Climate change first got major media attention in 1988, but it didn't take long for the fossil fuels industry to start its counterattack, and news coverage soon receded into a flawed "fair and balanced" posture, Robert S. Eshelman writes in CJR: "Climate change doubters in those years were taking a page from the fight against the regulation of tobacco products, urging newspapers and radio and television networks to provide 'balance' in their reporting of the science."
Science writing news
Adapting her recent talk for the D.C. Science Writers Association, Ann Finkbeiner writes about her misgivings over the use of fiction-writing techniques in nonfiction about science, especially when it comes to eliding facts to help a story: "Nonfiction arranges facts into a story, it finds the story in the facts. Readers are not in it for evocation of someone else’s world. They’re in it for the truth about the world we all must share, for understanding those facts."
Tabitha M. Powledge contemplates this week's report that male researchers cause stress in lab mice, as measured by the animals' feces production. Is it funny? Does it augur good or ill for female researchers? And what does it mean for the annals of research? "If (Senior author Jeffrey Mogil) is right about human males routinely producing stress in others just by being on the premises, then the effect on research could extend to many other lab animals besides rodents."
Mike Feinsilber thinks so. Reflecting on his decades of newsroom experience, Feinsilber recalls when "it rained yesterday" was followed by "the Weather Bureau said." Now, reporters can often assert facts on their own authority: "I'm not deploring this assertive, powerful journalism, I'm hailing it. The reader no longer needs to read between the attributions to discern the truth. Reporters can no longer hide behind sources: they have to know what they are talking about."
Akshat Rathi offers a checklist for science writers who want to head off mistakes in their stories. At the top of the list is a simple question: "Are you exaggerating?" Rathi explains: "Only a few science papers published in any year will actually lead to great advances or have wide-reaching implications. Are you sure you are writing about such science? You don't want to write stories such as 'Recreational pot use harmful to young people's brains,' only to be shot down.
Two NASW members have been selected for travel fellowships to attend the 64th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany this summer. Congratulations to Claudia Caruana and Elizabeth Landau and special thanks to the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings for funding these fellowships for the seventh year. Read more for details on the conference and fellows.
Double X Science LLC, a consortium of science writers spearheading the 'Women in Science Writing: Solutions Summit,’ which is sponsored by an NASW Idea Grant, has designed a survey to gain an understanding of the attitudes, experiences, and the role of gender for all science writers. Read more and consider participating in the survey by May 12.
Michelle V. Rafter offers ten tips for freelancers who have trouble getting their clients to pay on time: "In the years I've been self-employed, I've only needed outside collections help once, and I eventually got every penny. But there've been times I've waited months to get what I was owed." Many of her tips have to do with prevention, such as declining "payment on publication" contracts: "Many POP stories are essays that are evergreen and can keep indefinitely."
Brenda Goodman tells the story of a press release that touted a study on the relationship between concussions and suicide attempts among teenagers. A good source for a topical story on the risks of sports? That's what Goodman and her editor thought, at least until she read the study: "Turns out, though, the research wasn't exactly about concussions. In fact, the word 'concussion' isn't used once in the entire study text, which was published in the journal PLoS One."