SCIENCE EDITING Version 1.6 ISBN: 978-0-578-86749-6 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoD- erivatives 4.0 International License. SUGGESTED CITATION: Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, 2020. KSJ Sci- ence Editing Handbook. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://ksjhandbook.org. The Science Journalism Handbook 1 Contents 01 Introduction 5 02 How Science Works 7 Introduction 7 The Ivory Tower 8 How Science is Funded 10 The Publication Process 12 Preprints 15 Replication and Retraction 18 How to Read a Paper 20 How to Read a Press Release 21 Expert Tips and Best Practices 22 Additional Reading & Resources 23 About the Author 23 03 Sources & Experts: Where to Find Them & How to Vet Them 25 Introduction 25 Finding Sources 26 Vetting Sources 29 Ensuring Gender & Racial Diversity 32 Avoiding False Balance 33 Additional Reading & Resources 35 About the Author 36 KSJ | MIT 2 04 Making Sense of Science Stats 37 Introduction 37 Questioning the Data and Accounting for Uncertainty 38 Sample Size 42 Evaluating Risk 44 Mean, Median, and Mode 47 Correlations, Causations, and Data Over Time 49 Helping Readers Understand the Numbers 51 Additional Reading & Resources 56 About the Author 57 05 Editing for Story 59 Introduction 59 Telling the Right Story 60 Building Narrative Into the Reporting Process 66 Finding Structure Without Losing Touch With Science 69 Additional Reading & Resources 72 About the Author 73 06 Editing Controversial Science 74 Introduction 74 False Controversies 75 Policy Controversies 78 Scientific Controversies 80 Practical Advice 83 Additional Reading & Resources 85 About the Author 86 07 Holding Science to Account 88 Introduction 88 The Science Journalism Handbook 3 Planting Flags, Luring Tips, Drawing Heat 91 Questioning Scientists’ Motives — and the Status Quo 94 Standing Apart From Science 97 Playing the Watchdog and Plumbing for Documents 100 Additional Reading & Resources 102 About the Author 104 08 Covering Health Care 105 Introduction 105 Cover Your Bases 107 Navigating Sources and PR 109 Research, Peer Review, and the Clinical Trial 112 Avoid Contributing to Stigma 122 The Rules Apply to Silicon Valley, Too 125 Additional Reading & Resources 126 About the Author 128 09 Climate and the Environment 130 Introduction 130 The Climate Story 131 Science and Denial 133 All Climate Change Is Local 137 Covering the Broader Environmental Story 143 Solutions 145 Red Flags 146 Additional Reading & Resources 146 About the Author 148 10 Fact-Checking Science Journalism: How to Make Sure Your Stories Are True 150 Introduction 150 KSJ | MIT 4 The Three Models of Fact-Checking 151 The Fact-Checking Process 154 Setting Up a Fact-Checking System 159 Working With Fact-Checkers 161 Fact-Checking on a Budget 164 Additional Reading & Resources 166 About the Author 167 11 Illustrating Complex Science Stories 168 Introduction 168 The Role of Visuals in Science Journalism 169 The Process of Building Science-Centric Graphics 171 Strategies for Using Visuals to Put Breaking Science in Context 175 Special Considerations for Data Visualization 179 Uncertainty and Misinformation 181 Editorial Illustration, Photography, and Moving Images 184 Additional Reading & Resources 188 About the Author 189 12 Social Media & Reader Engagement 191 Introduction 191 Strategies and Goals 192 Crafting Social-Media Posts for Science 194 Different Platforms, Different Audiences 207 Collaborating on Social Media 221 Interactive and Real-Time Engagement 226 Measuring Success 229 Figuring Out What Works for You 239 Additional Reading & Resources 240 About the Author 243 13 About this Book 246 The Science Journalism Handbook 5 01Introduction Welcome to the KSJ Science Editing Handbook, a project of the Knight Sci- ence Journalism Fellowship at MIT, supported by the Kavli Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. Reporting on science can be confusing, even intimidating. Experts often use jargon and statistics to explain their work. People who posture as experts may use the same approach to dazzle and obfuscate. Both may leave reporters and editors uncertain how to critically evaluate and challenge assertions. Yet it’s important that journalists not only explain science clearly but cover it as a beat, as they do politics, business, or sports. They must ask tough questions, analyze information, and demand that extraordinary claims be supported by extraordi- nary evidence. Key to holding that standard is the skeptical and sharp-eyed edi- tor who knows what questions to ask, and who pushes reporters to dig deeper, confirm the facts, and get the real story. Much easier said than done. Most editors are generalists, working with teams to coordinate coverage across a wide and varied landscape. But, in this role, they’re also the primary filters of science information for most Americans, who, according to a 2017 Pew study, report getting most of their science news from general-interest publications. This handbook aims to draw lessons from those who specialize in science writing and editing — to provide their