Science News -- A pioneer in Science Journalismgarfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v4p167y1979-80.pdfin Science Journalism Number 22 May 28, 1979 There are certain institutions in the

I Science News —A Pioneerin Science Journalism

Number 22 May 28, 1979

There are certain institutions inthe world of science that one tendsto take for granted. It is as if oneassumes that they were always thereand always will be. I suppose Sci-

@TZCe and Nature fall into this

category. In my recent discussionsof science journalism Iz there wasone such institution that I neglectedto mention. I guess I have beenreading Science News so long andregularly that I just took for grantedyour acquaintance with it.

Science News, now in its 58thyear of continuous publication, isindeed one of the real pioneers inthe dissemination of science infor-mation to the public. A weekly pub-lication of Science Service, Inc.,Science News began publishing in1921, long before science was“fashionable.” I knew WatsonDavis, who edited Science News

from its beginning until 1967. Healso co-founded the AmericanDocumentation Institute (ADI), theforerunner of the American Societyfor Information Science.3

I met Watson at the time ADIdecided to become a professionalsociety rather than an organizationof institutions. ADI had beenalmost totally preoccupied withpromoting microfilm as the

panacea for the world’s documenta-tion problems. I also knew WatsonDavis through my acquaintancewith his son-in-law Calvin Mooerswho coined the term “informationretrieval” just 30 years ago.

I can’t remember when I firststarted reading Science lVen,,~, bu[ I

always found it fascinating. I triedto get my children interested inscience through it and one ofScience Service’s programs,THINGS of Science. I think my sonJosh first became fascinated withdinosaurs through an item I gavehim from Science News. Science

News was always my tool for bridg-ing the gap between my work inscience and my children’s preoc-cupation with other things. Well, 1

guess a lot of other scientists useScience News the same way.

Each week Science /Ve M’s is

mailed to more than 170,000subscribers in more than 80 coun-tries, including the USSR. Thatnumber includes business, college.and library subscribers, as well asindividuals. Science News does !erylittle major advertising. This haskept the number of subscribers low.Regrettably, there are no news-stand sales. Many people, unfor-tunately, simply do not know of

167

Sciefzce New.T’ existence, the

editors feel. According to a 1975survey, more than half ()[ Sciencw

News readers are scientists or workin science-related professions. ~ Thesame survey found tha[ 77 °fi) ofth~x+e wh<} read the magazine are

college graduates.

Glenn T. Seaborg, president ofthe Board of Trustees of ScienceService, explains that Science News

is aimed toward four groups:college-educated adults, teachers,students, and scientists. s A one-year subscription to Science News

costs $15.50, and can be ordered by

writing the Subscription Dept., 23f

West Center St., Marion, Ohio43302.

E.W. Scripps, co-founder of theScripps-Howard newspaper chain,and W. E. Ritter, a biologist a{ (heLJniversity of California, establishedScience Service, a non-profit or-

ganization. in ~921.According to Kendrick FraT,ier,

Science New’s editor frc~m 1971 to

1977, who is currently a free-lancewriter, Scripps and Ritter “saw that

the m{nt important science newsnever reached the public. The two

of them became c(mvinced of theneed to translate scientific develop-

ments into understandable termsand t<1 give [hem wider

circulation.”~ At the time, addsFrazier, “Science reporting in thepress consisted of cute featuresabout the oddball scientist tinkeringin his laboratory and of Sunday-supplement imaginative excursionsinto entertaining pseudoscience.”’

Or, as Watson Davis once said,“The way to report a scientific

mee[lng was 10 p]c~ ou[ [ne mgwords in the program and write a

funny st{)ry.”~Scripps and Ritter set out to

legitimi~.t! and popu]arim sciencethrough Science Service. Accord-ing to Dietrick Th(mlsen, senioreditor and physical sciences editorof .$[ien<e New’s, although Scrippsand Ri(ter maintained acti~e in-terests in Science Sernice through-out (heir lives, they largely allowedthe organization” to run ilself. Of thetwo. Scripps was particularly in-terested in Science Ser\ice, andeven (t)day the Scripps “f_rus( nlain-

