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Why does science news suck so much?

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Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#221

Post by openknot »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #165
bawolff wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say quanta magazine is a counterexample

Also: Nautilus https://nautil.us/

Nautilus is actually an example that supports how in-depth science reporting can be difficult to monetize. I really like many of their articles in the publication, but there was a major incident a while back when they were severely (many months, even longer than a year) behind on paying their writers.

I actually happened to meet a writer who had this happen to them, but this incident was also publicized in an open letter (source: https://nwu.org/an-open-letter-from-freelancers-at-nautilus-..., with discussion about this on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/aznfusion/status/941051077922869248). This happened in 2017, and I'm not sure how long it took to get resolved.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#222

Post by [deleted] »

timr wrote: post #211
freework wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 unquestionabl…

[deleted]

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#223

Post by pvaldes »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #172
physicsguy wrote: post #124

Because science is reaaaally hard to generalise for the public, and Universities love to put out press releases. Finding someone qualified to go to for comment is not straightforward. They’re not necessarily even going to be in your country. I’m a physicist by background and even when active in academia it was hard for me to understand some papers in closely related sub fields, and that was with working experience in…

I agree..especially with your first sentence. I still read encyclopedias and DK publications meant to explain science for kids. I learnt a lot of science concepts from encyclopedias as a child. I find that today children’s education of scientific concepts is cartoonised and made into ‘fun’. These kids grow up to write about science as entertainment. Any form of education should be challenging. Not fun. I am very take…

You have a point. Replacing the stupid message "science is fun, (thus scientists are here to entertain us)" by "science is important (so scientists are here to solve our problems)" would be a drastic improvement.

If we don't have better science news is direct consequence of the disrespect or even deliberate mocking shown for science in the last decades by prominent politicians.

Deliberate dehumanization or mocking of scientists by journalists is also a really old problem; A piece of news titled: "'politicians' say that X is true" would be redone immediately and replaced with the name of the politicians saying that. For science, not having the right of linking your name to your hard work until the four paragraph is the norm.

And this if you have luck, I know the case of a scientist that was asked to be interviewed for a newspaper about their career. She thanked him for their patience, time and free advice, calling him egghead in the newspaper.

Another problem is the infamous formatting all scientific news to pulp format with variants of "scientists are perplexed!" at the end (just to tickle your audience with the implicit message that "they are not smarter than us"). When people is bombed constantly with "science can't explain it", "researchers are puzzled", etc, the trust in science is seriously damaged. And then we have people acting irrationally in the middle of a pandemic, just to make a point.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#224

Post by openknot »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #194
mattkrause wrote: post #181

As a counterpoint, I'm a scientist whose work occasionally gets media attention. I was definitely worried about my name being featured in the middle of absolute nonsense, but the experience has usually been good: very few of the journalists completely missed the mark. The "tone" didn't always match what I was trying to get across, but it was usually close to someone in the field's attitude. There were some minor erro…

many journals believe it's unethical to show "copy" (the complete article) to a source--or sometimes anyone outside the newsroom It seems like you didn't quite complete this thought. It sounds like your point is that inaccuracies creep in because the journalists won't give a chance to vet an article's accuracy to the people who have the expertise to do so?

I'm not the same commenter, but I completely agree from previous experience in journalism. Many journalists who write about research findings are in the same publications who publish general news (e.g. national politics). So, many science journalists are held to newsroom policies where they can't share drafts with sources before publication, to avoid bias. This is highly relevant for sharing drafts with a politician, but much less relevant for sharing articles with a scientist.

Some newsrooms do have exceptions for scientific expertise, or have wiggle room saying that experts can verify whether quotes or sections of the article are accurate, versus the whole draft. This is a decent compromise if a publication allows it, though I'm personally in favor of having a more trusting relationship between journalists and scientists for typical articles on research findings (unless the article is investigative).

Well-funded magazines (e.g. The New Yorker) also get around this by having fact-checkers with strong scientific backgrounds. This is probably the best solution for editorial independence that avoids sharing drafts, but there's not a lot of money in media and writing as-is, so it's not a realistic solution for the vast majority of publications (especially when even big magazines have been cutting funding for their fact-checking teams, shifting more responsibility to the editors/journalists for accuracy).

