Fill in the Blanks (Dropdown)
Below is a text with blanks. Click on each blank, a list of choices will appear. Select the appropriate answer choice for each blank.
Science Reporting
During the recent World of Science Journalists in London, departing Scientific American Editor in Chief John Rennie discussed the future of science writing with authors, comments that also apply to this podcast: The question is, how can science writing for the public improve? I believe there are a few different . One of them is, maybe there should just be less of it. And because I would like to leave this room unlynched, let me amend that to say that at least there should be less of some of it. If our job is, ultimately as we see it, to try to inform the public better about science and technology, I for one think that we could all do with a lot fewer of the "what causes/cures cancer this week" story. I think that in fact is directly related, that kind of story is really related to a different problem, which is that we have a model of what defines science news as that 95 percent of the time it is an " interesting paper that appears in prestigious journal this week. " That constitutes science news. Except that we're all smart enough to know that that has absolutely nothing to do with how science works. That has to do with how publishing works. That's what did they put into press this week. Science actually doesn't just because one important paper is published. We all understand that. In reality, science takes time to unfold. When intriguing new results emerge, they are tested, confirmed, and re-evaluated. While a single paper might mark the beginning of a shift, the real scientific change often happens much later—sometimes long after we've already written dramatic headlines about revolutionary breakthroughs. I don’t have a specific solution for this, I believe this ultimately comes to why we, as editors, have a responsibility to reconsider what qualifies as science news.