In Slate, Jon Entine critiques a first-person account in Elle of a woman's supposed allergies to genetically modified corn: "It represents a major setback for science journalism, and for consumers who rely on hugely popular lifestyle publications to make their way through complicated issues … Elle perpetuates a 'controversy' that just doesn’t exist in the mainstream science or medical communities." Follow-up.
Science writing news
When people cling to beliefs that are factually wrong, giving them more information isn't likely to set them straight, for reasons that are hard-wired into our brains. Science communicators need to recognize that, John Timmer writes on ArsTechnica: "People don't think the Earth is young because they haven't been exposed to sufficient evidence for its age; they want to believe that it's young because they feel a cultural affinity for other people who believe that way."
The National Press Club will webcast its panel discussion tonight on government agencies that require reporters to conduct interviews via their press offices. Details here. From the announcement: "Such restrictions have increasingly become the rule in federal agencies, but they were not in place so widely a few decades ago." PIOs maintain that the controls "ensure that the press gets accurate information and the department or agency’s message is unified and coherent."
Journalism is in decline and science journalism peaked 30 years, or so everyone says. Except Tom Levenson, who writes that web-based publications like the Atavist, Matter, and Aeon are delivering quality work: "There has been a collapse of venues (and employment) for science writers schooled, as I was, in the pre-digital journalism world [but] the reality is that right now is the best time I recall for readers of science writing." Follow-up.
The Open Notebook collects answers from six science writers in reply to a beginning science writer's query: "What types of stories, and what types of venues (or specific ones) are best for someone like me to pitch to?" The most frequent advice: Keep it short: "When the word count is short (and when the editor has an editorial hole that needs to be filled regularly) they’re more likely to take a risk on somebody whose work they don’t know," says Maggie Koerth-Baker.
Megan Geuss at arstechnica provides some background on the University of California's move to free public access for future research articles by faculty members at its 10 campuses: "Making the open access license automatic for its faculty leverages the power of the institution … against the power of publishers who would otherwise lock content behind a paywall," Geuss writes. More from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Linda Marsa’s Fevered explores a genuinely hot topic, the impact of rising temperatures worldwide on human health.
It's harder than you think, Denise Graveline writes in a guide to making it through without falling apart. For example, printing on both sides of your pages might make you skip part of your speech. And when using a story you know well, don't write it down: "Just insert 'tell vacuum cleaner story here,' rather than try to script something you can tell without effort. This will force you to look at the audience, helping you to connect, and it will sound less stilted."
USA Today's Dan Vergano probably didn't mean to set off a social media explosion with his views on whether science writers are outcasts in major newsrooms. But that's about what happened, as evidenced by the dozens of comments attached to Vergano's Q&A, in which he asks: "Where is the science writer sitting at the editor-in-chief’s desk at Time, or the New Yorker, or the Atlantic? Why is David Brooks explaining social science or neuroscience to readers?"