Paul Raeburn mines an interesting nugget from recent dustups over reporters who let sources review quotes and stories. He points out that Washington Post editor Marcus Brauchli seems to be OK with science writers who let sources review their copy: "I think Brauchli’s special distinction for science writers reflects a common perception in newsrooms, namely that science is too difficult for most reporters to understand."
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"From The New York Times, to ABC News, to HuffingtonPost.com and everyone in between, nearly 30,000 members of the media have quoted HARO sources in their stories," the Help A Reporter Out web site says on its front page. There's no mention of Ryan Holiday, who used the site to dupe major news organizations. Holiday writes about his escapades in CJR. More from Forbes and the Poynter Institute.
Famous newspapers are going broke right and left, or at least cutting back. But in this Nieman Journalism Lab post, industry analyst Ken Doctor says there are some causes for optimism. The rising popularity of tablets is one: "People like to read news on the tablet. They read more of it, from known sources, for longer periods. If the news industry were just stable, euphoria would be in order, but since it’s not, this astounding turnaround ... has been underappreciated."
The Public Relations Society of America says it's no big deal, Mallary Jean Tenore writes on the Poynter site. But many journalists and mainstream publications see it differently, and that attitude cost a Kansas City Star columnist his job (he's now suing for defamation). Tenore offers some tips for staying on the right side of the line: "Rather than just quoting or paraphrasing a release in a story, make your story stand out by including your own voice in it."
The 2012 Olympics begins today in London, as the 19th International AIDS Conference concludes in Washington. The science and medicine of the Olympics, from brain to brawn: mental prep, swimming, pseudoscience, air pollution, the medal metals, comparing athletes with spectators, and more. Apps for keeping up with the games: iPhone, Android, tablets, TV, and maybe Twitter, which is having trouble staying up. Bone marrow transplants may have cured two more HIV infections. Getting antiviral drugs
It was certainly a reach when the conservative National Review drew a link in a blog post between Penn State scientist Michael Mann and the school's disgraced former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Now, CJR's Curtis Brainard writes that Mann is demanding a full retraction and apology: "More often than not ... it is conservative/libertarian writers harassing climate scientists, and the low to which [writers] Simberg and Steyn stooped is certainly deplorable."
It's not easy to do good science, and, according to John Timmer at Ars Technica, it's even harder to cheat, at least without getting caught. So Timmer offers wry advice to would-be fabricators. "Unfortunately, data has somehow managed to become the foundation of modern science — so you're going to need to get some from somewhere if you want a career. A few brave souls have figured out a way to liberate data from the tyranny of experimentation: they simply make it up."
Poynter's Roy Peter Clark says he's become a cynic: "When I read or hear a scene in a story, for example, that seems too good to be true — like performance artist Mike Daisey’s exploited Chinese worker rubbing the stump of his hand over the magic surface of an iPad — I now assume it is NOT true." His prescription? A new Ten Commandments for narrative non-fiction — a list of rules designed to separate honest practitioners from the liars, fakers, and cheaters.
The prevailing wisdom might be "not much," but Kent Anderson begs to differ. In a post on the Scholarly Kitchen site, Anderson lists 60 functions of the academic press, such as editing: "A subject-matter expert needs to learn how to be a good editor. This comes naturally enough to some, but others struggle with it, and a few never quite get it ... Some editing is cursory and done by outsourced editors with little domain expertise who just apply style guides."