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Why does science news suck so much?

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Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#211

Post by timr »

freework wrote: post #195
vapemaster wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone criticizes your paper, and it gets pulled from publication, then thats the same as having never published anything in the first place. Therefore, the technique to survival is to write your paper in such a way that repels criticism as much as possible. Not trying to be snarky, but that's not how publishing works.. you don't get a paper retracted for criticism, you get it retracted if there was scientific…

> you don't get a paper retracted for criticism, you get it retracted if there was scientific malfeasance. Why would somebody criticize a scientific paper for something other than to point out some kind of scientific malfeasance? If the paper is written in such a hard to understand manner, then its not possible to make any response at all. That's the point.

> Why would somebody criticize a scientific paper for something other than to point out some kind of scientific malfeasance?

Because most papers are not actively deceptive, they're just wrong. Or if not just wrong, they've got some critical error. Even great papers. Most people don't seem to get this.

Out of every paper I've read in my life (easily in the thousands now), the number that I think are/were unquestionable I can count on one hand, and have fingers left over. Case in point: once I made the mistake of pulling the "source paper" on Okazaki fragments (a Nobel-caliber discovery on a core part of DNA replication) for a seminar I was teaching in biochemistry. I thought it would be neat to go back to the source material for such an important discovery.

What I didn't realize is that the original paper was...let's just say that it wasn't really conclusive. It didn't take long for my students to rip it apart, and I was chastened. I should have gone into it with the attitude that I was going to show them how hard and messy real science is. Instead, I feel like I made them believe that their textbook was wrong!

Science is Hard. Even stuff that is considered Nobel-worthy after years of post-hoc examination is rarely definitive when it first gets published. These "reporters" who rush out and breathlessly write a fawning/sensational/scary article about something after they half-read an abstract on arXiv, but question nothing within the article itself, are tremendous hacks.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#212

Post by antisthenes »

Same reason most news suck.

Journalists aren't subject matter experts and by definition will not understand the full depth of the scientific publication.

And most won't even try to. They're happy to write their twitter-ized clickbaity headline and move on to the next article.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#213

Post by openknot »

yunohn wrote: post #206
arnaudsm wrote: post #38

A friend of mine worked for a mainstream European science news website. Most journalists had no science background, and were pressured into writing 4 articles a day. The result of course, was low quality articles and hastily copied press releases with no critical thinking. They believed everything corporations said, because they had no time to check. I don't blame the journalists, but the work conditions and economic…

> I don't blame the journalists, but the work conditions and economical situation of the media industry. Why wouldn’t you blame people who voluntarily took a job writing science articles while having zero credentials? They could be normal news journos, nobody forced them to report on science specifically.

I once went to a journalism conference, and there was a panel where a professional science journalist strongly pushed for the view along the lines of, "you don't need a science background to be a science writer," instead of encouraging aspiring journalists to study the relevant background over the years.

I'm sure a view against credentials isn't shared by all journalists (for example, many publications do require a relevant background), but that experience was personally disheartening because it seemed to be supported in the room.

I was also disheartened by the focus on self-marketing and self-promotion in general over doing quality, accurate journalism, and a much bigger focus on having a good "narrative" and writing engagingly versus having a discussion on ethics. To some extent, I get it, because the advice likely works in helping someone succeed in their career. But there are clearly problems in science news related to precision and accuracy, and not much drive in many publications to fix it.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#214

Post by caenorst »

robonerd wrote: post #160
snarf21 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. It is all about click bait to drive digital advertising. It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. We want it to be free which means ads. NPR/PBS tends to have better and more balanced news but it is largely because of their donor/patron model. But to be clear, they are surely not immune. They are still run by people who are judged by views and reach and other eye…

> Exactly this. It is all about click bait to drive digital advertising. It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. I'm not buying it. Science reporting from university press departments is just as bad if not worse, and they are funded by the university not advertising (tuition, grants, alumni donations, etc..)

This is not a proof. In logic, you can't say A and C => D is wrong just because B and C => D is wrong.

An example, "My uncle became blind because of diabetes", similar answer: "I don't buy it, my father is diabetic and never got blind". Doesn't work.

In other words, the reason why scientific journalism in non-university press could be bad for various different reason than university press.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#215

Post by caenorst »

giantrobot wrote: post #187
snarf21 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. It is all about click bait to drive digital advertising. It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. We want it to be free which means ads. NPR/PBS tends to have better and more balanced news but it is largely because of their donor/patron model. But to be clear, they are surely not immune. They are still run by people who are judged by views and reach and other eye…

> It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. It's not about people not wanting to pay, it's that the value of a single article is too small to charge money for. A single article is maybe worth a hundredth of a cent to me. There's no viable mechanism for me to pay a hundredth of a cent to a writer, just transaction fees will be more than the amount transacted. I'm not going to pa…

> I'm also not going to pay a subscription fee to every site I come across that might have a decently written article once in a while.

What if the site was consistenly putting decent articles? I think one of the argument is that you would see more of those decent articles if people were more enclined to follow a subscription model where the journal is accountable to its customers.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#216

Post by openknot »

quest88 wrote: post #179
robonerd wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exactly this. It is all about click bait to drive digital advertising. It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. I'm not buying it. Science reporting from university press departments is just as bad if not worse, and they are funded by the university not advertising (tuition, grants, alumni donations, etc..)

IMO: People that write well are not jumping at the chance to write science articles for universities. Writing is hard and science is hard, and being passionate about both is rare.

You would be surprised. Universities pay substantially better than newspapers (likely with better job security), and writing jobs are typically hard to find and low-paying in general. Many former experienced journalists end up working at university press departments because of the better working conditions.

