A call for less science journalism

How could science writing for the public possibly be better? John Rennie, "outgoing" Editor in Chief of Scientific American, must have know that we would raise eyebrows with his comment that one answer to the question might be "maybe there should just be less of it".

He expands on this observation in a Scientific American Podcast, on the "Future of Science Coverage," based on comments he made at the World Conference of Science Journalists in London recently. His line, as reported in the transcript of the podcast, is that "we could all do with a lot fewer of the “what causes/cures cancer this week” story".

Rennie then goes on to dismember the "model of following what defines science news as that 95 percent of the time it is “interesting paper that appears in prestigious journal this week.”" As he says, "we’re all smart enough to know that that has absolutely nothing to do with how science works. That has to do with how publishing works."

The main message from Rennie is that "we have a responsibility as editors to try to rethink what counts as science news".

Best of the World Conference of Science Journalists 2009

So the World Conference of Science Journalists is over, and what a conference it was. Around 950 science writers, journalists and communicators gathered over three days at London's Westminster Central Hall for debate, discussions, diatribes and, of course, plenty of drink.

With a delightfully packed schedule and the repressing heat of an unusually sunny London week, you'd be forgiven if bits of it passed you by in a bit of a haze.

Thankfully, on the Internet nothing goes unrecorded. So here's a compilation of blogs, tweets and resources by ABSW members to help you to catch up on, or just relive, those heady three days. (This is by no means a comprehensive list, so please feel free to point out further reports and resources in the comments).

A big thanks to Julie Clayton, Sally Robbins and Fiona Fox for organising the fantastic programme.

Twitter
One of the most engaging aspects of the conference was the way delegates embraced Twitter and the #wcsj hashtag as a means of communicating.

There were 2,526 tweets from 252 contributors over the course of the conference, with an average of 360 tweets per day. This allowed people to hold conversations simultaneously in the real-life sessions and on the web. And with many sessions on at the same time, it proved a great way for delegates to keep in touch with interesting points from the debates they couldn't attend -- not to mention the useful service provided for those journalists who were not able to attend the conference at all.

Ed Yong, the most prolific tweeter at WCSJ, has a good description of the value of Twitter at WCSJ on Not Exactly Rocket Science.

If you'd like to relive the whole thing, you can view a transcript of the entire #wcsj Twitter conversation on wthashtag.com (you can also adjust the transcript to just look at particular days only).

And as David Bradley has written, the conference was great for putting faces to the names of people one has met purely through email and Twitter. The digital age indeed.

Not Exactly Rocket Science
As well as live-tweeting from the conference, Ed Yong has written up three four in-depth accounts covering the New Media New Journalism session, the discussion with Nick Davies on Flat Earth News, the hard-to-forget Embargoes debate that was, for many, the highlight of the event, and what exactly science journalism is (cheerleader or watchdog?). These have prompted replies from scientist bloggers Mike the Mad Biologist on embargoes and another by Kim Hannula on Investigative Science Journalism).

Ed was of course also the winner of the ABSW Best Newcomer 2009 award, presented at the Gala reception in front of hundreds of science journalists, one Diplodocus and a statue of Charles Darwin.

Just a Theory
ABSW Executive Committee helper and Imperial SciCom student Jacob Aron was not only a volunteer at the conference, he was blogging the event too!
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday

SciDev.Net
It was hard to miss SciDev.Net at WCSJ, with development a major strand and many of the delegates (myself included) current or ex-staff or freelancers. SciDev.Net's blog provided great coverage of the conference from the developing country point of view.

They also reported several news stories from the conference, including the success of Cairo in hosting the next WCSJ.

Nature
Nature's reporters were reporting from the conference on their In the Field blog.

A fishy beginning
What Climate coverage would David King like to see?
Fraud "endemic to medical publication"
Embargoes debate
Scrutinising big pharma
Swine Flu - don't believe the hype
Achieving global coverage for science – a workshop
London to Cairo

BBC Radio 4 Leading Edge
Geoff Watts, who took part in the Embargoes debate, had a brief audio package on the conference in his Leading Edge programme. You can listen again for the next few days.

Scientific American podcast
John Rennie, former editor of Scientific American, expands on his comments at WCSJ that what we need is less science journalism.

Financial Times Science blog
Clive Cookson's take on the WCSJ and the supposed 'crisis' in science journalism.

Columbia Journalism Review
Two excellent reports, one on the accusation that the National Science Foundation is 'underwriting' science coverage and other models from the 'New Media, New Journalism' session. The other is on the Future of Science Journalism, cherry-picking bits from the 'Blogs, Big Physics and Breaking News,' Science Editors and other sessions.

