Zhana Vrangalova, a Cornell PhD student, has mixed feelings about her first major media ride for a study on sexual behaviors, and she writes about them on her blog, from published study to press release to coverage. Although she calls the experience "much more positive than negative" she warns, "Be very very careful what you say to journalists and how you say it, because they can and will misunderstand, misinterpret, and sensationalize everything and anything you say."
Issues in science writing
Two takes from busy science writers on handling students seeking help with their assignments. From Carl Zimmer: "It doesn’t feel right to supply emails that students can simply cut and paste into their assignments, when they should be learning how to learn from reading." And John Hawks: "I give students a lot of credit for having the courage to write and ask original questions, but when I get form letters by e-mail, they have to go unanswered."
Writing in Columbia Journalism Review, Declan Fahy recaps notable cases such as Diederick Stapel's serial data fabrication and suggests ways for journalists to cover scientific misconduct better by focusing on broader trends more than individual cases: "Particular scientific scandals make compelling stories. But reporters can paint a bigger picture of the scientific enterprise, revealing, rather than obscuring, the social environment in which scientists work."
Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, who write the Retraction Watch blog, have a few things to say about journal editors who stonewall their questions about retracted papers: "Many retraction notices have about as much to say as a mime at a wallflower convention. Anyone hoping to find out the reason for the retraction – was it misconduct, for example, or just honest error? – will be up the proverbial creek without a paddle." That's bad for science, Oransky and Marcus argue.
Jalees Rehman doesn't think much of most contemporary science journalism. Writing in the Guardian, Rehman accuses science writers of placing too much faith in the peer review process: "Critical science journalism requires a careful analysis of all the data presented in a paper and is likely to uncover key limitations and flaws that scientific researchers themselves do not readily divulge." Followup: Rehman discusses reaction to his piece.
Climate change isn't the only subject where "balanced" journalism distorts the truth. Writing in CJR, Curtis Brainard says the same is true of the discredited link between autism and vaccines: "Only a small group of researchers ever even entertained the theory about autism. The coverage rarely emphasized this, if it noted it at all, and instead propagated misunderstanding about vaccines and autism and gave credence to what was largely a manufactured controversy."
President Obama's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, is being pressed to improve that agency's transparency, Curtis Brainard reports: "The day before McCarthy … faced off with the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, a group of Republicans on the committee and the Society of Environmental Journalists released separate statements, with different motivations, accusing the agency of secrecy and calling for more openness."
Some editors ban them. Many others discourage them. But email interviews have a solid place in reporting, Mark Lisheron writes for American Journalism Review: "Journalism professionals put email at the very bottom of their interviewing hierarchies, below the interview in person, below the phone interview," Lisheron writes. But, he continues, "email is a tool, in the box alongside the sit-down and the phoner, convenient, quick, precise and very often essential."
Five years after its last review, the Union of Concerned Scientists has just updated its report on media policies for federal scientists and found improvement but lingering issues at some agencies. Among the most improved were the Environmental Protection Agency, from a D to an A-minus, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, from a D to a B. Lower grades went to the Occupation Safety and Health Administration, with a D, and the Department of Agriculture, with a C-minus.
After a New York Times reporter gave a critical review to the Tesla S electric car, its maker fired back with an attack based on data collected by the car's instruments during its test drive. Did that settle things? Not at all, Kent Anderson writes on the Scholarly Kitchen: "Data can help tell a story, but the story can't necessarily be derived from the data alone. And big data don't replace the right data, as Nate Silver showed us during last year’s US elections."