We've all seen it happen. A reporter asks a question, and the person being interviewed gives an answer that sounds convincing but doesn't address the question. Denise Graveline writes about the risks sources run when they play that game. Referencing a recent Science Friday piece on the "artful dodge," Graveline asks: "What's your goal? To try to outwit the questioner or to convey credibility? In this case, you may be trading one for the other."
Science writing news
Ivan Oransky has disturbing news from Europe. French researchers offered a paper on genetically modified food to reporters under embargo, but only if the journalists pledged not to consult other scientists before the embargo lifted: "One of the main reasons for embargoes ... is to give reporters more time to write better stories. Part of how you do that is talking to outside experts." Comment from Carl Zimmer, Deborah Blum.
Kelly McBride on the Poynter site discusses something called "patchwriting," which she calls "a dishonest writing technique that is common on college campuses and among journalists." What is it? Unlike plagiarism, it's not verbatim copying. Rather, it's a clumsy and incomplete paraphrasing in which the writer lifts ideas and thoughts if not entire sentences: "It’s a form of intellectual dishonesty that indicates that the writer is not actually thinking for herself."
"Every narrative journalist can point to a story or a book, or two, that changed their lives, and that made them want to tell true stories," Paige Williams writes on Nieman Storyboard. Williams surveys a half-dozen college writing teachers — Jacqui Banaszynski, Mark Bowden, Madeleine Blais, Rob Boynton, Jeff Sharlet and Rebecca Skloot — on the books, magazine articles and newspaper stories that they use when trying to inspire young and aspiring writers and themselves.
"Social media is a ‘time suck,’ like lots of useful journalism tools," Steve Buttry writes as he discusses contrasting views from two current journalism conferences. At the Associated Press Managing Editors meeting, one top AP editor called social media a "time suck," Buttry writes. But at the Online News Association's conference, panelists outlined best social media practices for journalists. More tips from Tim Nekritz.
The mouse retrovirus XMRV does not cause chronic fatigue syndrome, but there's more, much more. XMRV doesn't cause prostate cancer either. But, you heard it here first, maybe some other infection does? Should PLoS have retracted the prostate cancer paper without consulting the authors? Plus, savor the big book of best science blogging.
NASW is pleased to offer over $10,000 in travel fellowships this year to assist science writers with travel and registration costs for the ScienceWriters2012 meeting. Read more to see the winners.
You'd think the best authority on a book's inspiration would be its author. At least that's what Philip Roth thought. As Andrew Lih recounts in Online Journalism Review, Roth wrote in the New Yorker about his struggle to fix an incorrect Wikipedia passage about his book, The Human Stain: "That someone's first-hand knowledge about their own work could be rejected in this manner seems inane. But it's a fundamental working process of Wikipedia."
There's cause for hope in recent bad news about science writing, Seth Mnookin writes on his PLOS blog. True, "one of our biggest stars was revealed as a fraud; publications that should be exemplars of nuanced, high-quality reporting are allowing confused speculation to clutter their pages; researchers and PIOs are nudging reporters towards overblown interpretations," and so on. But shoddy journalists are quickly set straight by a barrage of authoritative responses.