Lindau Nobel blog
Freelancer Matthew Chalmers writes on science journalism and blogging, following the Blogs, Big Physics and Breaking News session he took part in.

WCSJ News and the Naked Scientists
The official WCSJ news website, while not updated very often, does carry some reviews and short reports of sessions as well as the daily 10 minute podcasts presented by Meera Senthilingam of the Naked Scientists (I've heard longer podcasts of some of the sessions may soon available as well).

You may also have noticed the photographers floating around the place -- which explains this photo gallery of the event.

And for those who disappeared to the booze before the final speeches were over, here's the summary video shown at the end.



Update 5/7/09 22.50 Added Lindau Nobel, Mike the Mad Biologist and Kim Hannula links. Thanks to @BoraZ
Update 6/7/09 22.18 Added links to Columbia Journalism Review (thanks @Simon_Frantz), Scientific American podcast and session summaries on WCSJ news website (thanks @absw).
Update 7/7/09 09.47 Added extra post from Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Another take on science in the media

It is always interesting to see how other people view the strange business of science communication. The latest example to come across the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining where Rupal Mehta has written a detailed piece Lost in translation? Science in the media.

Rupal compares science communication with bringing a product to market. Companies would never go about this, she says, "without doing their homework and establishing good links with the rest of the supply chain. Communicating with the media is no different, she explains, "every link in the chain, be it scientists, press officers or journalists, has its role to play. When one element is ‘faulty’ or does not do its job properly, the quality of the output is affected."

The article has plenty of quotes from various players in the process, on such topics as the MMR saga. The blame this one, it seems, "rests squarely at the feet of the media," according to Tom Sheldon, Engineering Press Officer at the Science Media Centre.

There are, though, times when companies have to shoulder the blame. Take coverage of research into fuel-efficient and quieter aircraft engines. No one has written about this, preferring to chew over the local and environmental implications of a new runway at UK’s Heathrow Airport.

Tom Sheldon has tried. "We phone the press officers for the big companies, and are often told there is no-one available, or are issued with a statement. I understand there is a confidentiality issue, but if you don’t put the record straight, then you only have yourselves to blame."

Rupal's view is that good science press officers can act as "the vital third link in the chain" between scientists and the media. "The relationship between the scientist and the press officer is key – ‘bad’ science journalism can sometimes be down to miscommunication between these two elements."

Do bloggers need editors?

The debate about the merits of bloggers versus "professional" science writers rattles on. You can read a lot of it in a recent post on something called A Blog Around The Clock, within Seed's ScienceBlogs empire. The piece in question, Defining the Journalism vs. Blogging Debate, with a Science Reporting angle, comes from someone who clearly thinks he has a lot to contribute to the debate. And it really is a lot.

This raises an issue that does not seem to enter into the ruminations of the bloggers. They rattle on about accuracy, timeliness and stuff, but rarely get into things like the choice of a story and practical things like readability and length.

My software tells me that this piece is more than 10,000 words long. That may be a inaccurate, life is too short to read the piece carefully, let alone to count the words.

Which publication would allow a writer to rabbit on at that length? Even in its most ponderous days Scientific American would have seen that as at the upper limit of readability. And on New Scientist, another place where they cover science at greater length than most newspapers, it would have been a crime against humanity.

It is just too easy to write too much when you don't have an editor shouting at you. That is one reason why it is harder to write science for tabloid newspapers than for broadsheets. The editors are less tolerant on the tabloids.

Written by a specialist in "chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution," this particular item may contain some gems. (The readers who commented seem to think so, but they fall into the usual mould for blogdom "Great post, awesome" sums up the insight available in most responses.) Few readers, though, will have the staying power to mine them all.

An editor would have told our expert to focus on one or two points and to make them clearly and concisely. The editor would also have asked who the audience might be.

Unlike bloggers, profesional writers see little point in writing for their own consumption. Ideally, they want to reach people who would normally avoid the subject. You don't do that by writing too much.

A paradox here is that the web is supposed to be a very different medium: writers have to "screen at a time" reading. This guy witters on for screen after screen.

Maybe there is a point to Twitter after all.

Who let the gene genie out of the box?

When a science journalist sits down to write an article, the last thing they have in mind is that an academic somewhere will use the piece as in a research project. But that is just what Rebecca Carver did in her doctoral work on "Genes in the media" at the Institute for Basic Medical Sciences (IMB) at the University of Oslo.

Not content with writing her PhD and a journal paper, Dr Carver has colluded in the creation of a press release on her work Oslo-scientists have found the media gene. In this we read:

“We chose to analyse the national newspapers Aftenposten, VG and Dagbladet from Norway; The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Sun from the UK,” Carver explains. “We randomly selected a total of 300 articles, including commentaries, features, news stories and news briefs that referred to the gene concept in various ways.”

