Last week Martin Robbins wrote a spoof article, This is a news website article about a scientific finding "In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?" It went on and on and was quite amusing.
This week he follows up, Why I spoofed science journalism. "A science journalist should be capable of, at a minimum, reading a scientific paper and being able to venture a decent opinion. A more reasonable excuse is lack of time. Full-time reporters are expected to cover breaking stories quickly, and churn out several articles a day. Under that sort of pressure, even if the journalist wants to delve deeper into the murky depths of a story they may simply not have the time to do it justice.
Ultimately, though, if all you're doing is repeating press releases, and not providing your own insight, analysis or criticism, then what exactly is the point of paying you? What are you for? What value do you add for me? What right do you have to complain if you're going out of business?"
"Many of the problems in science reporting come not from the journalists or editors themselves, but as a result of the pressures and constraints they're under, and journalists at the BBC are under more constraints than most."
"In 2010, news stories on a website are actually being optimised, and reorganised for Teletext. Seriously." The rest of the points were spot on and explained the scientific process well (as news articles generally don't). And my favorite quote:
"It was several decades before the full significance of the 1896 observation by Svante Arrhenius that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere would lead to an increase in global temperature became obvious. Or at least obvious to all but a minority of ideologically driven morons."
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