Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Science News Cycle


It's no secret -- science coverage in the mainstream media is less than stellar, partly because of the rarity of reporters who are versed in science, and partly because the various newspapers and television news programs see any kind of news as an opportunity to grind whatever political axe they happen to favor.

Of course, some science news items are seemingly tailor-made for this: global warming, evolution, cryptozoology, extraterrestrial beings, and lately the controversially-named God particle (the boson) being specific examples.

Of course, news programs like people to make unequivocal statements, rather than seemingly hedge, like scientists are trained to do.

Then there's the confusion of correlation and causality.  Reporters jump to conclusions too readily about this.  So there's a lot of science reporting off the top of peoples' heads.


6 comments:

Bilbo said...

This is a true classic!!

Rudolph said...

You have to click on it to see it all. :(

Mike said...

The game of 'telephone' played by the information cycle.

And as I just found out via the Internet (so you know it's true) the game was originally called 'Chinese whispers'.

MarkD60 said...

Like the message that gets garbled as it gets passed from person to person.

But beware, the US media is the worst in the world. They got for ratings and profit, not to deliver the facts.

Elvis Wearing a Bra on His Head said...

Science news on television is worthless, but WHNT doesn't do bad.

Sinner Bob said...

Television news is only good for covering fatal accidents, or strip joints getting raided.