Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America's Future
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Worlds Apart Worlds Apart HOW THE DISTANCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND JOURNALISM THREATENS AMERICA’S FUTURE JIM HARTZ AND RICK CHAPPELL, PH.D. iv Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America’s Future By Jim Hartz and Rick Chappell, Ph.D. ©1997 First Amendment Center 1207 18th Avenue South Nashville, TN 37212 (615) 321-9588 www.freedomforum.org Editor: Natilee Duning Designer: David Smith Publication: #98-F02 To order: 1-800-830-3733 Contents Foreword vii Scientists Needn’t Take Themselves Seriously To Do Serious Science 39 Introduction ix Concise writing 40 Talk to the customers 41 Overview xi An end to infighting 42 The incremental nature of science 43 The Unscientific Americans 1 Scientific Publishing 44 Serious omissions 2 Science and the Fourth Estate 47 The U.S. science establishment 4 Public disillusionment 48 Looking ahead at falling behind 5 Spreading tabloidization 48 Out of sight, out of money 7 v Is anybody there? 8 Unprepared but interested 50 The regional press 50 The 7 Percent Solution 10 The good science reporter 51 Common Denominators 13 Hooked on science 52 Gauging the Importance of Science 53 Unfriendly assessments 13 When tortoise meets hare 14 Media Gatekeepers 55 Language barriers 15 Margin of error 16 The current agenda 55 Objective vs. subjective 17 Not enough interest 57 Gatekeepers as obstacles 58 Changing times, concurrent threats 17 What does the public want? 19 Nothing Succeeds Like Substance 60 A new interest in interaction 20 Running Scared 61 Dams, Diversions & Bottlenecks 21 Meanwhile, Back in Astronomy 101 … 62 Scientists who don’t speak English 21 Scientific devolution 63 Reporters who don’t speak science 22 Rampant illiteracy 64 Gatekeepers who are uncertain 23 Better than Lithuania 65 National Science Foundation ‘Mile wide, inch deep’ 66 Science Survey 24 Thirst for scientific knowledge 67 An ill-equipped public 24 More bad news 68 A Conversation with Bill Nye, Analyzing Current Attitudes 27 the Science Guy 70 How scientists view journalists 27 A Case-by-Case Analysis 73 Negative perceptions 29 Scientists look at themselves 29 Colliding stars 74 How journalists view scientists 31 Exploding star 75 Journalists look at themselves 32 Europa’s ocean 76 Assessing the public 34 Asteroids 77 Common ground 35 Hale-Bopp Comet 78 Thyroid cancer 80 Scientists as Communicators 37 Estrogen therapy 81 Isolated in the lab 38 Breast cancer 83 Not smart enough? 38 New View Sees Breast Cancer as 3 Diseases 84 Mass media 87 Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America’s Future Recommendations for Scientists 91 Conclusion 113 Apply the scientific method 92 A web-based clearinghouse 114 Media training 93 Master Science/Technology Web Site 115 Journalism education for scientists 93 The consequences of inattention 115 Long-term relationships 94 Why Everyone Needs To High-profile web sites 95 Understand Science 116 Flagging the findings 96 Losing America’s future 117 Goldin’s Rule 97 The human cost 118 Warning 98 Little love for the media 119 Recommendations for Journalists 101 Survey Data 123 Stupid questions 102 Peer review 102 Sputnik: 40 Years Later 135 Journalists’ Guide to Gauging Reliability of Scientific Data 103 Science as detective story 104 Bibliography 169 Seeking out sources 105 The indispensable Internet 106 Acknowledgments 171 The training question 107 Freelancers and retrofitting 108 About the Authors 173 vi Science training for journalists 108 Journalism training for scientists 109 Photo Credits 174 ‘Late Night Thoughts’ from the Late Dean of American Science Writers 110 Index 175 Foreword “The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything—except what is worth knowing .…” —OSCAR WILDE, 1854-1900 mong multiple public complaints Jim Hartz, former host of NBC’s Today show, about newspaper and television news and Dr. Rick Chappell, trained as a space- content in this tabloid-tainted, me- shuttle payload specialist, would argue that this dia-saturated society is an odd criti- competition is fair. With straight faces, they Acism, laced with irony and loaded with contra- would assert that science should win. diction: Readers and viewers of mainstream Their study makes a compelling case that media assert that they are overfed with an in- they are right and Wilde was wrong. formation diet they don’t want and starved for If you are a taxpayer, you should know and news they need. care that $73 billion of your money last year vii Still, responsible editors and news directors went to scientific and technological research note with natural interest and professional re- and development. If you are a stockholder in gret the great gobs of tabloid news about O.J., any of a number of major corporations, you Princess Di, Marv and Jon-Benet that have should