insights, knowledge, tips, and resources to all editors. The goal is to help ensure that science journalism meets the highest standards of quality no matter what the publication or the audience. The handbook is designed to empower editors to ask the right questions, en- able them to spot faulty reporting or flawed science, and to provide information on best practices in reporting on science and the many subjects, now more critical than ever, that it touches, whether the environment or a pandemic. The book provides practical tips for editors. But it also seeks to recognize the unique challenges and decisions they face. Many of the lessons are illustrated by example — when science journalism shone as well as when it was left wanting. KSJ | MIT 6 The chapters are written by some of the most widely celebrated science editors and reporters working today. Each chapter ends with reference materials and other resources to help editors make the best decisions. We hope that you find this handbook helpful. We also hope that it can help you find and tell science stories that both engage the public and strengthen its trust in science journalism. We welcome your feedback, at [email protected]. Deborah Blum, KSJ Director Joshua Hatch, Handbook Co-Editor Nicholas Jackson, Handbook Co-Editor The Science Journalism Handbook 7 02How Science Works By Apoorva Mandavilli Introduction Science moves slowly — and good science even more so. If there is one overarch- ing message in this chapter, it’s that the best scientists are careful and methodi- cal, moving from hypothesis to confirmation step by deliberate step. Journalism, especially daily journalism, tends to operate with a different metabolism, empha- sizing significant advances that meet a subjective “newsworthiness” threshold. That can make reporting on science challenging — first to discern where in the re- search process a particular study falls and then to engage audiences and clearly explain why that single step matters. When reporters and editors don’t fully appreciate this deliberate and incremen- tal nature of science, it can result in overhyped headlines, reports of “cures” or “breakthroughs” based on studies involving just a few people, mice, or even cells, or in stories that seem to contradict one another, as is often the case with diet and nutritional studies. “I think science journalism is and should be moving away from covering medical research when it is at the mouse-model stage,” says Laura Helmuth, editor in chief of Scientific American. “There have been too many cures for cancer, Alz- heimer’s, genetic disorders, and other problems that look miraculous in mouse studies and fail completely in humans. It’s cruel and misleading to raise people’s hopes during this stage of research.” Scientific results reported without context can also erode readers’ trust in both science and journalism. In this chapter, we’ll talk about the context in which science happens — how science is funded; how it is conducted in academia versus in companies; what Results from mouse studies standards results have to meet before they can and should be publicized; and frequently fail to hold up in how they are communicated to the public. human studies. KSJ | MIT 8 We’ll also delve into the publication process which, especially for biology and medicine, can be a bewildering morass of preprints, embargoes, niche journals, corrections, and retractions. The Ivory Tower For any journalist who covers science, knowing how to read research papers is an essential skill. In a later section, we’ll highlight some tips for reading and decod- ing papers. But first, a peek inside the labyrinthine world of academia and why “the paper” is so important to science. Simply put, a research paper describes a set of experiments, their results, and an interpretation of the findings. But how, when, where and why scientists choose to publish papers is more complicated. Academic institutions use strict and, in many ways, antiquated metrics to eval- uate their faculty. They base decisions about tenure and promotion on such ac- complishments as how many publications a scientist has and in which high-pro- file journals. University public-relations offices may also promote findings to raise their institutions’ profiles. Many track mentions of their scientists in the media. Based on the idea that “you are what you measure,” this system intended to eval- uate success has had several unintended consequences. The emphasis on quantity of papers has contributed to what scientists derisively call a “minimum publishable unit,” or the least bit of new data that can be fash- ioned into a paper. The goal is sometimes noble, such as giving junior scientists a shot at the spotlight by being the first author on the paper. (The first authors on a paper are typically the ones who did the work and the writing; the last authors are generally the heads of the lab, the so-called principal investigators.) The more first-author papers that graduate students or postdoctoral fellows have under their belts, the better their prospects of future employment.