From an enjoyment side, writing is hard, but for a lot of people, it's much easier than research. There are fewer credentials needed for a career in science journalism versus scientific research (a Bachelor's only versus a PhD for many senior scientist positions). I know a lot of people who have a natural skill at writing who decided to major in a science field for one reason or another, performed okay-ish at their courses, and tried to get back to writing work.

The end result is also similar writing for a magazine/newspaper versus a university. A university may have higher standards for accuracy and precision (especially if an interviewed scientist wants to review it, while a newspaper/magazine may have a policy to avoid sharing drafts to avoid bias in the article). However, higher-end magazines (like the New Yorker) have more prestige. There is also far less room at universities for dissent (e.g. presenting an opposing scientific view or publishing investigative work).

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#217

Post by yetanother12345 »

noduerme wrote: post #14

It's like this. (Not that it needs to be stated. We all know this.) The Delta Airline pilot union today put out a terse, two paragraph letter to the public, blaming the airline for their forced overtime and subsequent flight delays. There were hundreds of news articles about this, all of which strung out the lead into several paragraphs and doled out a few sentences of this bland letter. Most of them did not link to…

Thanks for submitting that link. It was a very interesting perspective although I doubt that the author (or Bourdieu, or both) really understands the nature of the Art MarketS (with a capital S to emphasize that it is not just one market but several, with similarities and differences).

Eg, in the text it is presented as if the actual producer (artist) is somehow involved in the value adding while in most Art markets I know of the production is really removed from the actual value chain and the market is largely a market that adds value starting on the second sale, ie. after the producer has lost touch with the value chain. Also, Art as such was really tangential to the subject matter of Media and Journalism.

So, that part of the article could have been left out, as it brings no extra clarity - especially as the main point was not really about market value for the product (neither Journalism nor Art) but instead market value for the producer (either "Artist" or "Liberal Arts Graduate" on a totally different market: The Job Market.

Still, it was an interesting read, and it did add another piece to the puzzle of "understanding some of the reasons we as a civilization are steadily losing our grip on reality" (here, I assume that "we" and "civilization" is lacking the unstated specifier "USA/American")

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#218

Post by openknot »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #203
native_samples wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that rare, but the problem is that a lot of people who are outsiders, yet who truly understand science and then write about it, often end up becoming quite sceptical of it. Just like how journalists who understand politics end up sceptical. The difference is, journalists holding politicians to account is well understood to be a critical part of democracy, but for science it's the opposite. If journalists sta…

It would help if journalists would hold anyone's feet to the fire these days. Science journalism is so bad at this that it seems to drive scientists to create low-quality studies.

Retraction Watch (source: https://retractionwatch.com) and independent consultants like Elisabeth Bik (article about her in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01363-z) are good for this, though they aren't really traditional media. ProPublica and large newspapers (e.g. The New York Times occasionally) do publish investigative work on science topics sometimes too.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#219

Post by openknot »

timr wrote: post #150
snarf21 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. It is all about click bait to drive digital advertising. It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. We want it to be free which means ads. NPR/PBS tends to have better and more balanced news but it is largely because of their donor/patron model. But to be clear, they are surely not immune. They are still run by people who are judged by views and reach and other eye…

NPR's science reporting has been abysmal for the past few years. Maybe they don't have the click-bait problem (debatable), but they routinely report everything one side of the political spectrum says as scientific fact. They also fall victim to the "experts say..." and "scientific consensus is..." tropes. Their "scientific expert" source list looks suspiciously like a group of the loudest voices on Twitter. I say thi…

>"Their "scientific expert" source list looks suspiciously like a group of the loudest voices on Twitter."

That's probably where the journalists find people to interview, likely because a large majority of journalists are active on Twitter.

This definitely isn't the only place, because there are free services like SciLine by the AAAS (source: https://www.sciline.org) and many others for connecting journalists to researchers. Many universities also have their own expert directories set up, and journalists can also find papers and contact their authors.

However, for many journalists on deadline, it's just far less effort to message vocal professors on Twitter, so this may be a reason for this effect if it's true. The people who market their research more on Twitter may be more likely to get covered in the press, and thus interviewed.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#220

Post by openknot »

caenorst wrote: post #215
giantrobot wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. It's not about people not wanting to pay, it's that the value of a single article is too small to charge money for. A single article is maybe worth a hundredth of a cent to me. There's no viable mechanism for me to pay a hundredth of a cent to a writer, just transaction fees will be more than the amount transacted. I'm not going to pa…

> I'm also not going to pay a subscription fee to every site I come across that might have a decently written article once in a while. What if the site was consistenly putting decent articles? I think one of the argument is that you would see more of those decent articles if people were more enclined to follow a subscription model where the journal is accountable to its customers.

>"you would see more of those decent articles if people were more inclined to follow a subscription model where the journal is accountable to its customers."

I think this argument holds up. For example, publications like the Scientific American and The Scientist tend to be very high quality in terms of accuracy (usually with unobtrusive citations, if I recall correctly). It's too bad their subscriptions prices are so high; they were hundreds of dollars a year if I remember correctly, versus less than 50 dollars a year for other magazines.

Ii'm not sure about how financially successful they are, but I found myself struggling to justify such a subscription price, when the purpose was essentially edu-tainment. The publications that can more easily get people to pay more, in my view, ostensibly help people make more money or find career success, which is why industry publications like STAT for biotech/medicine (and more generally, publications like the WSJ/Bloomberg) tend to be more financially successful.

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