This Is a News Website Article About a Scientific Paper 193
jamie passes along a humorous article at The Guardian which pokes fun at the shallow and formulaic science journalism typical of many mainstream news outlets. Quoting:
In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of 'scare quotes' to ensure that it's clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever. ... If the research is about a potential cure, or a solution to a problem, this paragraph will describe how it will raise hopes for a group of sufferers or victims. This paragraph elaborates on the claim, adding weasel-words like 'the scientists say' to shift responsibility for establishing the likely truth or accuracy of the research findings on to absolutely anybody else but me, the journalist. ... 'Basically, this is a brief soundbite,' the scientist will say, from a department and university that I will give brief credit to. 'The existing science is a bit dodgy, whereas my conclusion seems bang on,' she or he will continue."
Not all criticism being equal (Score:4, Interesting)
There are plenty of reasons to mock news coverage of scientific papers; but how exactly do you have a complaint when a journalist clearly states that someone else (not the journalist) is making an assertion when that is, in fact, true?
Yeah, let's mock them for that until they start omitting the "according to so-and-so" qualifications, and then we can mock them for pretending to be in a position to make definitive claims about topics they don't understand.
Give me a break.
Let's do it! (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm down with that, stupid mods (AC for a reason). I mean, insightful? How many contributors to /. are insightful?
Go back downstairs and get off my lawn!
Re:Idle - NOT news (Score:4, Interesting)
The article isn't even pointing out journalism's failings. It is mocking the very purpose of journalism; to simplify and misrepresent events so that they form an attention grabbing narrative.
This task is especially difficult for science journalism as the events they have to report on are usually small developments in quite narrow fields. These can be used to present a vague idea of progress but getting much else out the events requires some "creativity". In this situation most journalists fall back on familiar for and against template.
I'm not sure if much can be done to change the situation as journalism doesn't require accuracy. Instead, it thrives on emotion (sensation?) and narrative. Always has, always will.
Re:This Should Be Navel-Gazing (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. I agree that we should do it more, but I don't think we should do it "instead," as you say. I prefer linking to both. The vast majority of people do not want to download a PDF and spend an hour reading through an academic paper when there's a (reasonably well-informed) news article available. But, for those who do, it should be an option.
The other big problem is that many of these scientific papers are paywalled -- and we're not talking about a mickey-mouse Rupert Murdoch paywall. A 1-year subscription to Nature, for example, is $200. Reading only an abstract doesn't tell you much about the quality of the research or potential applications.
As always, if you read something linked from here and think coverage is better elsewhere, you're more than welcome to hit us with an email saying so.