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#225

Post by openknot »

projektfu wrote: post #59
camillomiller wrote: post #3

If you're asking this question, to me you're saying you know how science works, maybe, but you have absolutely no clue how newscycles and the news work. If you'd knew both, you would definitely see the (honestly unsolvable) incompatibility between the pace and approach of science and the need for ephemeral news-able items to make a science publication actually compelling to a larger non-technical audience. A science…

Like any good nerd kid of the early 90s I read Discover magazine. Looking back I see that it was filled with breathless coverage of the discoveries of a decade ago, rehashes of 101-level science, and a few newsy articles about a current topic. There was always a little bit of red meat for people like dinosaur enthusiasts and space futurists. Many topics would get recycled a year or two later. I guess my point is that…

>"science is large enough and has enough history that it doesn't need the 24 hour news cycle to be interesting. In the sense that what you already know is news to most people, you can stay interesting without getting a scoop."

For additional evidence, consider how History Today articles often reach the front page of HN, about historical findings that haven't necessarily been published recently. There is certainly an interest for well-written timeless articles.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#226

Post by tene »

cycomanic wrote: post #120
zarzavat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue for me with her videos is that she mixes two very different kinds of criticism. The first is criticism of things that are clearly wrong, such as the aforementioned science journalism. This is a good public service, I agree. The second is criticism of other physicists’ ideas. i.e. her personal opinions and professional disagreements with other physicists. She doesn’t delineate the two clearly enough to her a…

On top of that, in her more recent videos I get a weird feeling of her leaving some things purposefully ambiguous for that audience. For example in the video to this article she was using a lot of climate science examples, which will be interpreted in a certain way by the "science is a scam" crowd. I'm not sure she is doing this on purpose (I have the impression she strongly believes in climate change), accidentally…

I think it's normal and expected that people who are skeptical are looking for people who will take their questions and concerns seriously.

I am very personally convinced of anthropogenic climate change and that it's a serious risk for humanity. I still believe that it's important to take people's questions seriously, and to respect that people who aren't convinced have been making their best attempt at understanding the world. For these people, biased stories that don't put numbers in context are seen as deceptive, and I think that perception is legitimate. The only way to actually meaningfully reach them is to credibly demonstrate that you're actually checking the evidence that disagrees with your conclusion.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#227

Post by pen2l »

tptacek wrote: post #175
rayiner wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it true or not? That’s what matters right?

It's obviously not true. Teaching is a distinct skill (it's probably a large basket of distinct skills). People having varying aptitudes for it. Common sense tells you that the cliche can't possibly be true. George Bernard Shaw put those words deliberately into the mouth of a character you in particular would find absolutely insufferable.

To go even further, I find a saying attributed to Aristotle to be quite true: "Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach."

I find that true experts are able to explain subject matter in their domain simply, they can ably distill complicated issues to their essence lest their pupil be bogged down in unnecessary side-details. I used to think Raymond Hettinger was just an awesome teacher because he could make certain programming tasks seem like things a 3rd grader could do with ease, then I discovered he's a big force behind the creation of py and he just sees and presents things at a very fundamental level.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#228

Post by andreyk »

I can add my cents wrt AI coverage.

First, remember the rule that 'most of everything sucks'. Is science coverage especially worse than politics, economy, etc.? Not sure.

Secondly, over the years there have been more and more reporters who specialize in writing about AI, and whose articles are generally of very high quality.

It's not as bad as it used to be, and I'd argue it's better than most people thing.

Some context: I co-run the Last Week in AI newsletter and podcast, so I am exposed to a loooot of AI coverage.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#229

Post by bsenftner »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #193
bsenftner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The behavior we see due to the private ownership of media and news publishers betrays the colossal failure it is for the public and nations at large to have our society's self-reporting undermined by profit motives. News and media need to be treated as protected speech, with more formalization and more regulation. Leaving the governance of our society's self reporting to greedy Capitalists is a clear and active recip…

On the contrary, letting the government determine what comes through the media is the recipe for fascism. As evidence, consider that the first thing that any authoritarian regime does is to take control of the media. The first test you've got to do for any proposal like yours is to consider what the impact of it will be when your political opponents are at the reins. Are you comfortable with Donald Trump (or really,…

Who said "government control"? I said more regulation. Of course letting any one power source control society's self conversation is bad. We need to accept the concept that regulation exists because the alternative is worse, and that includes regulation of how the news is delivered and the rights of those collecting information for news reporting. As it stands, society expects "good journalists" to give their lives to report the truth the public needs to understand how far our lack of regulation has allowed things to become.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#230

Post by walrus01 »

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,

writing and publishing four articles a day with only cursory review/editorial oversight, if any, isn't journalism at all, it's a content mill

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