[ains a pt)si[ion on its Board of

Trustees. -When they founded Science Ser-

vice, Scripps and Ritter hired Dr.Edwin Sl~)sson, former chemistrypr<)fess~)r and auth~)r of Cr-e~/i\ie

Chemis(ry, to direct Science Ser-vice. Sl(wxm in turn hired Wats{mDavis to edit Science Ser}ice’s

publicaticm. Davis h:~l\ started his

career as an assistant engineer-physicist at the Nati~mal Bureau ofStandards and [hen turned (() jour-nalism as the science editor of thePVa.skirtg[orl Herald. ~~ncfer theirguidance, the original publication.Science New.~ Bul/e/in, consisted tlf16 mimeographed pages of materialsent to 31 newspapers for syndica-tion. The articles frxml the Bu//erin

appeared in these papers. Hi)wever.soon after public ati<m of [be firstScience News Bulletin, Science Sin--vice began to receive requests for

direct access tt) the Bulle/in fr~lmindividuals, schm)ls. and libraries.In response, on March 13.1922, the

Service started issuing the Science

168

News-Letter. The News-Letter was

no different from the Bulletin, andwas, in fact, merely “stapled-together reproductions of the ser-vice’s press copy. ”b Unlike theBulletin, however, the News-Letter

was available for personal subscrip-tion. The News-Letter was 16 pageslong, with several regular features:for example, Radio News of theWeek, News of the Stars, and Sci-

ence of Growing Things. It alsocontained several articles. Saysstaff writer Susan West, “Twelve ar-ticles were covered on 13 pages, de-monstrating Davis’ attention to con-ciseness and variety. ”s The publica-tion had no formal cover orheadlines.

In 1926 the Science News-Letter

became a printed magazine. Bookreviews and a long feature article

were added to each issue. The

magazine continued, however, tobe a by-product of the company’snewspaper service. It remainedbasically unchanged until the late1960s. In 1966 the name wasshortened to Science News andthe publication for individualsubscribers, rather than that for

newspaper syndication, became theprincipal product of Science Ser-vice. The paper shifted, says Susan

West, “from a lay publication to amore professional magazine withfull technical explanation andscientific detail. There was alsomore emphasis on the politics ofScience.”8 AddS Kendric,k Frazier,

“By 1970 the earlier relationshiphad completely reversed: now thestaff prepared original reports forthe magazine, and only selected

portions.. were disseminated tonewspaper clients... .“6

Despite the many changes,Science News remains dedicated toits founding principles to reportscience news accurately and clear-ly. Dr. Slosson, who directedScience Service from 1921 to 1929,developed a list of writing “don’ts”for his science writers that are stillfollowed today.b Current C’on-

tentsg’ readers may find them of in-terest because they are similar tosome tenets I try to follow in writingthese essays. Among them:

“Don’t overestimate the reader’sknowledge and don’t underestimatethe reader’s intelligence. He maynot know as much as you about thisparticular thing—let’s hope not,anyway-but otherwise he may beas bright as you are—let’s hope so,anyway. ”

“Don’t say ‘this discovery is in-teresting’ unless you can prove thatit is, and if you can prove it youdon’t have to say it.”

And:“Don’t think you must leave out

all the technical terms. Use themwhenever necessary without apol-

ogy, and if possible, without formaldefinition. People are not so easily

scared by strange words as you maythink. ”

Watson Davis edited Science

News from 1921 until his cleat h in1967. He also directed Science Ser-vice for much of that time. His col-leagues say that, like Slosson, he

had a profound effect on Science

News reporting. Explains SusanWest: “Realizing that sensationalpseudo-science is often confused

169

with the real thing, Davis outlined91 stores to be handled with care,which he recommended not be usedor used only after thorough investi-gation. Included were cancer cures,universal germ killers, telepathy,obesity drugs, perpetual motion,sea serpents, inheritance of ac-quired characteristics, creation of

life and ‘sweeping claims of anysort.’ His insistence on clarity,careful subject choice and enthusi-asm for all science still pervades.!icience Ne WS.”8

Today, Science News is a short,concise, weekly magazine ofscience articles. Since 1977 it hasbeen edited by Robert J. Trotter,the magazine’s former senior editorand behavioral sciences editor.Each issue contains between 10 and20 pages of science news, with an

additional three (}r four pages ofadvertisements. A one-page blackand white advertisement costs$1,495.

