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Insights on Science Journalism

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Bringing together experts from a range of disciplines, this collection critically examines science journalism, paying special attention to the points of tension that science journalists navigate in their work today.

Faced with the twin crises of climate change and a global pandemic, science journalism has never before been so prominent. This book showcases perspectives that transcend the particulars of the specific news events and outlets studied, in order to provide an overview of the key areas of scholarly interest regarding the nature of science journalism. The volume is organised into three sections: the first provides historical case studies illustrating the demarcation of science journalism from science as science journalism emerged as a recognisable news beat in the twentieth century; the second examines the relationship between science journalists and their sources, particularly scientists, and the mediation of this relationship through organisations, foreign journalism and political constraints; and the final section considers the style and voice of science journalism content. Case studies and original empirical research are compiled from across the globe, including the UK, US, Germany, Vietnam, and Russia, and are synthesised to offer a readable and engaging insight into the beat.

Insights on Science Journalism is recommended reading for advanced students and researchers of science journalism and communication and will also appeal to those working in the fields of science and technology studies and risk communication.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter | 12  pages, introduction, part 14i | 58  pages, establishing a beat, chapter 1 | 18  pages, “making democracy safe”, chapter 2 | 18  pages, the expanding role of science journalism, chapter 3 | 20  pages, constructing identity, protecting independence, part 72ii | 68  pages, journalist-source relations, chapter 4 | 16  pages, copy and paste, chapter 5 | 16  pages, science media centres, chapter 6 | 16  pages, the over-reliance on foreign science news in developing countries, chapter 7 | 18  pages, “the death of experts”, part 140iii | 58  pages, the journalistic voice, chapter 8 | 18  pages, partial to being impartial debates about balance in science journalism, chapter 9 | 17  pages, making science trend, chapter 10 | 17  pages, ethical compromise in narrative science journalism, chapter | 4  pages.

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Stylistic analysis of headlines in science journalism: A case study of New Scientist

Affiliation.

• 1 Opole University, Poland.
• PMID: 27029765
• DOI: 10.1177/0963662516637321

This article explores science journalism in the context of the media competition for readers' attention. It offers a qualitative stylistic perspective on how popular journalism colonizes science communication. It examines a sample of 400 headlines collected over the period of 15 months from the ranking of five 'most-read' articles on the website of the international magazine New Scientist. Dominant lexical properties of the sample are first identified through frequency and keyness survey and then analysed qualitatively from the perspective of the stylistic projection of newsworthiness. The analysis illustrates various degrees of stylistic 'hybridity' in online popularization of scientific research. Stylistic patterns that celebrate, domesticate or personalize science coverage (characteristic of popular journalism) are intertwined with devices that foreground tentativeness, precision and informativeness (characteristic of science communication). The article reflects on the implications of including various proportions of academic and popular styles in science journalism.

Keywords: New Scientist; discourse analysis; discourses of science; headlines; hybridity; linguistic style; science journalism.

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Earth & Environmental Science Journalism

Case studies in earth and environmental science journalism, legacy site.

The seminar  “Case Studies in Earth & Environmental Journalism” is no longer offered at Columbia, but the collections of readings assembled here may be of use to students or instructors in journalism or environmental science.

"Case Studies in Earth and Environmental Science Journalism" is designed to link students' expertise in science and in journalism. It is required for all first year students in the Earth & Environmental Science Journalism masters program, and is open to others with the instructor's permission.

Most of the class time is spent on " case studies ." Students read the primary scientific literature about an issue, discovery, controversy, idea, or hypothesis--for example, geological disposal of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Next, they read popular articles and broadcast transcripts convering that same issue. Finally, the class interviews a scientist who worked on the topic. From this raw material, students extract a repertoire of techniques for shaping a science story to reach different audiences, simplifying without distorting a scientific idea, and catching a reader's attention.

In addition to historical "case studies," students follow breaking stories coming out of Lamont. Depending on the nature of the story, seminar participants might read a preprint of a forthcoming journal article, discuss the story with the scientist involved, read a news release prepared by the Lamont public outreach office, discuss the preparation of the news release with the Lamont science writer, attend a news conference, and/or seek out coverage of the story in the media.

The final element of the seminar deals with how science works : as a business, as a community, and as a point of view. The goal here is for journalists to understand the forces (other than raw curiosity) that influence the behavior of scientists. Through readings, discussion, and interviews with guest scientists, students gain an understanding of the peer review system, the funding system, ethics in science, and how the scientific community judges "excellence" in science.

Jump down to Case Studies .

Jump down to How Science Works .

Requirements:

• Readings, class attendance, and participation in discussions. For each case, a set of "issues to ponder and discuss" will be provided; you should be prepared to discuss these questions in detail, using specific documentation from the readings to support your assertions.
• Each week, prepare a one page written description of a story idea. The story idea should be presented in the form of a memo to the editor or producer of a specific publication or broadcast. It should include a paragraph about why those readers, listeners, or viewers will care about the topic. Most of your story ideas should be based on something you have learned or discussed that week in one of your other classes. On weeks when we have a guest scientist, your story idea should be base on the interview.
• Before each interview with a guest scientist, prepare a list of questions; email list to instructor before interview.
• Organize one "case study" per semester: line up appropriate readings, formulate a list of "issues to ponder and discuss," find guest scientist, lead discussion.
• (Fall semester) Write a nomination for the Walter Sullivan award for Excellence in Science Journalism. This award is given by the American Geophysical Union for "work [which] enhances public awareness and understanding of the geophysical sciences--the study of the Earth including its oceans, atmosphere, and space environment." You may nominate any newspaper or magazine article, or radio or television broadcast, that was published or aired this year; however, assigned reading for this class is not eligible. Your nomination must articulate why this is an exemplary piece of science journalism.
• (Spring semester) Compile an annotated collection of devices or strategies that authors have used to try to catch and hold the attention of their readers, or to try to convey a complex scientific idea to a non-specialist audience. Your compilation should include references and quotations from specific articles which have used the device. Include both good and bad examples, and span all of the cases considered over the course of the year. Then, for each device, explain under what circumstances the device is and is not effective, bolstering your arguments with examples.

Case Studies

Five or six case studies are covered each semester. An incomplete collection of cases covered since 1996 follows with the date of most recent use in parentheses. Cases listed alphabetically:

