very interested. There’s no way that these people learned about neurotransmitters in high school. They learned, what they know of these topics, from science journalists such as the ones sitting in this room. 

Serendipitous science

Serendipity in science is nothing new.  When it comes to media, however, more and more people are getting their information by happenstance.  The second session of the conference turned to the internet’s role in communicating science.

A search for “Spears,” as in Britney, may turn up a recent scientific observation that chimps use spears as hunting tools.  People who may never intend to read about science may be tricked into it, purely by chance. 

John Horrigan’s Pew report provided a basis for the discussion.  The report said that newspaper readership has steadily declined, while more and more people get their information from the internet.  While we all probably could have guessed that, the trends in the data were overwhelming.  The convenience and availability of the internet has led to a surge in its role as a news medium.  Science journalism has been swept up in this shifting tide.

Where does this leave traditional science coverage?  Is it moving away from a readership who faithfully sought out science coverage in traditional outlets?  (Did a readership like that ever exist in the first place?) Are we now hoping to catch the eye of someone who was reading about a shark attack?  Alfred Hermida mentioned that people are drawn in (sometimes serendipitously) at the story level, not by the topic.  Some participants mentioned that even LA Times headlines are happenstantial scientific readings.  No one picks up the newspaper just to read science, and it happens to be that one of the stories is science-related.  Is there a difference here, and if so, is it important? 

Although some attendants thought that the internet may lead to faster and sloppier coverage, some saw an opportunity.  KC Cole said that she thinks that the internet, with its rapid pace and limitless content, can offer an improvement in science communication.  The public’s appetite for news is changing, and their happy discoveries reflect this shift.

Why scientists can’t tell stories

Adam Franks from the University of Rochester teased out a key issue in his talk - the role of scientists as gatekeepers.

What he means he how scientists themselves communicate, or rather, fail to communicate, the meaning of their work. Why is this? Partly, said Franks is that there is a sense among scientists that appearance of seeking too much media attention is bad. This is despite the fact that grants tend to have an outreach component. In other words, how is the scientist going to tell the world about their work?

But then the other issue that comes up is that scientists don’t understand narrative.  They tend to adopt an expository approach in writing. The aim is to expose information.  In contrast, journalism is about telling stories through narrative writing. 

This divide illustrates one of the big challenge scientists and journalists face in communicating about science. 

Not the Be All-End All

There are different levels of science journalism. I look at the kinds of science news we do at Discovery News - text and video - as a kind of invitation to people who want to know more, not the be all and end all on a topic.

Our text stories are limited to about 400 words—occasionally we’ll go longer if the topic warrants it or we want to cover something more deeply—so we can’t really go very deeply into things. And our video stories (http://www.discoverynewsvideo.com) are usually around 3 minutes.

But hopefully, through succinct reporting that presents a good overview of what any given research is, we’ll prompt readers to go deeper into the topic. We try to facilitate that through sidebar links or video content that’s relevant to the story.

Lori Cuthbert, Director, Discovery News

Scientists and Journalists May Find Common Ground Online

by Andrew McGregor

The primary source material for science writers, the scientists themselves, are quite often a problem during reporting.

The reasons scientists are doing what they do have nothing in common with why journalists want to write about them.  The scientists may just like using math to look for the face of God or enjoy studying chimpanzees when a PhD opportunity was roaming nearby.

Scientists also have a fear of being misquoted or misunderstood.  This is a valid concern as so much energy in the scientific career is exerted to learn one small thing very well that it is often difficult to translate this knowledge in terms that the average journalist can understand.  Issues such as these are exacerbated by the fact that journalism relies upon standardized narratives in order to convey information such as a personality profile of a celebrity or human interest story of the kind-hearted woman with forty cats ilk.

Conduct such as the preceding is antithetical to much of the scientific culture where even papers published by one author still use the word “we”.  The scientific community deems personal glorification to be vulgar and places the scientist who seeks such a thing in a suspicious light.

This deadlock of mutual misunderstanding may have a solution in the blogosphere because many scientific discoveries are reported according to what the journalists already know or conflict of interest situations may emerge where the scientists have a vested interest in seeing their findings reported.  The blogosphere can provide instant feedback into the claims of scientific discovery as there is more of a back and forth relationship than in other forms of journalism.

The blogosphere also lends itself to multi-media interpretations of scientific discoveries as scientists themselves can blog or provide visual representations of their work.

There is optimism in the room that through this technologically facilitated go-between scientists and journalists can learn to communicate...even if they can never really speak the same language.

Science Journalists Should Shun Objectivity

by Andrew McGregor

If someone were to say that Barry Bonds is a better baseball player than Babe Ruth every sports writer in the country would have a very strong argument backed up by statistical analysis.

Tom Siegfried argued that science writers should be more like sports writers; science writers should be able to understand statistics and be very well-versed in their field.

A good science experiment has to be objectively verifiable, but science journalists should not strive for objectivity because in science journalism there is a right and a wrong.

Think back to the coverage of the health risks connected to smoking cigarettes.  It is difficult to imagine that cigarettes are somehow healthy, however, the field of journalism very much failed to inform the public about the issue because of an interest in fairness—to give both sides to every story.

In this case the tobacco companies had no legitimate scientific backing for their claims and common sense dictates that cigarettes are at best unhealthy.  Yet, journalism’s tendency to strive towards fairness led to coverage of the health risks of cigarettes that was false and pernicious.

If the pursuit of scientific knowledge is part of a grand process constantly refining and improving itself, promising through the scientific method to prove itself false as the verification that it is true.  Science journalists then have a responsibility to inform the public by being accurate to the best of their abilities rather than resting upon the intellectually indolent ideal of fairness.

Use your noodle (and your rolodex)

Tom Siegfried tells us that much of what is reported in scientific journals may be wrong.  He cited a story that appeared in PLOS a while back, showing that many reported studies are based on faulty statistics.  Another story, in American Scientist recently explored the misuse of averages in clinical studies.

“The corollary to this,” said Siegfried, “because we write about these studies, is that much of what we write is wrong.”

Siegfried argued that we’re even more likely to report on false findings because they type of stories that are newsworthy are liable to be wrong.  A finding that is reported for the first time, new research from a hot field, or a study that contradicts previous studies are all likely to be refuted later.

Joe Palca of NPR took issue with Siegfried’s cynicism, giving the simple advice to “use your noodle.” Take your common sense with you, ask questions, and talk to people. 

Charles Petit returned to the idea of science as a process.  He noted that if a study turns out to be wrong, this can give an insight into how science works.

“It’s a meritocracy of error,” he said, “That which is not wrong, rises to the top.”