I find the linked article quite pertinent to political journalists. I just can't believe it is relevant to most science journalists. I am sure that occasionally there is a science story in which sources really are trying to control the "spin." But it seems that, in most stories heavy in science, quoted scientists are simply trying to ensure that the science they conveyed has been reported accurately. Occasionally, my sources try to alter language unimportant to meaning -- alterations that, frequently, make the resulting copy less fluent and heavier in jargon than how I originally wrote it. In those cases, I ignore their suggestions. But, in my experience, such suggestions by scientists are, if not helpful, at least innocent, and science writers who refuse the opportunity of suggestions that may truly enlighten their reporting usually do so more to preserve their own illusion that they are some sort of Watergate-era "investigative" journalists than to preserve any sort of genuine journalistic integrity.

I have no doubt there are dramatic exceptions to what I have written. I simply believe that this is the norm for science-based stories. For better or worse, I think that most of us "science writers" are translators of scientific studies for lay audiences or, frequently, for other scientists. Bringing in ideals of investigative political reporting seems, at best, unnecessary.