The initial pages of the magazine

are devoted to “Science News of theWeek. ” Another page of each issue

contains short pieces on new de-velopments in areas such asastronomy, biomedicine, biology,behavior, earth sciences, andzoology. The areas covered varyfrom week to week. Recent items inthis department have includedpieces on a growth-stimulatingsubstance found in mother’s milk, ga drug that induces identical twinsin mice,ltl and a study of eye con-tact between strangers passing onthe street .11

One, sometimes two, feature ar-ticles comprise the final section of

the magazine. One recent article

discussed the s[~cial aspects ofspider web-building, 12 w bileanother, by Joan Arehart-Treichel,covered the slow destruction of thebarrier beaches that line the UnitedStates’ eastern seaboard. 13 I amconstantly amazed at her creativityand productivity. These feature ar-ticles are among the best in sciencewriting.

In fact, two Science News writersrecently received awards for theirwork: Jonathan Eberhart, spacesciences editor, won the 1976American Association for the Ad-vancement of Science—Westing-

house Science Writing Award, andJohn Douglas, who is no longer withScictlce Ne~’s, received the 1978Science in Society Award from theNational Associaticm of ScienceWriters. Other writers, including

Arehart-Treichel and Joel Green-berg, have won awards for pieces inother papers and journals. It isbecause of this consistently highquality of writing that articles fromScience News are so frequentlyselected f~w 1S1” ‘s Press Digest.

In addition to these feature ar-ticles, Science News prints lettersfrom readers and reviews newscience books and television pro-grams. The reading is interesting,varied, and enjoyable. It is not toocomplicated for the lay person, and

is a delight to scientists who ap-preciate having complex subjectmatter interpreted clearly and in-telligently.

In its effort to bring science tothe public, Science Service hasdone much more than just publish

Science News. To support its many

activities, Science Service ~ccas-

170

sionally seeks grants from educa-tional foundations, although notfrom individuals.

From 1930 to 1959, Science Ser-vice, with CBS, produced a radioseries called “Adventures in Sci-

ence.” On this interview program,Watson Davis talked with over

1,300 scientists. s I was not aware ofthis at the time I discussed the idea

of a science radio network, 1~ but Ihope to hear some of these inter-

views the next time I visit theMuseum of Broadcasting in NewYork.

Convinced that science as it istaught in schools is boring forstudents and actually alienatesmany of them. Science Service in-itiated [he Science Youth ActivitiesProgram in the early 1940s to in-volve young people in science. This

program provides numerous extra-curricular science activities for

young people. j For example, thelocal science fairs, which culminatein the International Science andEngineering Fair, are competitionsin which students exhibit theirscience projects.

Science Talent Search is ascholarship program for high schoolseniors administered by ScienceService and supported since its in-ception by Westinghouse. Here the

emphasis is on the quality of the in-dependent research projects andschool grades. Participants mustalso answer questions to demon-

strate their interest m science. inpast years the projects done forthese competitions have become soadvanced that the scientist-judgeshave complained they “do not havesufficient background to evaluateall the exhibits to which they havebeen assigned.”s

The final part of the Youth Ac-tivities Program, THINGS of Sci-

ence, consists of monthly kitsavailable by subscription for $15.00a year. Intended for students aged10 to 16, the kits contain instruc-tional manuals and necessary mate-rials to enable students to performsimple science experiments at

home. It’s a great way t{} spend af~w hours with adolescents if you

can haul them away from the TVset.