• Agricultural Runoff & Pollution of Coastal Waters. (Spring 2007)
• Interview: Andy Juhl, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• The 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico
• Pfiesteria in Mid-Atlantic Estuaries
• Alternative Fuel Vehicles. (Fall 2001)
• Interview: Prof. Vijay Modi, Columbia University, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science , Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.
• Arsenic in Groundwater of Bangladesh. (Spring 2002)
• Interview: Jim Simpson or Lex van Geen, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Black Smokers. (Spring 2002)
• Background and Vent Animals.
• Origins of Life and Vent Mining.
• Interview: Ed Mathez, American Museum of Natural History .
• Burn This? : The Waste-To-Energy Option for Managing NYC Trash. (Fall 2002)
• Interview: Prof. Nick Themelis, Columbia University, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science , Dept. of Chemical Engineering; Hanwei Zhang, Post doc of Nick Themelis; Al Klive, recent master in E&EE, Thesis in MSW combustion.
• Cancer Clusters and the Toms River / Ciba Geigy Site.
• Interview: Daniel Warenberg, Rutgers University.
• Carbon Sequestration. (Spring 2008)
• Interview: Klaus Lackner, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Coastal Zone Management. (Fall 2002)
• Erosion and Development on Long Island's South Shore.
• Field Trip to Fire Island.
• Interview: Henry J. Bokuniewicz and Jay Tanski, SUNY Stony Brook.
• Cold Fusion (Spring 2001)
• Fleischmann and Pons electrochemically induced nuclear fusion.
• The confession
• The Collapse of the Atlantic Cod Fishery . (Fall 2005)
• Interview: Tim Fitzgerald, Environmental Defense, Ocean Program
• What can be learned from the collapse of a renewable resource?
• Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary Extinction.
• Alvarez hypothesis of catastrophic meteor impact.
• Discovery of Chicxulub crater.
• Interview: Paul Olsen, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Dead Zone. (2002)
• The Gulf of Mexico and Marine Dead Zones.
• The Role of Farms.
• Deformed Frogs. (2001)
• Development of the story.
• Frogs - a sentinel species?
• Drought in the U.S. Southwest . (2007)
• How is drought defined or measured?
• How does drought relate to climate prediction
• Drilling for Oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (2002)
• Interview, Roger N. Anderson, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Earthquake Prediction. (Spring 2000)
• Loma Prieta, 1989.
• Iben Browning's New Madrid prediction, 1990.
• Interview: Lynn Sykes, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory , seismologist & former chair of National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council.
• Ecotourism: Sustainable Solution or Eco-Fraud? (Spring 2006)
• Interview:   Jake Kheel, Environmental Director, Punta Cana Ecological Foundation
• Defining the term Ecotourism.
• Does the industry regulate ecotourism? How?
• What are the benefits? The community sacrifices?
• El Nino and Climate Prediction. (Fall 2005)
• First successful El Nino forecast.
• Link with rainfall/crops in subSahara Africa.
• Interview: Mark Cane, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
• Endocrine Disruptors. (Spring 2001)
• Interview: Darcy Kelly, Biology Department, Columbia University.
• Evolution, Creationism, and Curriculum. (updated for Spring 2007)
• Evolution and Creationism, general.
• 1999 Kansas decision to remove evolution from state education standards.
• Interview: O. Roger Anderson, Teacher's College, or Kent Greenwalt, First Amendment expert at Columbia Law School.
• Evolution: Did it play a role in Religion? (Spring 2007)
• Interview: Robert Pollack, Center for the Study of Science and Religion
• Flu: When to Cry Wolf - 1918 & Today (Fall 2005)
• Fact Versus Fear
• It's Epidemic! or Not?
• "Geological" Storage of Nuclear Waste at Yucca Mountain. (Spring 2000)
• Could a volcano erupt through the repository and cause a radioactive release?
• Could water table rise and flood the repository?
• Interview: Brent Turrin, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory , geochemist who dated young volcanics.
• Global Warming. (Fall 2000)
• Hansen's Testimony to Congress.
• Fertilization of oceans with iron.
• Interview: Jim Hansen, Goddard Institute for Space Science .
• Green Roofs. (Fall 2005)
• Site visit to Queens Botanical Gardens
• Are green roofs a 'feel good' investment or is ther measurable science behind them?
• Hurricane Katrina. (Updated Fall 2007)
• Foreseeing (or not foreseeing) a Katrina-like disaster.
• Is there a link between climate change & hurricanes?
• Industrial Meat: Environmental & Public Health Consequences of CAFO's. (Spring 2007)
• Interview: Dickson Despommier, Professor of Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and Department of Microbiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
• Jaws 2001: Shark Attacks & the Media. (2001)
• Interview: Hans Walters, NY Aquarium, Coney Island.
• Makah Whaling. (Spring 2003)
• Interview: Alonso Aguirre, Wildlife Trust.
• Marine Mammals and Sonars . (Spring 2006)
• Interview: G. Michael Purdy or Maya Tolstoy, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Methane Hydrates, Global Climate, and the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM). (Fall 2000)
• Interview: Mimi Katz, Rutgers University.
• The Neanderthal Extinction. (Spring 2001)
• Interview: Prof. Ralph Holloway, Columbia University, Department of Anthropology .
• North American Bald Eagle and the Endangered Species Act. (Fall 2007)
• Was it the ban on DDT or the Endangred Species Act?
• Noah's Flood . (Spring 2003)
• Interview: Bill Ryan and Walter Pitman, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• I nterview: Drew Shindell, NASA Goddard Insitute for Space Science
• PCBs in the Hudson River: the EPA, General Electric, and the People. (Spring 2004)
• Interview: Steve Chillrud, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Peak Oil. (Spring 2006)
• Oil, how will it all end?
• Plate Tectonics. (Spring 2006)
• Does the Earth move?
• Species Introductions. (Spring 1999)
• Reintroduction: Restoration of Wolves to Yellowstone.
• Introduction of Exotics: The Imported Fire Ant.
• Interview, Jim Wetterer, Columbia University, Center for Environmental Research and Conservation .
• Snowball Earth . (Updated Spring 2004)
• Interview: Nick Christie-Blick, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Spotted Owl Debate and the Endangered Species Act. (Spring 2001)
• Interview: Stuart Pimm, Columbia University, Center for Environmental Research & Conservation .
• Three Gorges Dam, China. (Spring 2002)
• Interview: Upmanu Lall, Columbia School of Engineering.
• Tsunamis and landslides. (Updated Fall 2005)
• Interview: Art Lerner-Lam, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Interview: Mohi Kumar, E&ESJ student.
• Water on Mars: The Search for Life. (Spring 2008)
• Interview: Vivien Gornitz, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research
• Wetlands Mitigation Banking. (1999)
• Interview: Peter LeTourneau, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .
• Wildlife Corridors. (Fall 2006)
• Interview: Eric Sanderson, Wildlife Conservation Society
• Zebra Mussel Invasion. (2002)
• Interview: Dan Malloy, N Y State Education Dept., NY Museum in Albany

How Science Works

• Ethics in Science
• Interviewee: Columbia official who deals with misconduct in science.
• Reading list.
• Peer review & funding of science
• Guest scientists: one former NSF Program Manager and one current or former Journal Editor from among the L-DEO staff.
• Reading list .

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Science Journalism in Latin America: A case study of seven newspapers in the region

Journal of Science Communication

The objective of this article is to present a panorama of the way in which journalistic coverage of science and technological themes is being carried out in Latin America, having as a case study seven newspapers of significant impact in the region. We analyzed all stories published by the science section during all the month of April 2004, in the following newspapers: La Nación, Argentina; El Mercurio, Chile; Mural, Mexico; El Comercio, Ecuador; O Globo, Folha de S. Paulo and Jornal do Commercio/Pernambuco, Brazil. A total of 482 texts were collected. The methodology joins quantitative and qualitative analysis. There are very few studies on science journalism in Latin America and even fewer that seek to explore a comparison among countries. We believe that studies such as ours can provide subsidies to stimulate the improvement of journalistic coverage of scientific and technological issues.

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Nowadays, scientific culture has undoubted importance. Its advances and controversies are brought to us, among other ways, by journalism. To know if the journalistic formation in the social communication of science and technology in the studies of degree in journalism in Spain is pertinent, we analyzed, through an exploratory study and a quantitative methodology, their academic curriculum and their teaching guides, based on the scientific-technological Spanish structure and R&D&I budgets. The results reveal some logical and other paradoxical dynamics in the correlation between training and regional scientific level. La formación en periodismo científico desde la perspectiva del sistema nacional de I+D+i: el caso español. La cultura científica tiene una importancia indudable. Una de las vías por las que conocemos los avances y las controversias científicas es el periodismo. Para saber si la formación periodística en Comunicación Social de la Ciencia y la Tecnología en los grados de Periodismo en España es adecuada, analizamos-mediante una metodología exploratoria y cuantitativa-los planes de estudios y las guías docentes de las universidades españolas. Nuestras referencias han sido la estructura científico-tecnológica española y el gasto en I+D+i. Los resultados revelan unas dinámicas lógicas y otras paradójicas en la correlación entre formación y nivel científico nacional. Palabras clave: comunicación de la ciencia; periodismo; I+D+i; cultura científica; ciencia y sociedad.

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Some Things I've Learned About Science Journalism

One: Almost all cutting edge science is uncertain.

Only after repeated studies, ideally using different methods, does the answer approach certainty. At that point, it goes into the textbooks and scientists move on to a new mystery. This makes accurate stories about "new discoveries" hard to sell to editors, who naïvely think science should always be certain.

As a result, there is great temptation to hype the findings, to make them seem more certain. Bad move, because the next study on the same question could come to the opposite conclusion.

Two: Not all forms of research are equally convincing.

Clinical scientists, for example, speak of "levels of evidence" ranging from case reports (weakest) to observational studies (moderately persuasive) to interventional studies such as the "gold standard" of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials (very convincing, if well done).

Always ask what other sources of evidence bear on the question at hand and where the new study fits in the spectrum. Some questions can never be addressed using clinical trials, usually either for ethical or cost reasons.

Three: Good journalistic balance does not necessarily mean giving equal weight to both sides of a controversy.

That kind of balance is naïve because it ignores facts and can mislead listeners into thinking there is equally strong evidence on both sides. Try to get a sense of the overall weight of the evidence and make sure your story roughly matches the actual balance in the real world. As research on a question progresses—usually over years—the balance may tip from 50-50 to 90-10 and, in some cases, to 100-0.

Four: The latest study on a topic is not necessarily closer to the truth than the previous studies.

Five: Separating fact from opinion is a bedrock function of journalism.

This can be difficult when scientists present weak evidence with strong opinion. Try to understand the science well enough to know whether the facts warrant the opinion. If you're unfamiliar with the science, you need to find additional sources to ask. One possible clue to the reason for strong scientific opinion is the study's funding source.

Six: The reporter's goal should always be accuracy and fairness.

If you're not sure you're meeting this goal, you probably need to do more reporting.

Boyce Rensberger is director of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program at MIT and the co-director of the summer Science Journalism Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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The SPJ Code of Ethics is voluntarily embraced by thousands of journalists, regardless of place or platform, and is widely used in newsrooms and classrooms as a guide for ethical behavior. The code is intended not as a set of "rules" but as a resource for ethical decision-making. It is not — nor can it be under the First Amendment — legally enforceable. For an expanded explanation, please follow this link .

For journalism instructors and others interested in presenting ethical dilemmas for debate and discussion, SPJ has a useful resource. We've been collecting a number of case studies for use in workshops. The Ethics AdviceLine operated by the Chicago Headline Club and Loyola University also has provided a number of examples. There seems to be no shortage of ethical issues in journalism these days. Please feel free to use these examples in your classes, speeches, columns, workshops or other modes of communication.

