My wife, bless her heart, goes the extra mile to protect our two boys from ubiquitous nasties, like BPA chemicals, pesticides, and high fructose corn syrup. It’s a fairly impossible task to avoid such exposures in the modern world. Still, the kids have a virtual organic food diet and all our household cleaners are eco-friendly,…Continue Reading…
The cantankerous Jerry Coyne, in a recent post, takes issue with popular “science-lite” books that offer superficial analyses of and solutions to social problems or””most disturbing to me””superficial descriptions of scientific work. This is a recurring bugaboo for scientists. It springs from a deeply rooted attitude that science journalist Deborah Blum aptly described here. So which authors have…Continue Reading…
On twitter, British science journalist Martin Robbins recently said: Mixing fact and opinion in journalism is inevitable. Anyone who thinks they write pure, unbiased fact is quite deluded. This is true. Newspaper and (especially) magazine stories often have a specific angle or slant. So there is no such thing as pure objectivity. Journalists, like everyone else,…Continue Reading…
Two recent articles about science journalism carry headlines that reflect a tension between two modes of thinking on climate change reporting. The Guardian piece asserts in its headline: Science journalists should be asking questions and deflating exaggeration Michael Lemonick, a veteran science journalist, asks: Should we tell the whole truth about climate change? The two…Continue Reading…
Yesterday, Nature’s online editor set off a mini squall with this Guardian column, titled “Nine ways scientists demonstrate they don’t understand journalism.” The response from the science blogosphere was pretty negative. For some reason, this surprised me–well the darts thrown at the piece by many writers did, anyway. I kinda got into it a bit…Continue Reading…
Thanks for being a reader, and thanks to many of you for making this site a lively exchange of interesting perspectives, particularly on climate change related issues. Early next week, I’ll have a post up elaborating on a few new wrinkles to the blog. Meanwhile, I’d like to hear from you on something. What particular…Continue Reading…
The prestigious journal Nature has published a special supplement on traditional Asian medicine (free access). Financial sponsorship for it came from the Kitasato University Oriental Medicine Research Center and the Saishunkan Pharmaceutical Co, which is described as a herbal medicine manufacturer which aims to help people make the most of their natural powers of healing…Continue Reading…
There are two recent critiques of science journalism that paint very different pictures of the profession. One of them, an editorial in Nature this week, is more broadly aimed at the news media in general, and decries “scientific ignorance of the press,” agenda-driven stories, and “journalism that favors attitude over accuracy.” The criticism is directed at…Continue Reading…
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…Continue Reading…
If you recall, last week I expressed some dismay that a three part series on global warming in Scientific American magazine was financed by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. To my surprise, no journalistic watchdogs (or science journalists) rose up to publicly question this unusual arrangement. But Bud Ward at the Yale Forum on Climate…Continue Reading…