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Why does science news suck so much?

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Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#81

Post by davrosthedalek »

feet wrote: post #77
solardev wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno if that's strictly true. Many fields can be reasonably covered with some minimal training. The hard sciences, though, are constantly changing so much that even practitioners in the same field of science can barely keep up in peer review... much less scientists from other disciplines, and much less poorly-paid journalists without dedicated science training. And these days, so many of the findings are subtle an…

Maybe reporters just shouldn't be reporting on every little paper but rather universities should have a media department with scientists that handles press releases so they don't suck ass

Having seen the PR disasters from CERN, I'd say we need less PR releases.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#82

Post by dimal »

foreigner wrote: post #5

It's not that science (or tech) news is bad, it's that all news is that bad. We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. The next time you're reading an article about some field you're not an expert in, try to remember that it is just as bad as the news in your area of expertise.

I’ve been ignoring most news since about mid January. My thought was that if it’s important enough, I’ll find out eventually, and I’ll reduce the amount of information noise going into my brain. That’s turned out to be true. But another unexpected effect was that it’s become much easier to spot bad news outside of my expertise. I’m center-left, and find it pretty easy to pick out nonsense from the right, but looking at centrist and left wing news now (even “good” sources) is horrifying. What passes for reason is astounding. I think that without the daily firehouse of bias reinforcement, it’s really helped me to see that, yeah, all news is really really terrible, and probably does more harm than good.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#83

Post by bawolff »

refurb wrote: post #58
permo-w wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the news industry needs public investment from all angles. right now the incentives are completely wrong

I mean we have public broadcasters like Canada’s CBC and they still do the same thing. Why? Because they need to justify their budget. If nobody reads/views your reports, why should the government pay for it. The real answer is: the public doesn’t want science reporting unless it’s punchy, simple and exciting.

I would say quanta magazine is a counterexample

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#84

Post by snarf21 »

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…

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 eyeball metrics. We don't really want news anymore. We want our preconceived notions affirmed (we like to be "right") and we want to be entertained. Unfortunately, we get what we've asked for.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#85

Post by photochemsyn »

feet wrote: post #77
solardev wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno if that's strictly true. Many fields can be reasonably covered with some minimal training. The hard sciences, though, are constantly changing so much that even practitioners in the same field of science can barely keep up in peer review... much less scientists from other disciplines, and much less poorly-paid journalists without dedicated science training. And these days, so many of the findings are subtle an…

Maybe reporters just shouldn't be reporting on every little paper but rather universities should have a media department with scientists that handles press releases so they don't suck ass

I'm sure that would go down well, I mean what better way to make enemies at your university than by publishing critical reviews of your colleagues work in a public press release. A better idea would be to have the anonymous peer reviews published as an addendum to each paper, that would be fun. Also highlight whether or not the work was published in a 'private club' journal with lax standards or not. Maybe interview the lab techs as anonymous sources to see what kind of standards the lab really operates with? Do some investigative journalism? Cue furious PIs demanding the entire media relations department be fired...

University media relations departments are just not going to to point out flaws in the work of their own PI-led research groups, they're in the business of fluffing their reputations, because that means they might get more students, more grants, more positive media coverage, etc. It's a business these days, isn't it? Corporate PR professionals are running that show more often than not.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#86

Post by spaetzleesser »

bawolff wrote: post #83
refurb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean we have public broadcasters like Canada’s CBC and they still do the same thing. Why? Because they need to justify their budget. If nobody reads/views your reports, why should the government pay for it. The real answer is: the public doesn’t want science reporting unless it’s punchy, simple and exciting.

I would say quanta magazine is a counterexample

How do they finance themselves?

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#89

Post by zarzavat »

jahnu wrote: post #66
cycomanic wrote: post #47

The irony here is that Sabine Hossenfelder falls into exactly the same patterns as the science media that she is criticizing. A punchy headline, with significant oversimplifications. For example, she makes it sound like science news is always aimed at scientists, and that they do not explain the science (I have several excellent counter examples). That doesn't mean there is not some very good points in there (e.g. pu…

I feel differently about her work. I think she is doing the less popular and therefore less lucrative work of summarising what is just not correct out there. She spends time deflating amazing claims. The medium of YouTube is not conducive to lengthy expositions and is definitely not academic grade but it shouldn’t be! She is making pithy responses to headline grabbing sensational mainstream hype reporting. There is a…

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 audience, so some of her viewers may come away thinking that views that are held by physicists who are her peers, are in the same bucket as junk pop science articles. Just read the comments on her videos, they are full of “physics is a scam” type people who feel vindicated.

Re: Why does science news suck so much?

#90

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

foreigner wrote: post #5

It's not that science (or tech) news is bad, it's that all news is that bad. We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. The next time you're reading an article about some field you're not an expert in, try to remember that it is just as bad as the news in your area of expertise.

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