Throughout their long history,Science Service and Scietlcc News

have increased public awareness ofand interest in the sciences. I thinkWatson Davis explained it best. Ac-cording to Kendrick Frap,ier, Wat-son said “that Science Service’s ef-forts, beginning in the 1920s,

helped create the relationship ofmutual respect, if not always un-

questioned trust, that exists todaybetween science and the press andhelped establish [he tradition ofsolid coverage of science to providethe information and understandingthe citizen needs to function in to-day’s complex world.”~ Q>,791S4

REFERENCES

1. Garfield E. Omni magazine leads [he upsurge of mass-audience sciencejournalism. Currenl Conten/.r (11 ):5-12, 12 March 1979.

171

2. -------------- . Scierlcejtl[lrll;llisnl: v{)u’w ctlme LIIimg way baby. t~u(...’(’{irrc’/l/ (’~Jrttc’tr/.~(34):12,2, 21 August 197X.

3. Wa[stm Davis, lt+9b-19b7. Sci. Nc,,v.Y 92:2&q, 8 July 1%7.

4. Hopsonl L. Anti now, for a w(mf fr(m our audience.

S(/ News 108:39+7, 1975.5, Seahorg G T. .S{ic,ltc(, .st,rl{c<,-~~ hi.s/(lr,v ~l/lt/t{ [ril]l//t’. (lll~)liblist)ed p:i~)erre;lcl

at [he ln(erna(it~nal Science Fair Awards Banquet.

Bd(irn(me, MC). 15 Mav 1970.

6, Frazier K. OH {h<, /Ti.\I<Ir,~, (B{.$(ic,tl(<, .Yc,r\ii(, [lnputdished paper.

Washington, DC: June 1970. 10p

7. Thomsen D. Personal ci)nlnlunica[itnl. 3 May 1979.

8. West S.A /]ric,/” hi.v{(,ry,~/ Scie[lce New. LJnputrlishe dpaper. lc)~(). lop.

9. Breas[ milk and grc)w(h. .$[i. NcM,.\ 115:9, 1979.10, Twinsorl conlnland,. Sri. Nc,,., 115:9, 1979.

11. TheGoffman rule: apzissing fiincv’?.~{i. N(, wY 115:9. 1979.

12. West S. (Inravelinglhe spider’sweh.

Sci. New.Y 115:[22-3, 126, 1979.13. Arehart-Treichel J. C:in the harrier he:ichcs he sated?

.Sti. NC,WIY 115:10-1, 13, 1979.

14. ~~arfield E. Radio: the neglecled mcdiurn for scientific con~n)[)l)ic~~!io]).”

Currc’nt (’(1/I/L>rI/.Y(25~:5-9. l~June 1978.

172

Science Journalism: You’ve Come aLong Way Baby, But . . . !

Number 34, Auaust 21. 1978

Most of the public’s knowledge ofscience, technology, and medicinecomes from the mass media. Sinceso many social, political, andeconomic issues revolve aroundscientf]c questions, you might ex-pect signflcant science coverage.

The sad fact is that science report-

ing is minimal.In 1975 only about 5?% of Ameri-

can newspaper stones was devotedto science and medicine-the same

figure reported for 1958 (p. 455). 1Up-to-date figures on science

news are difficult to find. We called

several major newspapers to ask forestimates. The New York Times

and Washington Post told us theydid not keep track of such informa-

tion. Robert C. Cowen, scienceeditor of the Chriktian ScienceMonitor, estimates that one pageper week goes to natural science.

I believe that European news-papers do a much better job ofcovering science. However, this

coverage is difficult to quantify. Dr.Bernard Dixon, editor of NewScientist, estimates that the spaceallocated for science and technol-ogy in Britain’s six national dailies

“is so small as to be negligible-cer-tainly less than one percent. “z Dr.Greta Jones and Professor A.J.Meadows of the University ofLeicester’s Primary Communica-

tions Research Centre in Englandreported that the London DailyTelegraph’s amount of science

coverage has actually been declin-ing. In 1968, they say, the paperpublished 515 items relating toscience; in 1969, 409; in 1971, 3%;and in 1973, 290.3 But from infor-mal inquiries I have learned thatRussian newspapers devote roughly5 to 10’?ZOof their space to science,and that many news stones include

more technical detail than Ameri-can readers are accustomed to get-ting. I do know that the GermanFrankfurter Allemeine Zeitung hasa large full time staff of sciencewriters. They subscribe to CurrentContents” and use it regularly.

