Re: first part of article
Subject: Re: first part of article
From: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com>
Date: 10/4/10, 23:07
To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

The most striking characteristic of the satiric (but all-too-real) how-to formula you quote is fear.

The imaginary journalist is lazy, of course, but is much more affected by fear of being wrong, and fear of publishing something identifiably erroneous.

The real-ness of this phenomenon of journalistic fear when science is the story, is at least part of what makes the Guardian piece so interesting.

In the extremely practical exercise that ProjectPM proposes, scientists and writers talk to each other.

And not in the format of an interview.  It is a form of collaboration, the exact contours of which will probably be worked out by the paired journalist and scientist, perhaps differently for each article or series.

So, yes, I think the satiric formulaic pattern is a useful example as a starting point. Because it brings forward this inhibiting fear that must be overcome so the journalist can write with confidence about the subject.  I think what we're planning at Project PM may address this problem.

I also liked the examples you used to illustrate journalism about science in the past.  The one about 19th century research finding a neuropathic compulsion to travel, made me think about some of the writing you and I have noticed recently where MRIs of brains and assorted psychological tests are marshaled to support the 'internet bad for your brain' theme.  The new phrenology.

The economic pressures on journalists must be part of reason Time fills its thin* pages with stuff about pizza, but another reasons might be weak science education at all levels, as well as cultural disdain for science (while reveling in its products) which seems to be increasing rather than decreasing in our nation.  But it has been interesting that in our (Project PM's) earliest discussions between the journalist (BB) and the scientists (Mano/Todd/Robert) in our project the big issue has been, not accuracy, but deadlines. Shows there's a lot here to be learned, and the one-to-one discussion may bring to the surface some obstacles to effective science writing that are not widely recognized.

Anyhow, I think this is a good start, I did not find problematic sentences or typos.  I assume you will put in a link to the Guardian piece, maybe it's already there and the formatting dropped out when you pasted it.

*Stray thought: I thought that part, but only part, of the reason Time became thinner was that they switched to thinner paper to save postage.




On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 6:23 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Recently, the Guardian’s website ran a piece entitled “This is a news website article about a scientific paper,” which began thusly:

In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of "scare quotes" to ensure that it's clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever.

In this paragraph I will briefly (because no paragraph should be more than one line) state which existing scientific ideas this new research "challenges".

If the research is about a potential cure, or a solution to a problem, this paragraph will describe how it will raise hopes for a group of sufferers or victims.

This paragraph elaborates on the claim, adding weasel-words like "the scientists say" to shift responsibility for establishing the likely truth or accuracy of the research findings on to absolutely anybody else but me, the journalist...

The piece continues in the same vein. Of course, it was intended as satire directed at the formulaic and largely counterproductive manner in which science journalism is too often conducted. Unfortunately, it was satire of the dead-on sort that will resonate with anyone familiar with the ubiquitous flaws in the process by which scientific findings are presented to the public in the modern age.

This is not to say that the modern age should take the blame for this problem, as it does for so many others. “Ask not why the old days were better, for that is a foolish question,” as the Bible tells us in an uncharacteristic fit of wisdom. Popular Science released the entirety of its archives earlier this year, and a quick perusal thereof will confirm that the science journalism of the late 19th century was often worse than that of our own age. One article from 1887 concerns itself with alleged differences in brain weight by nationality, which the author and researchers conclude is a result of varying climates; an even more dubious article appearing a few years later proclaims that the myth of the Wandering Jew is based in a “neuropathic compulsion” by which Jews are collectively “possessed by an irresistible inclination to travel.”

In neither of these cases is journalism itself really at fault; as best as can be determined, the authors provided an accurate and well-composed representation of the wacky subject matter in question, which itself would not have raised too many eyebrows among the average scientist of the time. Comparing that age with our own, it would be difficult to argue that science has not progressed tremendously in terms of both the quantity of the data accumulated and the protocols by which that accumulation is now carried out. If we make a similar comparison between the journalism of the late 19th century and that of the early 21st, though, we find that the progress is decidedly mixed.

Clearly it is not the science that constitutes the limiting factor in the quality of science journalism, but rather the journalism. If one examines a copy of Time from the ‘60s and compares it to the most recent edition, the first thing one will notice is a steep decline in thickness; upon flipping through the pages of each, one will notice that the earlier specimen is not only thicker, but includes far more words per page than does its descendant; and upon actually reading the articles on science, one will have trouble making any comparison at all because the latest Time does not have any articles on science, although it does have an article on Burger King’s new Pizza Burger which begins with the sentence, “I just ate a pizza out of hamburgers.”

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Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302