Kobe Bryant’s Past: A Tweet Too Soon? On January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant died at the age of 41 in a helicopter crash in the Los Angeles area. While the majority of social media praised Bryant after his death, within a few hours after the story broke, Felicia Sonmez, a reporter for The Washington Post , tweeted a link to an article from 2003 about the allegations of sexual assault against Bryant. The question: Is there a limit to truth-telling? How long (if at all) should a journalist wait after a person’s death before resurfacing sensitive information about their past?

A controversial apology After photographs of a speech and protests at Northwestern University appeared on the university's newspaper's website, some of the participants contacted the newspaper to complain. It became a “firestorm,” — first from students who felt victimized, and then, after the newspaper apologized, from journalists and others who accused the newspaper of apologizing for simply doing its job. The question: Is an apology the appropriate response? Is there something else the student journalists should have done?

Using the ‘Holocaust’ Metaphor People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is a nonprofit animal rights organization known for its controversial approach to communications and public relations. In 2003, PETA launched a new campaign, named “Holocaust on Your Plate,” that compares the slaughter of animals for human use to the murder of 6 million Jews in WWII. The question: Is “Holocaust on Your Plate” ethically wrong or a truthful comparison?

Aaargh! Pirates! (and the Press) As collections of songs, studio recordings from an upcoming album or merely unreleased demos, are leaked online, these outlets cover the leak with a breaking story or a blog post. But they don’t stop there. Rolling Stone and Billboard often also will include a link within the story to listen to the songs that were leaked. The question: If Billboard and Rolling Stone are essentially pointing readers in the right direction, to the leaked music, are they not aiding in helping the Internet community find the material and consume it?

Reigning on the Parade Frank Whelan, a features writer who also wrote a history column for the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call , took part in a gay rights parade in June 2006 and stirred up a classic ethical dilemma. The situation raises any number of questions about what is and isn’t a conflict of interest. The question: What should the “consequences” be for Frank Whelan?

Controversy over a Concert Three former members of the Eagles rock band came to Denver during the 2004 election campaign to raise money for a U.S. Senate candidate, Democrat Ken Salazar. John Temple, editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, advised his reporters not to go to the fundraising concerts. The question: Is it fair to ask newspaper staffers — or employees at other news media, for that matter — not to attend events that may have a political purpose? Are the rules different for different jobs at the news outlet?

Deep Throat, and His Motive The Watergate story is considered perhaps American journalism’s defining accomplishment. Two intrepid young reporters for The Washington Post , carefully verifying and expanding upon information given to them by sources they went to great lengths to protect, revealed brutally damaging information about one of the most powerful figures on Earth, the American president. The question: Is protecting a source more important than revealing all the relevant information about a news story?

When Sources Won’t Talk The SPJ Code of Ethics offers guidance on at least three aspects of this dilemma. “Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.” One source was not sufficient in revealing this information. The question: How could the editors maintain credibility and remain fair to both sides yet find solid sources for a news tip with inflammatory allegations?

A Suspect “Confession” John Mark Karr, 41, was arrested in mid-August in Bangkok, Thailand, at the request of Colorado and U.S. officials. During questioning, he confessed to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Karr was arrested after Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, alerted authorities to information he had drawn from e-mails Karr had sent him over the past four years. The question: Do you break a confidence with your source if you think it can solve a murder — or protect children half a world away?

Who’s the “Predator”? “To Catch a Predator,” the ratings-grabbing series on NBC’s Dateline, appeared to catch on with the public. But it also raised serious ethical questions for journalists. The question: If your newspaper or television station were approached by Perverted Justice to participate in a “sting” designed to identify real and potential perverts, should you go along, or say, “No thanks”? Was NBC reporting the news or creating it?

The Media’s Foul Ball The Chicago Cubs in 2003 were five outs from advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1945 when a 26-year-old fan tried to grab a foul ball, preventing outfielder Moises Alou from catching it. The hapless fan's identity was unknown. But he became recognizable through televised replays as the young baby-faced man in glasses, a Cubs baseball cap and earphones who bobbled the ball and was blamed for costing the Cubs a trip to the World Series. The question: Given the potential danger to the man, should he be identified by the media?

Publishing Drunk Drivers’ Photos When readers of The Anderson News picked up the Dec. 31, 1997, issue of the newspaper, stripped across the top of the front page was a New Year’s greeting and a warning. “HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR,” the banner read. “But please don’t drink and drive and risk having your picture published.” Readers were referred to the editorial page where White explained that starting in January 1998 the newspaper would publish photographs of all persons convicted of drunken driving in Anderson County. The question: Is this an appropriate policy for a newspaper?

Naming Victims of Sex Crimes On January 8, 2007, 13-year-old Ben Ownby disappeared while walking home from school in Beaufort, Missouri. A tip from a school friend led police on a frantic four-day search that ended unusually happily: the police discovered not only Ben, but another boy as well—15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck, who, four years earlier, had disappeared while riding his bike at the age of 11. Media scrutiny on Shawn’s years of captivity became intense. The question: Question: Should children who are thought to be the victims of sexual abuse ever be named in the media? What should be done about the continued use of names of kidnap victims who are later found to be sexual assault victims? Should use of their names be discontinued at that point?

A Self-Serving Leak San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams were widely praised for their stories about sports figures involved with steroids. They turned their investigation into a very successful book, Game of Shadows . And they won the admiration of fellow journalists because they were willing to go to prison to protect the source who had leaked testimony to them from the grand jury investigating the BALCO sports-and-steroids. Their source, however, was not quite so noble. The question: Should the two reporters have continued to protect this key source even after he admitted to lying? Should they have promised confidentiality in the first place?

The Times and Jayson Blair Jayson Blair advanced quickly during his tenure at The New York Times , where he was hired as a full-time staff writer after his internship there and others at The Boston Globe and The Washington Post . Even accusations of inaccuracy and a series of corrections to his reports on Washington, D.C.-area sniper attacks did not stop Blair from moving on to national coverage of the war in Iraq. But when suspicions arose over his reports on military families, an internal review found that he was fabricating material and communicating with editors from his Brooklyn apartment — or within the Times building — rather than from outside New York. The question: How does the Times investigate problems and correct policies that allowed the Blair scandal to happen?

Cooperating with the Government It began on Jan. 18, 2005, and ended two weeks later after the longest prison standoff in recent U.S. history. The question: Should your media outlet go along with the state’s request not to release the information?

Offensive Images Caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad didn’t cause much of a stir when they were first published in September 2005. But when they were republished in early 2006, after Muslim leaders called attention to the 12 images, it set off rioting throughout the Islamic world. Embassies were burned; people were killed. After the rioting and killing started, it was difficult to ignore the cartoons. Question: Do we publish the cartoons or not?

The Sting Perverted-Justice.com is a Web site that can be very convenient for a reporter looking for a good story. But the tactic raises some ethical questions. The Web site scans Internet chat rooms looking for men who can be lured into sexually explicit conversations with invented underage correspondents. Perverted-Justice posts the men’s pictures on its Web site. Is it ethically defensible to employ such a sting tactic? Should you buy into the agenda of an advocacy group — even if it’s an agenda as worthy as this one?

A Media-Savvy Killer Since his first murder in 1974, the “BTK” killer — his own acronym, for “bind, torture, kill” — has sent the Wichita Eagle four letters and one poem. How should a newspaper, or other media outlet, handle communications from someone who says he’s guilty of multiple sensational crimes? And how much should it cooperate with law enforcement authorities?

A Congressman’s Past The (Portland) Oregonian learned that a Democratic member of the U.S. Congress, up for re-election to his fourth term, had been accused by an ex-girlfriend of a sexual assault some 28 years previously. But criminal charges never were filed, and neither the congressman, David Wu, nor his accuser wanted to discuss the case now, only weeks before the 2004 election. Question: Should The Oregonian publish this story?

Using this Process to Craft a Policy It used to be that a reporter would absolutely NEVER let a source check out a story before it appeared. But there has been growing acceptance of the idea that it’s more important to be accurate than to be independent. Do we let sources see what we’re planning to write? And if we do, when?

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Scientific research in news media: a case study of misrepresentation, sensationalism and harmful recommendations

Accurate news media reporting of scientific research is important as most people receive their health information from the media and inaccuracies in media reporting can have adverse health outcomes. We completed a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a journal article, the corresponding press release and the online news reporting of a scientific study. Four themes were identified in the press release that were directly translated to the news reports that contributed to inaccuracies: sensationalism, misrepresentation, clinical recommendations and subjectivity. The pressures on journalists, scientists and their institutions has led to a mutually beneficial relationship between these actors that can prioritise newsworthiness ahead of scientific integrity to the detriment of public health.

1 Introduction

1.1 media and scientific research.

Clear, balanced and accurate representation of scientific research in news media is important. Media both shape and reflect public opinion [Caulfield et al., 2014 ]. The public receive a significant amount of their health information from the media [Caulfield et al., 2014 ; Phillips et al., 1991 ]. Those who receive their health information from the media are not limited to general audiences but include content experts such as healthcare professionals and policy makers [Geller, Bernhardt and Holtzman, 2002 ]. Media coverage of health issues can influence government policy [King, Schneer and White, 2017 ] and impact healthcare decision making [Johnson, 1998 ]. Health information in news media can have a greater impact on public health behaviour than government led and supported public health campaigns [Seale, 2003 ]. Whilst scientific research includes vast fields that encompass many disciplines of investigation in both in the natural (biology, chemistry, physics) and social world (sociology, anthropology, psychology), in this paper, we refer to ‘scientific research’ as a short-hand way of referring to lab-based and clinical research with clear translations and implications for human health.