Popular magazines deal with awide variety of specialties. It is dd-

ficult to make generalizations aboutthe amount or quality of sciencewriting in these magazines as theyare aimed at so many different au-diences. Bill Katz of the State

579

University of New York at Albany,editor of the “Magazines” columnin Library Journal, estimates thereare about 2,000 of them publishedin the world today.’f Time and

Newsweek, America’s two bestknown weekly news magazines,

have circulations of about five andthree million, respectively. Both

regularly publish short features onscience, medicine, and the socialand behavioral sciences, althoughthey rarely do an in-depth coverstory (of 5 or 6 pages) on a science

topic.My friends at ISI@ who regularly

watch television tell me that only asmall fraction of American TV isdevoted to science. It was not easyto get relevant data. The researchdepartment at the American Broad-casting Company (ABC) said one totwo percent of the network’s newscoverage goes to science. The Na-

tional Broadcasting Company

(NBC) and the Columbia Broad-

casting System (CBS) couldn’t giveus exact figures, but the amount isprobably roughly the same. Somuch for science on the commer-cial networks.

The Public Broadcasting Service

(PBS), however, estimated that

about 11 ‘%0 of their daytime hoursdevoted to instructional programscover science. Unfortunately, theseprograms reach a relatively smallpart of the total viewing audience.

The only weekly American TVprogram which deals with generalscience is PBS’s Nova. PBS tells us

that in February of this year Nova

reached 4.88 million households, oronly abou ! 5.7?70 of the homes in

the US.The BBC, sometimes helped by

American co-sponsors, does better.Their Horizon programs give acomprehensive treatment to dif-ferent areas of current scientificresearch. They have also producedsuch outstanding two-hour epics as“The Restless Earth.” This coveredplate tectonics for the informedlayman.

National Public Radio, which,like PBS, is funded by the Corpora-

tion for Public Broadcasting and

private donations, tells us thatroughly 57’o of the material sentover its 180 stations deals withscience. However, as I mentionedin an earlier essay, the AmericanChemical Society’s Man and Mol-ecules, a science program aimed at

the lay audience, is broadcast by

500 commercial stations in the US

and other countries.sOf course, none of these esti-

mates takes into account science-oriented entertainment programs.For example, ikiarcus Welby, M.D.

would not be classified as sciencereporting. But this program (now in

reruns) does indeed convey a con-

siderable amount of authentic

medical information. All medicaldata was checked with qualifiedconsultants. Unfortunately, theprogram gives a syrupy and grosslydistorted view of the present-dayAmerican family doctor. If every

doctor spent as much time with

each patient as Welby does, we’d

580

need at least five times as manydoctors. Maybe we do, but we don’thave them now!

David Perlman, science editor of

the San Francisco Chronicle,asserts that there is “virtually nobiology, no behavioral science, no

physical science on everyday televi-sion.”b But commercial TV will

drop everything to cover a mannedflight to the moon. Carl Sagan

claims that “in all three [commer-cial] network news departments

there is not a single person whosejob includes scanning Science orNature each week for newsworthy

material.”TApart from the abysmally small

quantity of science reporting innewspapers or radio and TV, whatabout the quality?

One good example of a highlypublicized story was the 1976-77swine-flu vaccination program. Thescientific aspects had grave implica-tions for society. In 1976, the US

government launched a $135 mil-lion program to inoculate the

American people against an

epidemic that never materialized.Several elderly people in Pitts-burgh, Pennsylvania died shortlyafter receiving the shot. This led tofears that the vaccine itself wasdangerous.

Unlike many science projects,which don’t affect members of the

public personally, this one affectedeverybody. In the face of apparentconfusion and incompetence on the

part of the government, everyAmerican had to weigh the risks of

catching swine flu against the risks

of taking the shot.Dixon asserts that the coverage

of the swine flu vaccine debacle bymajor US newspapers is a model ofscience journalism. “Instead ofblow-by-blow accounts of everyminor twist in the plot, ” he writes,“news features were used to conveyin a balanced and informativefashion principal shifts in the argu-ment.”z

However, David Rubin and Val

Hendy of the New York UniversitySchool of Journalism claim thatcoverage by papers such as the Ne wYork Times, Washington Post, LosAngeles Times, and Miami Heraldwere exceptions to otherwisemediocre coverage.

