Journalism sometimes covers science badly
I’ve heard Jay Manifold complain about journalists getting (basic) science wrong. And the grammar jockeys at Language Log often lament journalists’ poor understanding of the science of linguistics. Locally, John Stone has bent my ear on this subject. He’s a former biology professor.
Three citations do not a trend make, but it’s no big stretch to suppose that the more technical the subject matter the more room there is for error–especially when journalistic rhetoric demands simple, declarative sentence structures and vivid and concrete descriptions (whatever those are).
Further, journalists get into trouble on all kinds of stories when they let the writer in them get the better of the reporter in them. This essential duality isn’t discussed nearly enough. Perhaps I’ll discuss it more…later.
Anyway, when I read K. C. Cole’s article in the Columbia Journalism Review, I had to wonder: Is she kidding? Consider this:
Editors, however, seem to absorb difficulty differently. If they don’t understand something, they often think it can’t be right–or that it’s not worth writing about. Either the writers aren’t being clear (which, of course, may be the case), or the scientists don’t know what they’re talking about (in some cases, a given).
Why the difference? My theory is that editors of newspapers and other major periodicals are not just ordinary folk. They tend to be very accomplished people. They’re used to being the smartest guys in the room. So science makes them squirm. And because they can’t bear to feel dumb, science coverage suffers.
I’m not going say editors are dumb. I admire journalists. They do heroic work under a variety of difficult circumstances that would drive most people nuts in a matter of hours. I admire them even as I pointedly criticize them nearly every day on Rhetorica.
But is Cole calling them dumb? Think about it: One definition of willful ignorance (the worst kind) is surely thinking something can’t be right simply because you don’t understand it. And, worse, further thinking that what you don’t understand can’t be worth writing about, i.e. can’t be of interest to anyone else. Talk about dissing on a topic!
Whether Cole has hit on the reason editors sometimes reject (science) stories, I cannot say. But it is a common experience among reporters to have editors reject stories for exasperatingly thin reasons.
Okay, so here’s where this really gets troubling: One essential of “accomplishment” ought to be the ability to deal with new information. Otherwise, how does one grow? Dealing with new information is exactly what editors are supposed to do as a regular part of their jobs.
I’m still not going down the editors-are-dumb road. But I’m wondering how Cole’s contention maps to the structural biases of journalism. I don’t think Cole is correct that this phenomenon has something to do with who editors are as people (although journalistic arrogance probably plays a role here). I think it has to do with the structure of professional practice that encourages and rewards not believing something because you don’t understand it.
Hmmmmmmm…
