From Print to Web - Nigel Hey comments on moves in science journalism
Just returned from the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Chicago to my burrow in New Mexico. Amid all the papers and press conferences came some insights into the fast-moving evolution of science journalism, from print to Web.
I thought it significant that science writer Peter Spotts is moving with the rest of the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor staff when it goes all-electronic next month. Although I was brought up in print journalism and retain a strong bias for it, I also think this is an encouraging move. Like others, this newspaper is in difficult times and has to make a move, but happily it is not getting rid of its leading science writer!
Elsewhere, other good American science reporters are meeting the print-to-electronic transition by pulling up their roots and taking new jobs. For example, Tom Siegfried and Alex Witze eventually fell on their feet after the Dallas Morning News science page was axed, ending up with Science News (editor) and Nature/Washington, respectively. Many have become freelancers, some blogging, some stringing for their previous employers. Others are in entrepreneurial new ventures – Mike Lemonick with Climate Central, Colin McIlwain with ResearchResearch, Wayt Gibbs with the Quantum technical venture capitalist firm in Seattle.
There's another side of the picture--the loss of a great deal of the reporting expertise that has been a trademark of US science journalism. Some of this expertise is being replaced by non-specialist writers participating in the Web-based “democratisation” of news/info coverage and accessibility. In some ways this is analogous to the widespread migration of US sci/tech reportage to the domain of "general assignment" writers. But on the Web we are seeing widespread dissemination of quickly-produced, insufficiently researched articles, to an enormous audience that amounts to the world of interested and socially/politically active people. How much of this huge, blogospheric, consensual compression of information amounts to “serious”, balanced input? Some does come from genuine science-writer bloggers. But when you're Googling you may pick up a hit on your subject de jour from the New York Times science section, or you may get one or more from a muddled flat-earther. You need to have the judgement to know which to believe, and where to find trustworthy third-party points of view on your subject, and that's why we have specialist science and technology writers.
One helpful measure – and this too came up at AAAS -- would be to have more scientists mentoring general assignment reporters and contributing to/producing science-related blogs of their own. Someone ventured to reword an old phrase into “I think therefore I blog," suggesting this as a slogan for public-minded techies. Why not? Media relations professionals can and should help with this, responsibly, and in collaboration with scientists from their institutions.
The movement to Web-based media is a fact and it will increase. On PBS last week, an expert interviewee rudely but perhaps correctly proclaimed that “print journalism is toast.” The big question is, how effectively will the community of science journalists (as well as principled PR people and the science community itself) blend/segué/evolve into the world of electronic media? Hopefully this is being accomplished in a way that complements the idea that journalism should assist the creation and maintenance of informed public opinion. By this I mean the old US Society of Professional Journalists' fourth-estate idea “that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.” Which matches nicely with wording in the World Federation of Science Journalists' mission statement (in sentiments similar to those of the US National Association of Science Writers), "to further science journalism as a bridge between science, scientists and the public. It promotes the role of science journalists as key players in civil society and democracy. . ."
These ideals deserve support from the journalistic community. I believe the public needs them too, on paper and on the Web.
Nigel Hey is a veteran of journalism and science-orientated PR in the USA and UK
I thought it significant that science writer Peter Spotts is moving with the rest of the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor staff when it goes all-electronic next month. Although I was brought up in print journalism and retain a strong bias for it, I also think this is an encouraging move. Like others, this newspaper is in difficult times and has to make a move, but happily it is not getting rid of its leading science writer!
Elsewhere, other good American science reporters are meeting the print-to-electronic transition by pulling up their roots and taking new jobs. For example, Tom Siegfried and Alex Witze eventually fell on their feet after the Dallas Morning News science page was axed, ending up with Science News (editor) and Nature/Washington, respectively. Many have become freelancers, some blogging, some stringing for their previous employers. Others are in entrepreneurial new ventures – Mike Lemonick with Climate Central, Colin McIlwain with ResearchResearch, Wayt Gibbs with the Quantum technical venture capitalist firm in Seattle.
There's another side of the picture--the loss of a great deal of the reporting expertise that has been a trademark of US science journalism. Some of this expertise is being replaced by non-specialist writers participating in the Web-based “democratisation” of news/info coverage and accessibility. In some ways this is analogous to the widespread migration of US sci/tech reportage to the domain of "general assignment" writers. But on the Web we are seeing widespread dissemination of quickly-produced, insufficiently researched articles, to an enormous audience that amounts to the world of interested and socially/politically active people. How much of this huge, blogospheric, consensual compression of information amounts to “serious”, balanced input? Some does come from genuine science-writer bloggers. But when you're Googling you may pick up a hit on your subject de jour from the New York Times science section, or you may get one or more from a muddled flat-earther. You need to have the judgement to know which to believe, and where to find trustworthy third-party points of view on your subject, and that's why we have specialist science and technology writers.
One helpful measure – and this too came up at AAAS -- would be to have more scientists mentoring general assignment reporters and contributing to/producing science-related blogs of their own. Someone ventured to reword an old phrase into “I think therefore I blog," suggesting this as a slogan for public-minded techies. Why not? Media relations professionals can and should help with this, responsibly, and in collaboration with scientists from their institutions.
The movement to Web-based media is a fact and it will increase. On PBS last week, an expert interviewee rudely but perhaps correctly proclaimed that “print journalism is toast.” The big question is, how effectively will the community of science journalists (as well as principled PR people and the science community itself) blend/segué/evolve into the world of electronic media? Hopefully this is being accomplished in a way that complements the idea that journalism should assist the creation and maintenance of informed public opinion. By this I mean the old US Society of Professional Journalists' fourth-estate idea “that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.” Which matches nicely with wording in the World Federation of Science Journalists' mission statement (in sentiments similar to those of the US National Association of Science Writers), "to further science journalism as a bridge between science, scientists and the public. It promotes the role of science journalists as key players in civil society and democracy. . ."
These ideals deserve support from the journalistic community. I believe the public needs them too, on paper and on the Web.
Nigel Hey is a veteran of journalism and science-orientated PR in the USA and UK
Labels: science journalism
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