A couple of colleagues have pointed me to this story in the Daily Torygraph with the alleged news that early humans lived in what is now the Republic of Georgia 1.8 million years ago, much earlier than elsewhere in Eurasia. The story is reported as if this were some shocking new revelation: given that I exalt in the position of Fossil-In-Residence at Nature, I am asked whether this is something new, and if so, why haven’t I heard about it? Cursory inspection reveals that this is a re-tread from the British Science Festival where old news is reheated for the benefit of credulous science journalists. The fact is that this is old news. Very old news indeed.
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I, Editor by Henry Gee
This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
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Not So Much 'News' as 'Olds'
- Date:
- Wednesday, 09 Sep tember 2009 - 15:19 UTC
The archaeological site at Dmanisi in Georgia has been yielding hominid fossils for years. The first news that reached mes oreilles was this paper from 1995 – which is probably longer ago than most science reporters can remember – reporting a jawbone. Subsequent papers reporting whole skulls appeared in Science, and more recent work on postcranial material in Nature (you can find a pretty good run-down here ). Suffice it to say that the palaeoanthropology world has known about these fossils for a very long time. So why does it look as if the news is – well – new?
I put it down to the syndrome that is the British Science Festival – this is less a conference than a shop-window for publicizing science. As such, science journalists flock there like cliches round a honeypot, expected by their news editors to provide an endless stream of copy – most of which is trivial, old hat or just silly. Nothing is new, significant or fundamental, and the science journalists use the occasion for more traditional journalistic pursuits, such as
networkingsynergising their capacitiesdrinking too much beer and falling over.Even so, why couldn’t the journalist at the Torygraph not have done a quick search and found the ancient grimoires reporting these finds? Because it wouldn’t have been a news story, that’s why – the news editor (always the unseen villain, in my view) would have spiked the story; and because the British Science Festival is seen as the one chance that science has to get guaranteed coverage in British newspapers (Parliament being in recess, and the football season yet to get into full swing), the journalist wouldn’t want to threaten that otherwise slim chance of column inches about science either now or in the future.
Deep sigh. All of which consolidates my
compostmissionaryposition, adopted since the Darwinius debacle, of not giving interviews about forthcoming Nature papers with which I have been involved to mainstream journalists, who have to get copy past a news editor. Only bloggers, these days, give science news the reflective, balanced and unhysterical coverage it deserves.Last updated: Wednesday, 09 Sep 2009 - 15:19 UTC
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Comments
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even I’ve heard about those Georgian fossils – they were mentioned in a programme about Ida, the florid hobbit.
That was her name, wasn’t it?
Only bloggers, these days, give science news the reflective, balanced and unhysterical coverage it deserves.
Damn you, my irony detector’s needle is bent now. ;)
I wasn’t trying to be ironic, but perhaps some clarification is called for.
For years and years, scientists have been trying to improve the public understanding of (or engagement with) science, partly by training up a cadre of ‘science communicators’. The result, in my view, has been negligible, because the science establishmnt has been aiming at the wrong targets. It’s not the communication of science per se that needs to be changed, but the filters through which it must pass before it reaches the reader, listener or viewer.
Sometimes, a science writer is lucky enough to have editors who are themselves scientifically literate, working for outlets whose target audience is pretty well-defined (I include myself here, both at Nature and at my regular column at BBC Focus). However, in many more cases, and this is especially true for the mass media, those filters – news editors, PR people, TV and radio producers – have agendas that might differ from those of the science communicator. And it is also true that it is in the mass media where the science communicators themselves might not have a particularly good grounding in science. The result is as you see – a piece in the Torygraph, Britain’s highest-circulation quality daily – which has led my colleagues (both of whom are bursting with scientific literacy) to think it is reporting news, when it’s not.
Yes, sure, some blogs are poor, but many more are distinguished by their attention to detail – the blogger lives or dies purely by their own efforts; does not have to fight against the ‘spin’ imposed by superiors; and can provide the necessary attributions and references that mainstream media outlets so often lack.
What happen, Henry, very much silence, you have H1N1 flu. Greetings!.
Well said Henry. There is an element of spin that some bloggers have in order to excite readers and get additional hits, but the pressure to “sex up” the science from editors is essentially nonexistent. Furthermore, unlike in mainstream science journalism, science bloggers are actively shaped by their readership. If they get a science story wrong they will immediately hear about it and they will adapt to these pressures. The news editors experience little pressure of this sort (at least not from scientists).
For my MSc in pharmacology I wrote a literature thesis (no labwork, just review) about drug development for Parkinson’s disease. At the time, there had just been a few papers out showing that coffee prevents PD. I mentioned it in the seminar, and not even all the faculty had heard of this at the time. But that was ten years ago and it’s still always in the news. Although it’s often not really “news”, but one of those “did you know?” features in the newspaper.
David Colquhoun gave an interesting perspective on this is a book review that was published yesterday.
I think around the problem proposed by Henry, is there’s always a kind of fashion in the scientific journalism by return a exhibit up and old discoveries, in order to keep a hungry hearing of knowing and thus remain dormant for not falling in a bore and remain that concern the reader to be a spectator of the problem. Presumably can be just a show to continue talking about something that has already been said and not undermined, the journalist is, I think, lately there have been no discoveries perhaps as interesting as the hobbit of Flores in paleoanthropology, but always refers to other perhaps less significant discoveries in order to lessen some discoveries that have been popular at other times.
Of course prestigious journals never, ever spin the hype carousel themselves….
Re: “[I’m] not giving interviews about forthcoming Nature papers with which I have been involved to mainstream journalists…. Only bloggers [etc.]….”
If you really care about public understanding of science — i.e., people learning about the world, leading richer lives for it, and ultimately supporting further research — you ought to help mainstream journalists, not avoid them. Make a note of who covers paleontology, email them and offer your services in the future.
If you just want to have a good time pointing out journalists’ mistakes, rock on.
If you really care about public understanding of science — i.e., people learning about the world, leading richer lives for it, and ultimately supporting further research — you ought to help mainstream journalists
I have spent >20 years doing just that. It doesn’t work, for the reasons I have outlined. The reason I like bloggers is that their prose gets to the public without intervening and possibly conflicting agendas from news editors getting in the way.