Research in natural scientific fields is generally considered positivist. Positivist research, like that undertaken in the case that is described in this study, is viewed as researchers working from a paradigm in which objective truths about the world can be developed through rigorous adherence to the scientific method. Scientific research uses rigorous methods to ensure researcher objectivity and minimise bias [O’Connor and Joffe, 2014 ]. However, a subtle shift occurs when scientific research is written about in public domains such as mainstream news media [O’Connor and Joffe, 2014 ]. Given the goals of media communication, the overall complexity, phrasing, language, and the relatability of the science needs to be adapted for a mainstream audience. Researchers’ goal of reporting high quality scientific research in media and the need for scientific research to be comprehensible and newsworthy presents competing priorities. As social science researchers, we view this under-investigated tension as important and worthy of study. Throughout this article we use a social constructivist perspective to investigate and explain the tensions that emerge when scientists communicate the outcomes of positivist science outside of the strict confines of academic publishing. We acknowledge the socially constructed nature of the journal article, the press release and news media reporting and aim to explore the processes, structures and activities that create these different modes of communication.

Since the 1990’s there have been significant changes to news media environments that have impacted both on the way science is communicated to the public and the way consumers of news engage with, and receive information about science. Recent changes include that ownership of media organisations has become more concentrated and media has become more digitized with convergence across platforms [Erdal, 2019 ]. In contemporary society, the public engages with news across multiple platforms using both traditional and digital sources. In 2018, the Pew Research Centre reported that people in the U.S. are most likely to receive their news from television followed by news websites, radio, social media and print newspapers [Shearer, 2018 ]. In 2019, Ofcom reported that people in the United Kingdom (U.K.) are most likely to receive their news from television followed by internet sources, radio and then print newspapers [Ofcom, 2019 ]. In 2019, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reported that Australians are most likely receive their news from online sources followed by television, print and social media [Newman et al., 2019 ]. Important to note is that the sources that people receive their news from are shifting with online content being of increasing importance, especially for younger audiences such as those aged 18–29. In the U.S., for example, most young people report consuming news via social media followed by news websites [Shearer, 2018 ].

In addition to the change in ways that society consume news, there has been a steady decline in employment of ‘traditional’ journalists globally. In Australia around a third of all print journalist positions were lost in the twenty years from 1996 to 2016 [O’Regan and Young, 2019 ]. In the U.S., newsroom employment dropped by 23% from 2008 to 2019 [Walker, 2021 ]. These job losses have coincided with a steady decline in the circulation, readership and advertising revenue of print newspapers [Barthel, 2017 ]. As in many other countries, Australia has also seen a steep decline in specialist science journalists, with general journalists now covering science-related news without necessarily having any science training [Watkins, 2019 ]. In addition, the speed of today’s news production has resulted in the disappearance of scrutinised information and considered reflection [Le Masurier, 2015 ]. The pressure to produce real time news has resulted in greater inaccuracy [Hargreaves, 2003 ] and a dependence on press releases that are written by the public relations professionals employed by universities and research institutes [Lewis et al., 2008 ]. Even if journalists had the time to read journal articles, the majority of those articles remain behind journal paywalls [Butler, 2016 ]. Journalists are also under increasing pressure to generate ‘click bait’ and are therefore driven by headlines that include words such as “breakthrough”. In combination with a lack of science training and time pressures this results in inaccuracies and sensationalist stories being published [Watkins, 2019 ]. Research has shown that inaccurate or exaggerated scientific reporting has, in part, been a result of the information in the press releases [Sumner et al., 2016 ].

Researchers have reported that the desire to create newsworthy stories about science led to a perverse situation where poorer quality research can garner more news coverage than robust research based on a strong priori hypothesis, as the poorer research is more likely to yield surprising and newsworthy results. For example, Selvaraj and colleagues investigated study designs of medical research published in news media and found that newspapers were less likely to cover randomised controlled trials than observational studies and therefore preferentially reported on medical research with weaker study designs [Selvaraj, Borkar and Prasad, 2014 ]. Another example of this is when the poorly designed and subsequently retracted and debunked study led by Andrew Wakefield and published in the Lancet that described an association between the measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism was widely published in news media and resulted in a reduced vaccination rate of children for years following the publication of the article [Godlee, Smith and Marcovitch, 2011 ]. Research designed to quantify the effect of this paper has demonstrated that this one study alone has been a primary cause of childhood vaccine scepticism in the U.S. highlighting that media attention of inaccurate scientific research can undermine public trust in vaccines [Motta and Stecula, 2021 ]. This case of the MMR vaccine is an example of widespread and damaging news coverage from a poorly design scientific study. The consequences of communicating scientific research via media when it involves misinformation, like the MMR vaccine, can lead to public misunderstanding, distrust in science and harmful health behaviours [Kata, 2010 ].

Other researchers have highlighted, that unlike for scientists, for the media, communicating the limitations and risks of a study may be of a lower priority. Omission of limitations and risk has been reported in a number of studies, Caulfield and colleagues found that vitamin D when reported on in news media was linked to a variety of health conditions for which there is no definitive scientific evidence in addition to under reporting the risks associated with vitamin supplementation [Caulfield et al., 2014 ]. Cassels and colleagues analysed the representation of five specific drugs in Canadian newspapers with the main findings being that the majority of articles did not mention potential side effects or harms [Cassels et al., 2003 ]. Schwitzer summarised the work of independent health news reviewing organisation ‘healthnewsreview.org’ which evaluated 1,800 health news stories across many U.S. news organisations. Findings showed that 70% of health news articles were deemed unsatisfactory when assessed for attributes such as quantifying potential harms and benefits and reporting on costs [Schwitzer, 2013 ]. Researchers have theorised that the omission of limitations and risks in the reporting of scientific studies in news media is to increase their newsworthiness or conversely, as described by Mellor, reporting on attributes such as limitations is considered a non-news value [Mellor, 2015 ].

In addition to the omission of limitations and risks, writing techniques used in journal articles, press releases and news media to make scientific research more newsworthy include the use spin and positive framing. In the context of scientific research, spin has been described as communicating findings so that the benefits of an intervention seem stronger or more positive than they actually are [Haneef et al., 2015 ]. The motivations to use spin to increase newsworthiness when writing about scientific research in news media have been linked to scientists, public relations specialists and journalists. In an analysis of randomised controlled trials reported in news media, Yavchitz and colleagues reported that the key predictor of ‘spin’ in a press release was the use of ‘spin’ in the conclusion of the abstract of the journal article [Yavchitz et al., 2012 ]. Even before the journal article is published, researchers have found that spin can be present at the beginning of the research process from grant applications in addition to academic journal articles and consequentially any material that is based on these documents [Landhuis, 2016 ]. Others have argued that spin can be introduced in the press release. Sumner and colleagues found that exaggerations and warnings in news reports mirrored those in press releases [Sumner et al., 2016 ]. Others have found fault with the practice of journalists. Taylor and colleagues [Taylor et al., 2015 ] investigated the accuracy of news media coverage of a meta-analysis (a complex statistical method that combines results across multiple studies) investigating the link between pancreatic cancer and processed meat. The authors found that most news reports were derived from secondary sources such as the journal press release and that the quality of the news reports was dependent on the quality of the secondary sources from which the news reports were derived [Taylor et al., 2015 ].

Framing is another technique that, when a news article is produced, will highlight and downplay certain elements of a story to promote a specific predetermined understanding [Entman, 2007 ]. News frames, therefore, can exert power over readers’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviours [Oliver, Raney and Bryant, 2019 ]. Furthermore, sense making theory suggests that readers consume news media portrayed in specific frames, as a short cut to understand complex topics [Scheufele and Lewenstein, 2005 ; Shih, Wijaya and Brossard, 2008 ]. Framing can therefore yield problematic representation and sense making interpretations of science if a study has been inaccurately portrayed for the purpose of newsworthiness for the benefit of media, scientists or both. Given that science needs to be both understandable and relatable to be newsworthy [Fuoco, 2021 ], it makes sense that there are shared motivations of scientists, public relations professionals and journalists that may result in techniques such as spin and framing to make scientific research more newsworthy. However, it also makes sense that, to garner interest in scientific research, research findings may be exaggerated and their implications inflated [Vinkers, Tijdink and Otte, 2015 ] via mechanisms such as spin and framing.

