Finally, an SMC seems to be about properly educating the public about science. Maybe it’s also born of concern about science denialism in our culture. No doubt journalists play an important role in the development of a society’s scientific literacy, but our role as educators is overstated and imbued with unrealistic expectations. We cover the news. Then we go on to the next story. We inform our readers, viewers and listeners, and in the best efforts offer them insight and open doors to ideas they previously knew little about. These are far from trivial functions. But we don’t educate in the conventional sense. If improving journalists’ roles as educators is driving the concept of an SMC, the end will be mostly frustration.
Science journalism, like science itself, is a work-in-progress. We can certainly use more support for the efforts and programs in place to improve our craft and our profession. We don’t need yet another well-meaning organization to dilute the already scarce resources dedicated to that end.
Curtis Brainard, reply:
These are all important questions and concerns and ones that many American journalists will likely have, especially those who are unfamiliar with the SMC network.
Ron is right that the US is fortunate to have an excellent support structure for science writers already in place. I’m a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the Society of Environmental Journalists. They’re invaluable, and they do provide timely help with stories for reporters on deadline, but their work is much broader, and they’re not setup to do that fulltime in the way a SMC would be.
The most important function of a SMC is to help reporters “triage” major research papers using a volunteer network of top scientists. While I agree that we should avoid diluting scare resources, I don’t think that a center would duplicate any services currently available, and thus the question is, as Ron notes, is there a need for the center? And if so, how much?
I don’t know of any scholarly evaluations of the SMCs’ influence on the media in other countries or writ large (and such info would certainly be helpful), but reporters on variety of beats, including science, have said they appreciate the centers’ assistance. In fact, the centers have collected numerous testimonials from top journalists, scientists, and press officers who have worked with them.
In the US, misinformation is certainly part of the problem, but so is the general decline of science coverage in general-interest newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting. The mission is both to improve accuracy the accuracy of science coverage and to encourage more of it. Indeed, the US exploratory committee is eager to hear from journalists how an American center could do that.
Among other things, the committee hopes to commission studies on the current state of science media in the US and on where Americans get their science news. It will also ask a small number of US science journalists to volunteer to sign-up for the SMC UK’s email list and take advantage its services in order see what they find helpful or unhelpful.
Ron’s suggestions—like the need to provide better training for general editors about the scientific process—are incredibly helpful and exactly the kind of pointers that the committee is looking for. The committee would also like to hear concerns, such as the one Ron expressed about improving journalists’ role as educators, which isn’t the center’s goal. The goal is to help them locate accurate scientific information and sources for their reporting, and over the coming months, the more input the committee receives, the better.
Ron Winslow, reply:
So is it a dearth of science coverage in the US media that is driving interest in a Science Media Center, or is it concern about the quality of science journalism?
Any SMC providing science resources for the media—however trusted and rigorous—would be of limited value if the science-writer workstations in our newsrooms are mostly empty chairs. Prospects that conventional print and broadcast outlets, even those with a prominent online presence, are poised for a science-journalist hiring binge are remote at best.
There IS a need in the US for something like an SMC, at the very least to help the major source of news for most Americans, local TV news, do much better with science coverage...more coveraget, and better informed. I was a TV environment and science reporter in the 80s and 90s and have watched that frequency and quality suffer badly. TV stations would gobble this up. In fact, there would have to be great caution. They gobbled up way too gullibly the feeds of medical and health news often supplied by corporations or local hospitals. But for the medium through which more people get news than any other, an SMC could play a vital role improving science journalism. (to be continued in Helsinki!)
#1 Posted by David Ropeik, CJR on Fri 21 Jun 2013 at 04:43 PM
David makes a worthwhile point - local broadcast is the way many people get their news and in the mobile era, short video packages will increasingly dominate as a medium of delivering news. Short downloadable video commentary from a transparent, foundation-backed independent source of scientific perspective (say a minute of b-roll and 2-3 comments from an expert) would likely be an effective way to reach the public (if you can get it across to local news outlets that it is available). Those outlets will never hire science or environmental reporters, there is no advertising money for it, so this kind of resource would be better than nothing and reach many people who are often tuned out from more comprehensive sources of news.
More broadly however, I share Ron's questions about efforts to "improve" science journalism or educate the public. Any such enterprise will possess an agenda, however well-intentioned, and/or represent a diversion of effort away from real journalism. What is the goal here? How do you measure outcomes? Would we be better off with funding more research into science communication instead? Or education in news literacy?
#2 Posted by Dan Vergano, CJR on Sun 23 Jun 2013 at 02:10 PM
The "diversity of the American media" argument seems off point; US media may be large, but there's little diversity. And the suggestion that US reporters would not use canned quotes struck me as downright humorous.
#3 Posted by Tom T., CJR on Mon 24 Jun 2013 at 11:17 AM
"Far from adding another layer of PR to reporters’ work routines, the idea is to help them cut through the large volume of communications they already receive."
Curtis, it seems you're giving with this sentence, the same argument as your co-author: a lot of excellent resources are already doing exactly that ("help them cut through the volume"). So, rather than creating a new structure, why the SMC defenders do not help the structures already doing a good job?
#4 Posted by Francis Lacombe, CJR on Mon 24 Jun 2013 at 11:57 PM