Online Journalism Review writes about the disconnect between scientists and journalists, with the former rarely able to connect in an understandable way and the latter focusing purely on conflict. I think this is generally true, but not always.
And what the article suffers from, in an otherwise fine report, is the generally false assumption that readers are unable to weed through the competing voices in science and science journalism on their own to arrive at their own conclusions.
Can science blogs save science journalism? (By Jean Yung, Online Journalism Review)Due to traditional media's budget considerations, a science reporter is often responsible for several scientific disciplines, and that inevitably leads to a lack of intelligent, dependable coverage, or worse, over-coverage of wacky, pseudoscientific studies such as Jessica Alba's score in an index of female desirability.
On the other hand, many scientists cannot talk in layman's terms about what they do. Neither are they trained to do so. 'No effort has been made to help us reach out or learn to talk to the media and to the public,' Johnson said, admitting that scientists as a group are 'very bad' at communicating. More here
Backgrounder
Nano memory: 30,000 movies and nothing on
Serious nanotox reporting, for a change
Wilson Center's nano numbers racket
Nanotech's real danger is the nano con
A response to 'I, Nanobot'
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