1.2 Science communication theory in the context of news media

The reasons that scientists increasingly prioritise public engagement are complex [Besley and Nisbet, 2013 ]. In addition to publishing in academic journal articles, there is an expectation that academics participate in public engagement [Glynn, 2016 ; Rawat and Meena, 2014 ]. Research from the U.K. has highlighted that the most important reasons for academics to engage with public audiences are to increase funding success by demonstrating research impact and to increase their institution’s competitiveness [Watermeyer and Lewis, 2018 ]. The relationships that exist between scientists and the public can be understood using the theoretical models of science communication [Metcalfe, 2019 ]. Over time, there have been many theoretical models of communication proposed, each based on different assumptions and definitions of communication [Burns, O’Connor and Stocklmayer, 2003 ]. The three main theoretical models of science communication described in academic literature include the deficit, dialogue and participation models [Metcalfe, 2019 ]. These three models underpin the communication strategies within two of the most commonly described paradigms of science communication. The deficit model belongs to the public understanding of science (PUS) paradigm and the dialogue and participation models belong to the public engagement with science and technology (PEST) paradigm [Schäfer, 2009 ]. The deficit model assumes that the public’s lack of understanding of science leads to the public being sceptical about science [Sturgis and Allum, 2004 ] and that public doubts and uncertainty about science are a result of ignorance about science [Gross, 1994 ; Sturgis and Allum, 2004 ]. In contrast to the deficit model, the dialogue and participation models emphasise informing and communicating diverse views and critical reflections about scientific issues to public audiences [Kamenova, 2017 ]. A PUS paradigm can oversimplify information in an attempt to facilitate public understanding. In contrast, the PEST paradigm does not assume the public are deficient in knowledge and thus seeks to communicate critical reflections about science. Evolving from the PEST paradigm, medialisation is a theory that seeks to understand the mutually beneficial relationship between science and the media, specifically; scientists’ awareness of the strategic benefits of direct media engagement and in turn, media’s increased science coverage [Rödder, 2011 ; Vestergård, 2015 ]. These models are idealistic and potentially also unrealistic in a world in which there are clear incentives for scientists, their institutions and news media organisations to generate newsworthy scientific stories that may be achieved through omission of risks and limitations and exaggerations and relevance of research findings.

Despite there being competing interests for newsworthiness, accuracy and relevance of scientific news stories [Cassels et al., 2003 ; Caulfield et al., 2014 ; Haneef et al., 2015 ; Schwitzer, 2013 ], the responsibility for the production of inaccurate reporting is not straightforward. Science communication researchers have attributed misrepresentation of scientific research to a complex relationship between scientists, science communicators and journalists [Caulfield, 2005 ]. Facilitating the dynamic between scientists and journalists are communication specialists who work at universities, research institutes, academic journals and other organisations. These professionals are responsible for the production of press releases and media engagement activities. As research findings are one of the main commodities for research institutions, they have the potential to impact the institution’s financial status and competitive rankings [Autzen and Weitkamp, 2020 ]. Additionally, institutions that publish the most press releases tend to have the highest rankings [Autzen, 2014 ]. There is a clear incentive for institutions to publish high volumes of press releases about research findings that garner as much news coverage as possible. Additionally, exaggerating research findings in press releases is incentivised when the outcome is increased news media coverage of scientific research which has the potential to benefit researchers, their institution and the news media. Furthermore, experts have noted that the reliance on one source of information, such as an institution press release, grants a level of control of the news agenda to the researchers and their institution [Weitkamp and Eidsvaag, 2014 ].

As the scientific research and media landscapes continue to evolve including the increasing pressures on scientists to engage with the public and the demands on journalists to publish newsworthy stories about science with fewer resources, the interactions between these two fields require continual investigation. Additionally, the interdependencies between scientists, science communicators and journalists, including the complexities of communicating positivist lab-based science in a socially constructed environment, there is a need to conduct a detailed examination of the process and consequences of translating scientific research from academic journal articles to press releases to news media reporting.

1.3 This case study

As a significant proportion of news media is derived from press releases [Lewis et al., 2008 ] and the press release impacts on the accuracy of scientific news, [Sumner et al., 2016 ], this study sought to investigate in detail, the communication process in a well-known case of significant misrepresentation of scientific research in news media. This study was published in one of the most highly cited scientific journals worldwide and was the subject of a substantial number of international news reports at the time; many of which had the potential to influence health behaviours. The study was the subject of media scrutiny and featured in ‘SBS News’ which reported it as harmful, “Vitamin B3 claims slammed by obstetricians” [SBS News, 2017 ].

The case at the centre of this paper is a journal article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in August 2017 titled “NAD deficiency, congenital malformations and niacin supplementation” [Shi et al., 2017 ] and the press release published by the researchers’ institution “Historic discovery has the potential to prevent miscarriages and birth defects globally” [Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, 2017 ]. The journal article described a study that investigated the role of gene variations and niacin supplementation in the prevention of congenital malformations. Of note, mice bred with specific genetic mutations were used to assess the impact of niacin supplementation in the prevention of congenital malformations. The genetic mutations were modelled on genetic mutations found in human families that underwent genetic sequencing where there existed a history of congenital malformations.

While a major component of the study design was investigating the effects of niacin supplementation in mice, many news media reports implied the research had been undertaken in humans with direct health implications for women during pregnancy. As the niacin supplementation component of the study was undertaken in mice, the recommendations about vitamin supplementation in pregnant women were outside the scope of the findings of the research study. Additionally, recommendations made about niacin supplementation had potentially harmful consequences as an excessive consumption of niacin can be harmful to both pregnant women and their babies [The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, 2017 ].

To explore in detail, the communication process that resulted in this scientific study being misrepresented in news reports, we analysed the journal article, the corresponding press release and all of the subsequent online news reports available through Google News to address the following question: how and where did misrepresentation of the scientific study take place? Additionally, we sought to address one research question that was specifically related to the news reporting: what communication techniques were used in the news reports that resulted in misrepresentation?

We searched Google News for the online news reports for a five-month period from August 2017 to December 2017 using key words such as “niacin”, “vitamin B3”, “Vegemite”, “congenital malformations”, “birth defects”. The press release was issued on the 1 0 th of August and the vast majority of reports were published between 1 0 th and 1 2 th of August 2017. We restricted our search to Google News because it covers a vast range of news media sources [Filloux, 2013 ] and has been used previously in media analysis research as the single source of online news media coverage [Haneef et al., 2015 ; Young Lin and Rosenkrantz, 2017 ]. Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox were used to search for articles on Google News, all with refreshed browsers histories to ensure that all relevant articles were found and searching history did not affect the articles retrieved. After sourcing the journal article from the New England Journal of Medicine website [Shi et al., 2017 ], the press release from the Victor Chang website [Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, 2017 ] and the news media reports from Google News, each document was downloaded and imported into NVivo version 12. After reading each document, a preliminary coding framework was developed by the first author and refined through preliminary analysis and discussions with the other authors. The first author completed the quantitative and qualitative coding. For the quantitative coding, 10% of articles were double coded by another author (LK) and codes and coding definitions were adjusted until agreement reached 80%. For the qualitative coding, 10% of articles were double coded by LK and any disagreements were discussed and resolved and the same logic was applied to the rest of the qualitative coding by the first author.

2.1 Development of coding framework for quantitative content analysis

The coding framework involved developing preliminary codes to guide the analysis. This was based on reviewing the literature on the representation of scientific research in media (including the coding framework used by ‘healthnewsreview.org’ [HealthNewsReview.org, 2018 ] and by reading the journal article, press release and a subset of news media reports to tailor the coding to this specific study. An inductive approach followed the development of the preliminary codes and allowed for unexpected themes or the refinement of codes that developed during the analysis.

2.2 Quantitative coding and analysis

The coding framework included the following items: spin, buzz words, framing (positive, negative, balanced), a description of the study design, a description of the study population (mice and humans), description of the niacin supplementation trialled in mice, description of genetic sequencing undertaken in humans, a statement that study findings could not be translated to humans, clinical recommendations about vitamin supplementation, advice to consult a doctor for further information, the use of independent and non-independent expert commentators, the use of a patient narrative, the inclusion of funding information and a link to the journal article. Each of these items was coded either yes or no.

Spin has been defined in multiple ways in academic research [Bero, Chiu and Grundy, 2019 ]. We chose to use the following definition of spin: a way of reporting, for any motive whether intentional or unintentional, that emphasises that the beneficial effect of the intervention is greater than the actual results [Haneef et al., 2015 ]. We chose to use the following definition of buzzwords from the Oxford Dictionary: a word or phrase, often jargon, that is trendy in a particular context or at a specific time [Oxford English Dictionary, 2020 ]. Examples of buzzwords and phrases used in the press release and news media reporting included; ‘historic medical breakthrough’, ‘landmark discovery’, ‘Australia’s greatest ever medical achievements’. Framing can obfuscate objective reporting by highlighting and downplaying certain elements of stories in media which can impact the way readers interpret and relate to information [Birnbrauer, Frohlich and Treise, 2017 ; Entman, 1993 ] and impact readers’ understanding of a story [Caulfield et al., 2014 ]. We chose to analyse whether each article was framed positively, negatively or in a balanced way.

For each article we also recorded whether there was a description of the study design, a description of what component of the research was undertaken in mice and what component was undertaken in humans and whether these specific research findings could be translated to humans. The type of clinical recommendations regarding vitamin supplementation that we analysed were both those that were directly related to this study and those that related to pregnancy in general. We chose to include both types of recommendations as they both have the potential to impact readers’ health behaviour. We also recorded whether there was advice for readers to contact their doctor for more information and health advice about vitamin supplementation during pregnancy. Additionally, we recorded whether each article had independent expert commentators (i.e., those that were not involved with the study but who are experts in the area) or non-dependent expert commentators (those that were involved with the study either as authors or representatives from the researchers’ institute). We counted information about the funding sources as any information about what organisations funded the research. Information about how to access the journal article was coded as ‘yes’ if a link to the article was included, not just mentioning the name of the journal. We also coded whether news reports used a patient narrative. Narratives are important for storytelling and for readers’ understanding of the relevance of an issue.