There then follows a detailed description of different uses of the "gene" thingy in these media. You will have to read the paper in "the important international journal EMBO Reports, issued for the European Molecular Biology Organization" for the full details.

Carver's key message seems to be that "journalists and editors, striving for a catchy news story, often convert a relativistic message into a deterministic one". Guess what, it all comes down to the "titles and bylines". As Carver pouts it "we have found that the titles and bylines are often deterministic whilst the relativistic and evolutionary frames tend to be present further into the article".

Carver, who has also has a "Master degree in Science Communication from Imperial College London," wants to hear from science reporters. As Carver and Jarle Breivik, her supervisor, put it, “We hope our work will increase awareness of how we communicate the gene concept, and would like to come into contact with both scientists and journalists.”

Science Journalism Growing Overseas

Way back in the mists of time, probably some time in the late 1970s, New Scientist sent two people from to the AAAS in Denver, the magazine's forst foray into alien territory. When they got there, they were surprised to find another two or three locals, folks from the BBC's always excellent radio science unit. That was the sum total of the Brit contingent.

How things have changed. Other reports suggest that the UK contingent all but ounumbered the locals.

Now we have Cristine (Cris) Russell, who is probably too young to have been in Denver, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review about the increasing foreign presence at the AAAS, Science Journalism Growing Overseas.

"The number of science reporters and journalists-in-training from far-flung parts of the world—the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America, as well as Canada, the U.K., Germany, Sweden and other parts of Europe—has expanded at AAAS. At the same time, the presence of working American science reporters from major newspapers and magazines has declined over time, their ranks often replaced by a diverse group of freelancers and digital journalists who write, blog, and Twitter for a variety of startup and established news and information Web sites."

The comments on this piece suggest that the golden era is over. "I think that science journalism is a vanishing specialty in Germany as well as in the United States," says one observer.

Another group present in reasonable numvers in Denver was the team from CBC's Quirks and Quark. At the Chicago bash this fine rival to the BBC – I have memory of an embarrassingly late bar bill drinking with David Suzuki in Denver – was, it seems, "not represented by a staffer".

Paul Raeburn tries to bring things down to earth with the view that the AAAS was "rarely a showcase for breaking news". Sorry Paul, but that has always been the case, even when the US science writing corps turned up in large numbers.

The science pack inthe USA used to be able to sell rewarmed science to its editors. Are you telling us that these editors are now much more in tune with what is happening in science?

That really would be good news.

Unsporting gesture at the FT

Remember the fuss about decisions to abandon specialist science reporting in places like CNN? An underlying theme of the discussion was that science journalism is somehow special. True, maybe, if you are a science writer, but business journalism, law journalism and sports journalism, for example, can all lay claim to needing special expertise and dedicated teams.

It is a shame when any of specialist teams gets the chop. But showing that science is not that special, an item in Cision, Media bulletin, tells us that the piece tells us that the Financial Times has "announced plans to cease sports coverage as of 14th February following ongoing cutbacks at the newspaper".

There is also a report on this development on the Guardian's web site. This tells us that the latest cuts are just the latest of many on the FT.

The good news has to be that science reporting is more important to the FT than sports coverage. If CNN were to chop its sports team, that really would signal the end of civilisation as they know it.

Can ABSW members support science reporters in developing countries?

Thanks to Naima Reza for alerting ABSW-L to this item by David Dickson Learning by doing: Experiences of writing for SciDev.Net.

The ever resourceful service relies heavily on "reports commissioned from, or sent to us by, science journalists across the developing world". So SciDev.Net decided to survey its freelance contributors.

The 62 journalists who responded was, David admits, "neither particularly comprehensive nor scientific". Anecdotal the survey may be, but it has some interesting results. One observation is that "almost 70 per cent of survey respondents said that writing for SciDev.Net, as well as the editorial feedback we give, has improved their written English skills". Other findings include:

• "39 per cent of the respondents said that persuading government sources to comment on news stories was often difficult"
  
• "half of the respondents sometimes had difficulty persuading press officers to help them access information"
  
• "more than two-thirds said that scientists were sometimes unwilling to be interviewed".
  

Many of these observations will come as little surprise to ABSW members – would we have produced very different answers to the same questions? But it is well worth reading the piece for more details.

The point of putting something here is to pick up on Naima's reason for alerting ABSW-L. Can we do anything to help the people who write for SciDev.Net?

