James Gilbert discusses a finding that charges of financial bias reduce the public's faith in even the soundest scientific research: "The more high profile these arguments become, the more people get used to the possibility of a giant scientific plot fuelled by career-protecting scientists, and the further their trust in scientific findings, however unanimous, is eroded. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that strictly balanced media over-represent minority views."
State of the craft
Longreads founder Mark Armstrong shares some surprising and counter-intuitive news about what readers are sharing on his site — most of it originates from newspapers and magazine websites: "When you take a closer look at the Top 200 sites shared on Longreads, 65 percent of them were still websites for print magazines or newspapers. The resurgence of long-form storytelling on the web is still being subsidized and supported by print businesses and print revenue."
"We’re experiencing a diaspora of journalism," Nicco Mele writes in the Spring Nieman Reports. Everyone knows the future of news lies with small media. But who inherits big media's power to shape the public sphere? "The front page of a newspaper was a judgment about what was important to the public, what we should think about, what we should discuss. But now, the unbundling of content has led to the unbundling of audience … There is no shared public experience."
Physicist Chad Orzel turns the tables on Ed Yong's recent post about how scientists can do a better job of meeting the needs of journalists: "In reality, the responsibility is mutual. Scientists need to make an effort to make the journalists’ jobs easier, as much as they can," Orzel writes. "And journalists, too, need to make an effort to respect the interests and concerns of the scientists they talk to, avoiding hype and oversimplification."
It's simple, Ed Yong writes. Just talk about a paper's strengths and weaknesses, and put it in context, and above all speak in plain English: "Just bear in mind that if something is riddled with jargon, I can paraphrase it but I can’t really quote it. That’s a little riskier for you, because maybe I might inadvertently misinterpret something you say. It’s also less good for me. I want to put your words in quote marks because it can really brighten up a piece."
Does a new science magazine, Nautilus, signal a new golden age of science journalism? In CJR, Curtis Brainard argues that the rebirth was already happening online: "In fact, some of the blogs that are driving the renaissance in science writing have been around for a decade, and critics have long recognized their role in the revival." Also, Nautilus advisor Sean Carroll says what he thinks of the site's main backer, the Templeton Foundation.
Traditional news brands are dying, but in a Nieman Journalism Lab post Nicco Mele and John Wihbey propose a solution: Turn them into talent platforms. "This means that were you to buy the Los Angeles Times, you might reorient it as 50 to 100 blogs that all have a common institutional home but are driven by news talents who convene discrete audiences. They could be armed by their news institution with video, audio, data visualization, research resources, and support."
Dean Starkman at CJR discusses a Columbia University study tracing how newspapers evolved in the last half of the 20th century toward a focus on longer, meatier stories: "In the 1960s, the news business, following society, underwent a shift. It started to produce stories that didn’t necessarily originate from an institution or official, use the pyramid style, or include the word 'yesterday,' and did contain an essential element: context."
Shining a bright light on society's problems is a time-honored journalism tradition. But in a Reporting on Health blog post, Ryan White argues that the most effective stories start with the solution instead. White writes, quoting Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Tina Rosenberg: "It’s obviously not right in a lot of standard beat stories. But on some of the most important larger stories you can integrate a solutions angle successfully and rigorously."
Ten years ago, the Los Angeles Times had 1,776 stories exceeding 2,000 words. Last year, it had 256, Dean Starkman writes at CJR. Of four big papers, only the New York Times bucked the trend. Does it matter? Starkman thinks so: "No one equates story-length with quality. Let’s start with that concession. But still. Story-length is hardly meaningless when you consider what it takes to explain complex problems, like say, the financial crisis, to the broader public."