2.3 Qualitative analysis

The qualitative analysis investigated in more depth, the data coded for the quantitative content analysis. The coded data was further analysed to determine, for example, in what context and for what effect: spin, buzz words and framing were used, whether the omissions or inclusions about the study design, the study population and what components of the research were done in mice and humans resulted in misrepresentation, the extent to which: information about study findings could be translated to humans, clinical recommendations about vitamin supplementation during pregnancy and advice to consult a doctor may contribute to potentially harmful clinical behaviours or outcomes for readers. The impact of independent and non-dependent commentators, patient narratives, funding information and access to the journal article were also reviewed to understand the role these played in relation in the subjectivity of the story.

We identified 60 unique news reports from 48 separate news organisations and websites. The news sources included organisations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), as well as lesser-known technology-focused and health-related websites such as Gizmodo and Body and Soul. The journal article, the press release and the news reports were coded by the first author. The results of content analysis are presented in four groups of themes that emerged in the qualitative analysis. Table 1 summarises findings from the content analysis. The qualitative analysis is presented as themes and illustrated with quotes.

3.1 Content analysis

3.1.1 theme 1, sensationalism.

The journal article did not include spin in its title, or in the article itself, nor did it include buzz words and presented a balanced frame. The press release used spin in both the headline and body of the press release, included buzz words from experts and introduced positive framing. The majority of news reports included spin in the body of the article (68%) and buzz words (87%). The majority (71%) of news reports were framed positively.

3.1.2 Theme 2, Misrepresentation

The journal article contained a description of the: study design; study population as including both mice and humans; niacin supplementation being undertaken in mice and genetic sequencing being undertake in humans. The press release contained a description of the study design but did not describe the study design as including both mice and humans. It described the niacin supplementation as being undertaken in mice but did not describe the genetic sequencing being undertaken in humans. The majority (87%) of news reports described the study design and most (62%) described the niacin supplementation being undertaken in mice. Around half (57%) of the news reports described the study population as including both mice and humans. A similar proportion (56%) described the genetic sequencing being undertaken in humans.

3.1.3 Theme 3, Clinical recommendations

The journal article did not explicitly state that study findings could not be translated to humans and included clinical recommendations relevant to human health. The press release did not state that findings were not directly transferrable to humans. Clinical recommendations were made about human health and there was no advice for people to seek professional advice if readers wanted more information. In the news reports, while most (60%) stated that the study findings could not be translated to humans, the vast majority (88%) of articles included clinical recommendations about vitamin supplementation. Few news reports (7%) advised readers to consult their doctor for more information.

3.1.4 Theme 4, Subjectivity

The journal article did not contain commentary or patient narratives and there was a disclosure about study funding. The press release included non-independent commentators only (i.e., those with a direct connection to the study), no patient narrative, disclosure of study funding and a link to the journal article. In the news reports, around half (47%) included both independent and non-independent expert commentators. A similar proportion (45%) included non-independent expert commentators only. Seventeen percent of news reports included a patient narrative. The same proportion (17%) included funding information and a quarter (25%) included a link to the journal article.

Table 1 represents the results of the content analysis. The results of the content analysis were grouped into themes that were explored in more detail in the qualitative analysis.

3.2 Qualitative analysis

In the qualitative analysis, we explored each theme in more detail based on further analysis of the coded quantitative data.

3.2.1 Sensationalism

In the translation of information from the journal article to the press release to the news media reporting, the use of spin, buzzwords and positive framing were introduced in the press release and were in many cases, directly translated in news media reports. This direct translation is evident by the direct quoting of slabs of text from the press release to the news reports. In the example below, the extrapolation of the research findings to reduce miscarriages and birth defects in the press release is an example of spin. The word ‘landmark’ is an example of a buzz word and the general positivity without any discussion of limitations, such as the study being undertaken in mice, is an example of positive framing.

“The ramifications are likely to be huge. This has the potential to significantly reduce the number of miscarriages and birth defects around the world, and I do not use those words lightly,” says Professor Dunwoodie. The landmark study found that a deficiency in a vital molecule, known as NAD, can prevent a baby’s organs from developing correctly in the womb. (Historic discovery has the potential to prevent miscarriages and birth defects globally, Victor Chang press release, August 2017) “The ramifications are likely to be huge,” said the study’s senior researcher Professor Sally Dunwoodie at the Victor Chang Institute… “This has the potential to significantly reduce the number of miscarriage and birth defects around the world, and I do not use those words lightly.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 17 August 2017)

However even with spin, buzzwords and positive framing used in the press release, not all news media reports employed these literary techniques. Some news articles (32%) presented information with no spin and roughly half (47%) of articles had both non-independent and independent expert commentators. The news reports that were framed negatively focused on the potentially harmful health consequences of the misleading information. Below is an excerpt from a news report with negative framing.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says the “extraordinary” suggestions by researchers at the Victor Chang Institute were based on a small mouse study and have the potential to do more harm than good. (SBS News, 11 August 2017)

3.2.2 Misrepresentation

The description of the study design in the journal article was clear and included both the human and mouse components of the research. The journal article described the human and mouse components of the research:

We used genomic sequencing to identify potentially pathogenic gene variants in families in which a person had multiple congenital malformations. We tested the function of the variant by using assays of in vitro enzyme activity and by quantifying metabolites in patient plasma. We engineered mouse models with similar variants using the CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)–Cas9 system. (NAD deficiency, congenital malformations and niacin supplementation, New England Journal of Medicine 2017)

However, the description of the study design in the press release did not reflect the journal article as the human component of the research was omitted. Additionally, the press release included information about how the study would have direct human health benefits without describing any limitations of extrapolating mouse research to humans. The press release indicates that the findings from mouse research will have human translations:

Scientists at the Victor Chang Institute have discovered simply boosting levels of this nutrient during pregnancy can potentially prevent recurrent miscarriages and birth defects. (Historic discovery has the potential to prevent miscarriages and birth defects globally, Victor Chang press release, August 2017)

One news report indicated that niacin supplementation may reduce birth defects in humans:

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that deficiency in a key molecule among pregnant women stopped embryos and babies’ organs from developing correctly in the womb, but could be treated by taking the dietary supplement vitamin B3, also known as niacin. (Business Insider, 10 August 2017)

However, despite the implied direct translation of mouse research to humans, more than half of the news media reports included information about both the human and mice components of the research. Additionally, more than half of the news media reports included information about how the research findings cannot be directly translated to humans.

The study was a preclinical trial, and the results will need to be replicated in humans before doctors can recommend vitamin B3 supplements to pregnant women, but the results are certainly promising. (IFL Science, 10 August 2017)

3.2.3 Clinical recommendations

Toward the end of the journal article, there is a “theorisation” made about the use of vitamin supplementation, but it is clearly relating to the specific families who were involved in the genetic sequencing component of the research rather than the population more generally.

We theorize that supplementation with high-dose niacin (140 mg per day, which is 10 times the U.S. recommended daily allowance for women) before and during pregnancy might prevent recurrence of disease in these four families. It is also possible that niacin supplementation may benefit the speech and developmental delays in the surviving patients. (NAD deficiency, congenital malformations and niacin supplementation, New England Journal of Medicine 2017)

However, the information in the press release about vitamin supplementation could be interpreted as relevant to the population more broadly and could be interpreted as immediately applicable to human health.

Just like we now use folate to prevent spina bifida, Professor Dunwoodie’s research suggests that it is probably best for women to start taking vitamin B3 very early on, even before they become pregnant. (Historic discovery has the potential to prevent miscarriages and birth defects globally, Victor Chang press release, August 2017)

Although most reports made recommendations of some sort about vitamin supplementation, other reports did make it clear that this research study could not be translated directly into recommendations about vitamin supplementation.

Although this is a potentially exciting finding in a very emotive area, it is important to bear in mind that this result is based on studies in mice, and we will need a full research project in women to evaluate the cause and effect of any lack of this vitamin in humans. (Huffington Post U.K., 10 August 2017)

However, like the press release, some news media reports did make recommendations that could have harmful consequences.

The results published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested giving women niacin supplements before and during pregnancy could significantly cut the risk of miscarriage and congenital defects. (Irish Times, 12 August 2017)

3.2.4 Subjectivity

As with framing, patient narratives can add weight to certain aspects of a story which can resonate with the reader. Patient narratives can be helpful if they assist readers to understand issues, but they can be misleading if they do not accurately represent the facts of a story. In this case study, the use of a patient narrative might assist readers in understanding the types of congenital malformations potentially prevented with niacin supplementation. However, because this research was undertaken in mice and not directly translatable to humans, a patient narrative might be misleading, suggesting to readers that all congenital malformations are prevented via niacin supplementation. Additionally, subjectivity was present in news reports where journalists used comments from non-independent experts. Without independent expert commentary, there is a lack of objectivity and critical reflection about the potential translation of the research findings.