They studied swine-flu stories in19 daily newspapers. They alsostudied the evening news shows ofthe three commercial televisionnetworks. And they looked atcoverage by the two major syn-dicated American wire services,Associated Press and United Press

InternationaL (Associated Pressserves 1,300 newspapers and radio

and TV stations in the US and over100,000 abroad. For United PressInternational the figures are 1,1 SOand 2,250. ) Rubin and Hendy fe

cused on the week of October11-17, 1976, “the week the [immu-

nization] program began in earnest,

the week a number of elderly peo-ple died after receiving the shot.”

They conclude that, “while most

press coverage was unoriginal,predictable, [and] superficial.. .it

581

was not misleading, sensational or

inaccurate except in a couple of in-

stances. ” They complain that mostof the coverage consisted of body

counts and the detailing of the by-zantine twists and turns of thepolitical side of the StOry.Coverage, they say, “faithfully

reflected the confusion among pub-lic health of ficials.”s

Thus, their agreement with Dix-on was qualified somewhat. Dixon

complains that balanced, compre-

hensive science reporting is all toorare in Britain. Rubin and Hendyargue that, at least in the swine-flucase, it was rare except in the caseof major US newspapers.

The question is, how typical is

this particular story? The quality ofscience reporting in newspapers

has, on the average, increasedgreatly since the 1920s. Dr. RaeGoodell teaches science writing atthe Massachusetts Institute of

Technology. She noted that manyjournalists classify science report-ing from early in thk century as“gee-whiz” reporting—the kind thatconcentrates on the sensational side

of science. The ’40s and ’50s saw“conveyor belt” reporting. Suchscience stories may clearly explainthe technical aspects of a discoveryto the reader. But they do not ex-amine the larger social, economicor political repercussions of thestory.

“Gee-whiz” and “conveyor belt”

reporting are still with us today. ButGoodell and other observers see the

rise, in the last decade or so, of“science policy reporting. ” Thistype of science journalism tells

readers what new developments

and discoveries real/y mean, andhow they affect their lives (p.

127-8).9

Science reporting on TV general-ly has not reached this stage ofmaturity. Rubin and Hendy, in theirstudy of the swine-flu story, singledout television for especially severecriticism. No network, they assert,preempted regular programming

to cover the swine-flu case. Nor didany of them try to answer questions

like “What is swine-flu?” or “Whatis the risk of inoculation?” The

networks offered only “typicalcorrespondent-on-the-scene cover-age.” Rubin and Hendy comment:“It was a sad performance by televi-sion, on which 36’7’o of Americanssay they rely exclusively for their

news.”g

Other observers have criticizedtelevision for excessive coverage ofthe paranormal and “pseudosci-

ence.” NBC in particular has beencensured for lavishing attention onthe dubious “ancient astronaut”question. And on October 30, 1977,NBC aired “Exploring the Un-

known,” a program on “psychokin-

esis,” or the ability to move objectsby psychic power. The Committeefor the Scientific Investigation of

the Claims of the Paranormal(CSICP) condemned the programfor giving the impression that theexistence of such psychic powershas been scientifically validated. Its

complaint to the Federal Communi-cations Commission was recentlypublished in The Humanist, whichCSICP chairman Paul Kurtz edits.

Speaking for CSICP, Kurtz said

582

NBC should provide equal time andfunding for a program to present

“the critical scientific viewpoint .“ 10CSICPS aim—to keep the public

skeptical of occult or paranormalreports—is laudable. Telepathy,

UFOS, ancient astronauts, bio-rhythms, astrology, and the Ber-muda triangle are all topics whichexcite the imagination, even if theycarry with them questionable scien-tific validity. Many find it more fun

to believe in them than to disbelievein them. In the minds of many edi-tors and TV programmers (and

readers and viewers), stories aboutsuch alleged phenomena make bet-ter entertainment than the rebut-tals.