know that another $100 billion-plus been consumed and digested by many millions was spent by the private sector. of their customers. If the nation’s health fight—whether the They know, of course, that intellectual junk enemy is cancer or heart disease or AIDS—is food sells. And they are entitled to wonder your fight, it’s a human-interest story, a once in a while, despite the public’s complaint multibillion-dollar economic story and a sci- about its diet, whether Wilde was right. Look- ence story. ing back on the news coverage of recent years, If crime concerns you, you should know it’s obvious many editors and news directors that DNA testing has made police investigative believe he was. procedures more effective by proving—in ways When celebrity fills every inch and second that lie detectors and fingerprints never of news space and air time, something else could—whether a suspect is likely to be impli- must be omitted, perhaps something more im- cated in certain major crimes. portant, something the public needs, perhaps Genetic engineering, cloning and fertiliza- something even as entertaining—if not as titil- tion techniques: all of these are science stories. lating. So is global warming. So are all the new This yearlong study, by a veteran science technologies that drive our computers and cell journalist and a physicist who has spent years phones. in NASA’s space-science program, considers Science is literally a life-and-death news something that has been left out of most main- story that threads its way through every aspect stream news coverage in recent years. Worlds of American culture—and the media leave the Apart analyzes media coverage and media atti- public mostly ill-informed about it, contend tudes as they relate to science and technology. Hartz and Chappell. Science and technology? With extensive interviews, detailed research, Can these topics really compete with celeb- a public-opinion survey and anecdotal report- rities for news space? age, the authors make the case that too many Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America’s Future news organizations give science short shrift, There is a cruel irony in the fact that jour- thereby depriving their readers and viewers of nalists, whose own profession has been so radi- information they both need and want. cally altered by the technology of the Informa- To read Worlds Apart is to understand that tion Age, are neglecting to explain the some news decision-makers sincerely believe transformation affecting their industry and so that their readers reject science out of hand as many others. There is concern on the part of a deadly dull subject. Others are intimidated in many reporters that even greater changes will the face of a subject they themselves know so shake their news organizations as millions of little about. Still others insist—and perhaps Americans move to the new media for their in- believe—they are adequately covering science formation. under other names: health, space, technology, In a time of such great transition, the the environment. American people need a better understanding The evidence the authors present leaves no of how science is daily altering lifestyles and doubt that adequate coverage of science stories culture. is rare, found in only a handful of news outlets. In the nation’s earliest days, the founding It has not been forever thus. Sputnik fathers knew that the free flow of information launched the space race more than 40 years was vital to the sustenance of our democracy. ago, thrusting this nation into a panicked com- That is why they gave the free press constitu- viii petition with the Soviet Union, our dread en- tional protection. They anticipated that jour- emy. We answered the challenge. When Neil nalists would use that liberty to create what Armstrong took his “giant leap for mankind” Thomas Jefferson envisioned as “an enlight- onto the surface of the moon, we knew the ened society.” race was won. Today, Hartz and Chappell insist, society is As democratic impulses began to take root hardly enlightened when it comes to science— and the Soviets’ “evil empire” crumbled away, at the very time when there are dramatic and Americans began to relax. The spin-off ben- disturbing legal, moral and constitutional de- efits from the space race flowed into consumer bates surrounding so many scientific break- products such as fiber optics, cellular phones, throughs. fax machines and home computers, but we be- They call for journalistic leaders to take a gan to take our scientific advances for granted. new look at science so that the public might be The news media’s interest in matters scientific better equipped to understand and participate rapidly waned. in the growing debates. They ask it in the spirit Scientists have come to see the loss of media of values embodied in the free-press clause of interest in their field as dangerous to the future the First Amendment.