Charlotte Scaife was just one day old when her parents found out the heartbreaking news — the middle part of their baby’s heart hadn’t formed properly and there were multiple holes in her heart… [parent of child (Charlotte) with congenital birth defect] “I wish they’d known about it and the information had been released two years ago or three years ago, and then maybe we wouldn’t be going through this.” (Huffington Post Australia, 11 August 2017)

Despite the press release only including non-independent expert commentators, both non-independent and independent expert commentators were included in almost half of the news media reports, providing evidence that journalists sought additional information to that which was provided in the press release and original journal article.

The press release provided a comment from a non-independent expert:

“We believe that this breakthrough will be one of our country’s greatest medical discoveries. It’s extremely rare to discover the problem and provide a preventive solution at the same time. It’s actually a double breakthrough,” said Professor Graham. (Historic discovery has the potential to prevent miscarriages and birth defects globally, Victor Chang press release, August 2017)

Some news reports sought independent experts to comment on the study:

Dr Katie Morris, an expert in maternal foetal medicine at the University of Birmingham, said: “While exciting, this discovery cannot be translated into recommendations for pregnant women, who at most may be deficient in vitamin B3. (BBC, 10 August 2017)

4 Discussion

In this study, we used quantitative and qualitative content analysis to investigate the translation of information from a scientific journal article, to the corresponding press release to the subsequent online news reporting of a known case of misrepresentation of scientific research in news media. Specifically, we sought to understand how and where misrepresentation of the scientific study took place and what communication techniques were used by journalists in media reports.

Results showed that sensationalism was present in the press release and was reflected in a large proportion of the news reporting via the use of reporting techniques such as spin, buzz words and positive framing. Misrepresentation of information in the form of inadequate descriptions of the study design and the study populations was translated from the press release to the news reports. In addition, potentially harmful clinical recommendations that featured in the press release were present in a large proportion of the news reports by way of unrealistic extrapolation of findings from mice to humans, a lack of discussion around the limitations of the research and a lack of further advice to consult a doctor for additional information.

The press release included commentary by non-independent experts, and this was reflected in many of the news reports. However, many journalists also sourced independent expert comment. Additionally, given the press release contained spin, buzz words, positive framing, non-independent expert commentators, a brief and inaccurate description of the study design, implied that the study findings in mice could be translated to humans, it is noteworthy that many journalists sought additional information and presented a more balanced account of the research than what was contained in the press release. Therefore, some journalists made deliberate efforts to avoid the misrepresentation that was present in the press release.

These findings highlight that in this case, mechanisms that may result in exaggerations and misrepresentation of scientific research can be directly traced back to the press release. The findings were that the press release and a proportion of the news reports had exaggerated the benefits via the extrapolation of a mouse study to humans and the absence of limitations such as the need for further research in humans and discussion about the potential risks resulting from excessive consumption of vitamin supplementation during pregnancy. This is in line with prior science communication research which has highlighted that scientific studies when written about it media, often exaggerate findings and downplay risks and limitations [Cassels et al., 2003 ; Caulfield et al., 2014 ; Haneef et al., 2015 ; Schwitzer, 2013 ]. Although exaggeration of findings and downplaying limitations and risks are unsurprising, the instances of journalists seeking diverse views and critical reflections of the study from independent sources are noteworthy.

In the context of research findings being a core commodity that impacts an institution’s financial and ranking successes [Autzen and Weitkamp, 2020 ] it is significant that the press release was produced by the scientific researchers’ institution and that this press release is where the exaggerations about findings and lack of information about risks originated. When thinking about the medialisation of science, there is both a clear and mutually beneficial relationship between scientists and the media. As the study findings were exaggerated, the story was able to be framed as a “breakthrough” garnering significant media attention for the potential benefit of the researchers, their institution and the media with the publication of many “click-bait” articles with headlines such as “Vegemite and pregnancy: niacin could prevent miscarriages” (Daily Telegraph, August 2017). As the public look to media to make sense of complex topics [Scheufele and Lewenstein, 2005 ], the framing of this scientific research in the press release and in the news media yielded some potentially harmful sense making interpretations followed by responsive backlash from experts in the field who labelled the researchers suggestions as having “the potential to do more harm than good” [SBS News, 2017 ].

From a theoretical perspective, both the press release and those news reports that used non-independent commentators and omitted key information required to understand the study were in line with a PUS paradigm of science communication. As an example, in some cases the description of the study was oversimplified to the point where it was not possible to understand how the study was conducted or what the implications might be for pregnant women. Despite the omission of information about the research study, specifically the lack of description of the study design and how both mice and humans were used, it is important to note that a proportion of the news media reports did seek information from sources outside of the press release to achieve a more informed, objective and accurate account of the scientific study. For example, some news media reports included both independent and non-dependent commentaries in addition to a detailed explanation of the study design that explained the role of both humans and mice in the study in addition to an explanation about how the study cannot yet be translated to human health and that further research is needed to before advice about niacin supplementation can be made. A portion of journalists wrote news reports in line with PEST theory by providing readers with sufficient and objective information which gave them the opportunity to understand the scientific study and make their own judgements about what the findings could mean. This more investigative and critical work by the journalists added a more objective and contextualised aspect to the story. These journalists were not just informing audiences about the ‘wonders of science’ but communicating diverse views and critical reflections. This is especially remarkable given that journalists have a strong trust in science, their scientific sources and are pressured to adhere to scientific values [Vogler and Schäfer, 2020 ] which is in addition to being under resourced and there being few science journalists with specialised skills to critique a scientific study [Barel-Ben David, Garty and Baram-Tsabari, 2020 ]. However, just as journalists critique politicians and policy, they too can critique scientists and science [Rensberger, 2009 ]. This would be made easier if journalists regained some of the scientific expertise and resourcing that has been lost as newsrooms have declined in overall staff including science journalists [Brüggemann, Lörcher and Walter, 2020 ].

A challenge exists in communicating via news media the relevance to human health of positivist lab based pre-clinical science where the scientific environment is highly controlled, and the research subjects are animals. Pre-clinical research can have direct relevance to human health in the long-term otherwise it would not be undertaken. However, making this relevance obvious without explaining all the caveats and further steps in the research process would likely result in pre-clinical discoveries becoming less newsworthy. Pre-clinical lab-based studies are an essential step in the formulation of evidence and are imperative to building the case for the next phase of research which, in this case study example, could be in humans. Therefore, if pre-clinical lab science is to be reported in news media, there exists a challenge whereby the findings need to be comprehensible and accurate but at the same time, relatable to readers. It is this tension, that could in part, be responsible for some of the misrepresentation of the study in the press release. On one hand, the researchers need to demonstrate ‘real-world’ impact to make their future research possible and therefore, an incentive to minimise the caveats of their research findings to make their research newsworthy. Conversely, demonstrating ‘real-world’ impact could be more difficult if press releases include detailed information about the limitations of the research and the additional research required to determine the relevance of findings to human health. Therefore, a potential interpretation of the motivations of the researchers in the misrepresentation of the findings in the press release, is that they may not have been aware of the dangers of misleading the public that can occur whilst trying to communicate the future potential of their research. In other words, attempting to strike a balance between the conservative language of scientists and the importance of media attention for the goal of generating further research funding and opportunities.

Additionally, the medialisation of science is important amidst the current global pandemic with COVID-19 receiving extensive and ongoing media coverage across the world since January 2020. COVID-19 has seen the world’s population rely on media for the dissemination and sense making of constantly evolving scientific information with news reports about the pandemic having major impacts on readers’ beliefs about its origins and their country’s policy responses and crisis politicisation [Pearman et al., 2021 ]. Some changes to scientific publishing that have ongoing consequences for science journalism that have occurred since January 2020 include: a dramatic increase in the number of published academic journal articles (not just on COVID-19 but on all topics and especially those in health related disciplines) and a significant increase in articles being made available prior to peer review [Else, 2020 ]. Both of these outcomes add more challenges for journalists who are overloaded with information to report on and who are now critiquing research that has not yet been through peer review.

5 Limitations

The use of one case study as a means of investigating a phenomenon provides rich data but means that the results may not be generalisable for understanding where and how misrepresentation of scientific information occurs in communication pathways in all cases. The use of Google News as a single source of online news means that some online news reports about this study may not have been captured. Whilst we developed the coding framework collaboratively and double coded 10% of reports and reached an 80% agreement, there is still some subjectivity to interpretation of the variables that were coded.