However, Carl Sagan has man-

aged to remain quite popular on TVeven though he debunks such the-

ories. He has also performed thisvaluable service in books such asThe Dragons of Eden, where hewrites:

. . .There is today in theWest.. .a resurgent interest invague, anecdotal and often de-monstrably erroneous doctrinesthat, if true, would betoken atleast a more interesting universe,but that, if false, imply an in-tellectual carelessness, anabsence of toughmindedness, anda diversion of energies not verypromising for our survival . . . . Itmay be that there are kernels oftruth in a few of these doctrines,but their widespread acceptancebetokens a lack of intellectualrigor, an absence of skepticism,and a need to replace experimentsby desires. 1I (p. 247-8)

Much can be done to Improve thetreatment of science in newspapersand television. But both scientistsand reporters need to reach a better

understanding of each others’ pro-fessional concerns.

For example, scientists must

realize that reporters are undersevere deadline pressures which

usually prevent print or TV jour-nalists from doing much researchon their own.

Space is also at a premium in

newspapers. A story may have to becut, sometimes by copy editors whomay not realize that an importantclafllcation or explanation is beingsacrificed. Walter Sullivan of theNew York Times had 3(Y7o of astory on quarks cut. The result was

that through no fault of his, onlyone scientist’s name was men-

tioned, but not the names of otherswho contributed significantly to thediscovery (p. 124).9

Reporters’ stories face anotherperil at the copy desk: headlinewriters may give items titles that areshort, snappy and attention-grab-bing—but not completely accurate.

Sagan has a headline horrorstory. He gave a press conferencewhere he spoke of the possibilitythat organic molecules might existin the atmosphere of Jupiter. Hesays he made it very clear that hewas talking about organic molec-ules, not life. Yet the following

day a San Francisco headline de-clared: “Life on Jupiter, scientist

says.” (p. 173)9Television reporters, too, are

allotted only a few minutes on the

air to tell their stories. Tapes must

be edited and valuable information

dropped from an interview. And of

course, the reporter has no control

over the way the anchorperson (thebroadcaster who coordinates thenews program) will lead into thestory.

Reporters have the obligation to

understand scientists’ problems and

professional concerns. If a scientisttakes the care to qualify a state-ment, that qualification should geta prominent place in the story.Also, depending on the size of thenews operation and reporters’

schedules, it is possible for

reporters to help write headlines

and edit stones, to avoid inac-

curacies and distortions.Also, scientists should realize

that, as Perlman puts it, reporters“are in business to report on the ac-tivities of the house of science, notto protect it, just as political writersreport on politics and politicians. “b

Scientists cannot expect reporters

to act as public relations agents,even though the great majority ofscience writers probably have afavorable attitude towards scienceand scientists.

The best popular science writersstrive to learn what they can about

science. In their swine-flu study,Rubin and Hendy assert that re-

porters’ science backgrounds made

the biggest difference in the qualityof the coverage. Lawrence K.Altman of the Ne w York Times, for

example, is an MD.B Yet manyreporters begin without a scientific

specialty or a strong general science

background.

Perlman asserts that this is not an

entirely bad thing; that on-the-job

training has worked for some. Hewrites that Walter Sullivan is “vir-

tually a card-carrying geophysicistby now, he has written so often on

the subject .“ Perlman, himselfwithout formal science training, de-

scribes hk job as “a full-time,perpetual fellowship to a graduate

school with a varied and endlesslychallenging curriculum. “b

You don’t need a Ph.D. to be a

good popular science writer. Andperhaps it doesn’t matter whe-ther reporters get their sciencetraining in or out of universities,though more formal training might

be called for.

Relatively few journalism schoolsoffer courses in science writing. ADirectory of Science Communica-tion Courses and Programs lists 34programs and 105 courses in 58 col-leges and universities in the US. 12

Since science writing carries with itspecial problems not faced by re-

porters of politics, business orsports, more formal training mightbe needed here.