As David writes "the survey confirmed that many science journalists in the developing world feel isolated in their work, and would welcome greater contact with professional colleagues in other countries". How can we make that happen? Perhaps David can come up with some thoughts.

Science Reporting by Press Release

Cristine Russell, one of the more capable science journalist on either side of the pond, she used to be on the staff of the Washington Post, has an interesting take on the use of press releases in the trade. She has written about this in Science Reporting by Press Release in the Columbia Journalism Review. Cris describes "the degree to which some reporters rely on press releases and public relations offices as sources for stories" as a " dirty little secret of journalism".

Cris's article has details of various examples of the phenomenon. For example, she describes a discussion panel at the National Association of Science Writers where a topic of conversation was a press release, “Living fossils have hot sex,” from the University of Utah. This was picked up by, among others, Reuters, New Scientist and ABC (Australia). The irony, perhaps, is that the author of the release, Lee J. Siegel, has, as Cris puts it, had a "a long science journalism career with The Associated Press and Salt Lake Tribune" before he went to work for the university.

Like any good hack, Cris actually interviewed Lee about the phenomenon. He too expressed concern, complaining that “some news services just rewrite the press releases without interviewing anyone and don’t make clear the story is from a news release”.

The item provoked a thoughtful debate with comments from a number of equally eminent science journalists. One comment that struck home was the puzzlement in one comment about the failure of big media outlets to "link their own stories to the various press releases that their reporters had at hand". After all, it doesn't take much more than a few seconds with Google News to track down such references. Cris does not make this mistake. Her article provides a link to the original Utah press release.

Unfortunately, the excellent discussion does not seem to include any comments from perpetrators of this crime against humanity. Lee does step in to provide some balance, but it would have been nice to see more defence of use of press releases. Surely someone must have a good word to say for them.

European Guide to Science Journalism Training

Buried at the bottom of the pages on the European Forum on Science Journalism: Barcelona, 3-4 December 2007 there is a link to the European Guide to Science Journalism Training. This has now reached a second edition.

When you look at this document, ignore the bit on page 141 about "student journalism
bursaries for science communication courses". This is one bit that they did not update. These bursaries sadly lapsed a few years ago when the Wellcome Trust declined to continue funding them.

Scientists heart journalists?

Thanks to Kat Arney for spotting this interesting take on a recent paper in Science, from a seriously experienced group of researchers who observe the media side of science. It is on the blog Not Exactly Rocket Science.

The blogger looks at the paper and offers "a quick guide to dealing with the media".

Arab science journalists think local

"We want our journalists to focus more on covering local science and have the skills to cover science from an informed perspective." That quote could have come from just about anywhere outside the USA. In this case it came from Nadia El-Awady of the Arab Science Journalists Association (ASJA) in an item on CRDF Conversations from the US Civilian Research & Development Foundation.

Nadia was talking about a partnership that the ASJA has started with the National Association of Science Writers in the United States. As well as learning a few things from the American science journalists, Nadia also hopes that "American journalists will learn from us a little bit about covering science in the developing world because the context is different".

Dealing with Arab science isn't just about blowing local trumpets. "We think that it’s important to cover local science because it sheds light on the deficiencies as well as the good things that are happening. So we really want to see more coverage of local Arab science happening in science columns and science articles in specialized and popular magazines."

This is easier said than done. Nadia also talks about some of the problems they face. "We have to do a lot of footwork to get the research," she says. "In Egypt, you get information out of ministries and government institutions; sometimes you have to go through a process of getting permission, so deadlines are often hard to keep. It’s often impossible to quote government officials in the article because you might have to take about a week or two to get the permission to actually speak to these people."

Remember this the next time you hear someone moaning about getting to sources.

Yet another minister fingers the media

It is that time of the year again, the Glyndebourne Festival is underway and the Public Engagement in Science and Technology (PEST) season has started. In the same week when the first Glyndebourne production opened to mixed reviews, we had the annual bash masterminded the BA, the PEST practitioner par excellence. As yet there have been few reviews of this gig.

Such is the stature of the subject these days that the BA can even drag a government minister along to mutter some fine words at its Science Communication Conference. In this case, the speaker was Ian Pearson, Minister of State for Science and Innovation.

In his speech at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Pearson posed a number of questions in his conclusions. The one most relevant to members of the ABSW was "how can the media provide more accurate and balanced information that helps to improve scientific literacy?"

It seems that there will be yet another consultation paper with words on public engagement. You have been warned.

Week interactions for science on the Telegraph

The 14 May issue of DWPub JournAlert, the weekly newsletter from Daryl Willcox Publishing, has news of interesting developments over at the Telegraph Media Group. It appears that it "plans to combine coverage of science, sport and religion across The Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and telegraph.co.uk".

Fortunately for those involved, this means that the science coverage will come together across these outlets, not that the Telegraph plans to combine coverage of science, sport and religion. Science writers are versatile people, but asking them to rush between house of worship, lab and football pitch may be asking too much.

The newsletter says that "Science editor Roger Highfield and science correspondent Richard Gray, who were formerly based at The Daily Telegraph, will now contribute news and features across all three Telegraph titles. They will be assisted by health correspondent Kate Devlin."

News Reporter - Nature

Nature, the world’s leading international journal of science, is looking for a reporter to join its news team in London.

The successful applicant will have an ambitious attitude to digging out the best stories in the world of scientific and medical research, and a proven flair for doing so. Working primarily online, she or he will be able to report on and analyse news developments under tight deadlines, but will also have many opportunities for other forms of journalism, from feature writing to podcasting. All areas of proven expertise will be taken into consideration, with an eye to complementing the particular knowledge base of current staff; at the same time a demonstrated ability to report on complex biomedical stories is a must. Experience in and/or aptitude for editing, audio journalism and the development of interactive web projects will be an advantage.

This position is based in our offices in Crinan Street (near King’s Cross).

To apply please send no more than three clips, your CV and a covering letter, quoting reference number NPG/LON/876, to Geetika Juneja at londonpersonnel@macmillan.co.uk

All candidates must demonstrate the right to live and work in the UK to be considered for the vacancy.

Closing date: 28th May 2008

A stunning year for biology, but what about the physical sciences?

What would your top 10 stories be for 2007? Alok Jha of The Guardian offers his own selection, with a heavy emphasis on the life sciences, 2007: A year of stunning progress in biology.

Those of us who roam mostly on the side of the physical sciences might offer a different list. The one entry in there, on dark matter, differs from many of the life science stories in having little possible application.

The odd thing is that it takes can less time for discoveries in the physical sciences to become useful applications. That is because they don't usually have to go through so many regulatory hoops and clinical trials.

King departs waving two fingers at the media

The outgoing chief scientific advisor to the Government, Sir David "Dave" King, clearly has not caught the spirit of the season. Not for him a cheery ho ho as he packed up his office and made the final trips in his much touted hybrid vehicle. Instead he slammed into the media for its coverage of scientific issues. The UK Press Gazette sums up the story in its item, Science chief: Press fixation with health risk stories is killing children.

UKPG got in and talked to Sir David on his final days in office. It tells us that Sir David accepts that "scientific reporting has “improved dramatically” in the seven years he has been chief scientist and praised the Mail, Today and others for their regular, reliable reporting. But he warned that “papers are more interested in reporting the risk” the public may face in science stories than “the truth”."

Given the targets in Sir David's sights – as well as praising the Today programme and the Daily Mail he complains about their treatment of GM foods and MMR – it is hard to disagree with him. With very few exceptions, Ben Goldacre in The Guardian for example, you won't find much media criticism of these outlets, or of any other media coverage of science, confirming the old adage that when it comes to the media dog does not eat dog.

Funnily enough, Sir David does not have any complaints about climate change and how the media covers it. Perhaps that is because it is difficult for "climate deniers" to get a hearing.

AAAS - Science Journalism Award

It is that time again. They have fired the starting pistol for this year's AAAS - Science Journalism Award.

Stuff written 1 July 2006 through 30 June 2007. "All entries must be postmarked on or before midnight of 1 August 2007."

Big award for small science mag

The staying power of the Bull. At. Sci. never ceases to amaze. There may be few atomic scientists around, but they hang in there, with a changing agenda that always seem to keep up with what is going on at the ethical edges of science.

Never mind the fact that their "minutes to midnight" doomsday clock is a bit of a PR gimmick. Who wouldn't delight in inventing such a nice "brand name". So it is good to see that Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists wins national award.

The awards comes from American Society of Magazine Editors, a prestigious bunch of folks. And the bulletin had to fight off a diverse bunch of competitors to become the "2007 National Magazine Award for General Excellence (under 100,000 circulation)".

Nice one.

Speculations on science and the press

Just in case there are readers of this list who do not also subscribe to Fiona Fox's blog in the hope that she will post another of her always interesting insights into our business, here's a link to her latest essay, On Science and the Media: Why experts need to speculate, without speculating.

As Director of the Science Media Centre, Fiona often ends up trying to pick up the pieces on breaking science stories, in the hope that the SMC can prevent the media from making a complete balls up of it. This can mean cold calling scientists in the hope that they will bring some sanity to the party.

It seems that they don't always see the point of this process. Twenty years is it since Bodmer? And we still have these neanderthals getting all precious.