Some organizations are trying toimprove science news by makingscientists in certain fields availablefor interviews by reporters. Thepublic relations office of DrexelUniversity in Philadelphia operates

a “Deadline Doctors” program. It is

designed to help reporters whoneed a qualified source on a scien-tific topic. Calls are referred to anappropriate faculty member.

The Society for Neuroscience, agroup of 4700 scientists who have

done research relating to the ner-

vous system, plans to introduce a

similar service this fall. TheBethesda, Maryland-based group,

584

publisher of the quarterly Neuro-science Newsletter and the annualNeuroscience Proceedings, will

publish a directory of scientists whoexpressed willingness to talk toreporters in need of a clear explana-tion or quotable source.

The American Cancer Society in-vites science writers to attend itsannual meetings. This gives writersa chance to hear the latest develop-ments in cancer research. TheFederation of American Societies

for Experimental Biology publishesa newsletter called FASEB FeatureService. Thk monthly publicationis distributed without charge to a-

bout 400 newspapers. It explains

new developments in the- laity’slanguage.

Some organizations have grownup with the specific aim to improvescience writing. The National As-sociation of Science Writers, BoxH, Sea Cliff, New York 11579, is agroup of about 1,000 sciencewriters and editors. It holds semi-

nars on science writing at the annu-al American Association for the

Advancement of Science meeting.

Participants discuss the problems ofcommunicating science-related in-formation through the variousmedia. Both journalists and scien-tists attend these seminars.

The Council for the Advance-

ment of Science Writing, 618 N.Elmwood Oak Park, Illinois 60302,is a group of 26 writers, editors,television executives, scientists andphysicians. The group tries toupgrade the quality of sciencewriting, and improve the relation-ship between scientists and the

media. CASW holds annual press

tmefmgs on new horizons in scienceand the social and behavioralsciences as well.

One of CASWS special programs

provides on-the-job training tojournalists. Journalists who can’ttake time off from work for specialtraining are supplied with textbooksand journal subscriptions. Also,CASW members provide guidance

on how to deal with scientist-sources, and how to cover scientificmeetings.

Another CASW program brings

journalists directly into laboratoriesor field studies. Journalists spendweeks or months with scientists to

get a better idea of how research isactually conducted.

Other journalism or scienttlcsocieties could try offering servicessimilar to these. The fact that somegroups are already trying to im-prove the system by opening com-munications is cause for optimism.

Calls for cooperation betweenvarious professions go out constant-

ly. Yet between journalism and the

sciences, cooperation is especiallyimportant. Journalists and scientists

both have a stake in raising thequality of science reporting. Sci-ence is at least as important aspolitics, sports, or the personal livesof movie and TV stars. And the lessthe public knows about what is go-irig on in science, the less likely it is

to hold intelligent opinions aboutthe directions research should takeand the amount of funding it shouldreceive.

Science journalism has come along way from the “gee-whiz” daysbut it still has a long way to go. Ad-vances in television technology may

585

lead to improvements in the qualityof information that the public getsvia the small screen, I have de-

scribed elsewhere how the British“Prestel” (formerly Viewdata),

operated by the British Post Office,may revolutionize the dissemina-tion of scientific information. 131S1’s European branch supplies thePrestel system with a science newssegment called SCITEL ‘M.1d How-

ever, the problem with the com-

mercial networks does not seem tobe lagging technology but lagging

will. The networks could be doing afar better job of reporting sciencewith the resources they alreadyhave.

Journalism itself leaves much tobe desired but the investigativereporting typified by Bernstein and

Woodward in the Watergate case

signalled a new era. 15 Just this sort

of thorough investigative reporting

is what we need in the mass media.They would do well to emulate the

excellent job done by Science in its“News and Comment” Section.

That the public is ready for more

science I have no doubt. TheAAAS is studying the feasibility of ascience magazine geared to a mass

audience. And the publishers of

Penthouse and Viva have an-nounced a new science magazine,Omni, to be launched in Septem-ber. All in all I think we can sayabout science journalism, as theydo in the ads: “You’ve come a longway baby.”’ but you’ve still got away to go!

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