6 Conclusion

Science communication, and especially science journalism is about reporting truthfully. It is about going beyond hypotheses, data and breakthroughs and looking at the scientists, their conflicts, their funding and other issues that impact the production of science [Borel, 2015 ]. In an ideal world, there should be no need for scientists, science communicators or science journalists to oversell research findings, exaggerate benefits, omit limitations and risks and fail to describe scientific research in a way that readers can understand. However, there are pressures on scientists to demonstrate the ‘real-world’ impact of their work, on science communicators to generate media attention and on journalists to produce newsworthy content about science. This ‘pressure cocktail’ can result in misrepresentation of science that could lead to harmful health behaviours and public misunderstandings and distrust in science. It is for these reasons that those producing the science, the press releases and the news must work together to communicate truthful and objective science to society. Utilising the PEST paradigm, journalists would synthesise and scrutinise research findings, interview independent experts and present science in more than one simplistic science-dominated side to a story but in a contextualised-scientific way in which readers have enough information to judge the scientific research for themselves. However, given the constraints on journalists in both time and resources, it is unrealistic to expect this to be possible for every scientific study that is reported in news media. Given that it is a reality that journalists will need to rely, at least in part, on press releases, it is imperative that press releases are written with the same level of journalistic integrity as the PEST paradigm idealises.

This case study highlights the implications of what can happen when the translation of science from a journal article to a press release to the news media reporting is confounded by pressures faced by scientists, their institutions and news media. We hypothesise the lack of objectivity in this case to be a result of the pressures on journalists, scientists and their institutions which has led to a mutually beneficial relationship between these actors that can prioritises newsworthiness ahead of scientific objectivity to the detriment of public health. There must be an ongoing priority for scientific information to be represented in media in a way that is helpful, not harmful as entire populations try to make sense of the constantly evolving scientific advice related to COVID-19 and future public health crises. In the current scientific, science communication and journalistic climates, in combination with the way that populations are relying on media for their sense making of COVID-19, we acknowledge the following tensions faced by scientists, science communicators and journalists: not to exaggerate, oversimplify and or omit essential information for the sake of media attention and to equip the audience with the information required to understand a scientific study including contextualised information and independent commentary. This approach is especially important in areas of public mistrust such as those that have serious consequences for public health for example, COVID-19 vaccinations. Scientists, science communicators and journalists have an obligation to frame science as interesting and newsworthy without jeopardizing the truth.

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Georgia is a Ph.D. candidate and Research Assistant at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Georgia’s Ph.D. is in the fields of science communication and public health. E-mail: [email protected] .

Georgina is a Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Georgina has a background in health psychology with a major focus on social epidemiology. She has extensive experience in quantitative research across a broad range of content areas including disability, women and children’s health, public health law, mental health and wellbeing, suicide prevention and violence against women. E-mail: [email protected] .

Louise is a Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Louise is a health sociologist researching lay and expert perceptions of risk and health decision-making, particularly in relation to the use of health technology. She is an expert in qualitative research methodology and the translation of evidence to clinical practice. E-mail: [email protected] .

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• DOI: 10.1177/0963662516637321
• Corpus ID: 23840058

Stylistic analysis of headlines in science journalism: A case study of New Scientist

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The State of Science Reporting in Today’s Digital Media Landscape: Interviews with Journalists Who Use SciLine’s Service

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Researchers

Josh Anderson

Graduate Research Assistant

Anthony Dudo

Program Director of Science Communication, Knight Faculty Fellow

River Terrell

Undergraduate Research Assistant

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The Center for Media Engagement conducted in-depth interviews with 19 journalists to explore the experiences and challenges of reporting on science in the current media environment. Additionally, the interviews examined journalists’ experiences using the expert matching services of SciLine, an organization based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

We identified ten key findings from the discussions that suggest the following recommendations for science reporters and for the SciLine organization:

• Journalists should maintain their focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in science reporting as there is an urgent need for science journalism to increasingly focus on people that have traditionally been left out of science journalism
• Journalists should leverage their resources, skills, and interpersonal contacts to cope with challenges in the industry
• Journalists should prioritize curation of their personal credibility in a reality marked by mistrust
• SciLine should emphasize its value and commitment to expertise and DEI and should consider the addition of services to benefit journalists

These insights lay the groundwork for future research focused on science journalists.

During the last two decades, the journalism industry has experienced a massive shift largely driven by the rise in prominence of digital media technologies and their related opportunities and challenges. These changes include a breakdown of traditional media profit models, a decline in the role of legacy media organizations as critical mediators of information, the use of social media platforms to enable individuals and entities not associated with legacy media organizations to garner large followings, a general fracturing of a once largely unified media ecosystem across political lines, and an explosion of attention to misinformation. 1

Despite science journalism receiving increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2 the negative consequences of these changes have been especially evident within this domain of journalism. To start, changes in the profit structure of mass media mean that legacy media organizations have experienced profit losses generally coped with by reducing funding to specialized news desks, including those focused on reporting about science. 3 As a result, science news is largely covered by general assignment journalists who may not have the technical backgrounds necessary to cover these issues effectively. 4 Additionally, even science-specialized journalists in the contemporary media ecosystem may need to freelance, which often means they take on more assignments for less pay and must manage personal credibility without institutional backing. 3

Although journalists can use social media platforms to enhance their personal credibility, these platforms have their own suite of negative consequences. For instance, these digital platforms are largely responsible for the profit structure changes that make the “gig economy” of journalism necessary by allowing individuals and organizations not associated with legacy media to produce and widely distribute information online. 1 This affordance of social media has also been cited as a cause for the mass proliferation of political, and often misinformed, information about science. This has become a particularly salient issue as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been marked by high political polarization of attitudes and an abundance of misinformation. 5 The spread of misinformation is likely made worse in an environment in which non-specialist journalists may be more likely to unintentionally spread misinformation about science issues. 3

The vast racial reckoning taking place in the United States is also shaping changes in the media ecosystem. This reckoning has been centered on disproportionate state violence directed at Black individuals as well as general inequalities of experience between white and Black individuals in the United States — it is also evident in related movements in the natural sciences and their news coverage. One major thread in this movement includes renewed concerns about environmental justice, which examines how environmental issues have often had a disproportionately negative impact on racial and ethnic minorities. 6 Another includes concerns about inclusion in science institutions themselves, which have traditionally underrepresented non-male and non-white individuals; a trend that has been present within science journalism. 3 These representational disparities have led to calls for scientific institutions to be more accessible to scientists who belong to racial and ethnic minority groups, and for science journalism to give more coverage to this issue and to scientists who have been traditionally underrepresented.

These extensive, impactful, and ongoing changes to the enterprise of science journalism highlight the need for research that examines the lived experiences of the individuals who are producing science news. The research presented in this report addresses these major points through semi-structured interviews of journalists who have reported on science issues and have used the expert matching services of SciLine, an organization based at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The services provided by SciLine allow journalists to request to be matched with a domain-relevant expert for their stories. This study was funded through a grant from AAAS and provides insight into the modern science media ecosystem from the perspective of those that create science news, particularly with an eye toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); changes wrought by the rise of social media; and pressing issues, such as science misinformation.

KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Key findings.

• SciLine helps journalists find and sift niche experts quickly and could improve assistance by adding more quick reference services and by employing self- promotion
• Journalists share similar perceptions of their audiences and commonly express desires to connect with broader readerships through increasingly localized, representative, and action-oriented reporting
• Journalists source experts for the backbone of their science stories and prefer experts who align with the story topic, are skilled communicators, and can reflect diverse audiences
• Journalists view science as having vast societal value but perceive challenges in reporting science news that stems from its norms and structure
• Journalists regard their profession as a rigorous endeavor that seeks to serve and improve society
• Journalists’ typical work extends well beyond the act of producing a story
• Journalists emphasized that previous experience, data literacy, and a professional reputation help them more effectively report about scientific issues and successfully connect with expert sources
• Journalists perceive an erosion of trust in journalistic institutions — intensified by misinformation — that disproportionately affects science journalism
• Contemporary structural aspects of the journalism industry are of great concern to journalists, especially when it comes to reporting about science

Recommendations

• Journalists should leverage their resources, skills, and interpersonal contacts to cope with a challenging industry

FULL FINDINGS

Finding 1: sciline helps find and sift niche experts quickly.

One fundamental goal of this study was to attain feedback about the SciLine matching service from its journalist user base. We found, quite overwhelmingly, that journalists have had positive experiences with the SciLine service. Journalists uniformly emphasized how SciLine’s services are especially valuable for reporters who may not have specialty experience covering science issues or networks of scientific experts from which to identify sources. One journalist noted:

“I think that SciLine is almost more valuable for people who aren’t science journalists or don’t regularly cover science and health reporting … and so I would hope that more folks who are like education reporters or government reporters, when they come across something science in their beats, that they know about this resource.”

Numerous other themes emerged when we asked journalists to describe specific SciLine traits they found particularly useful. Journalists uniformly lauded SciLine’s consistent ability to maximize goodness-of-fit between journalists and expert sources. Each interviewee described being able to count on SciLine to connect them with sources who possess appropriate expertise, even for topic areas that are especially niche. One journalist said:

“[The SciLine service is very effective] when I get really stuck when I’m, you know, like I need an outside expert source on this really specific area, like a soil chemist that specializes in the tropics.”

This goodness-of-fit issue is especially important; journalists consistently emphasized how the specificity of an expert’s knowledge area is the key consideration in their sourcing.

Interviewees also uniformly identified SciLine’s speed-of-response as being especially consistent and important. Given their need to produce work on tight deadlines, journalists emphasized how much they value Sciline’s dependable responsiveness to their requests for expert sources. Additionally, many journalists described how, critically, SciLine connects them to expert sources who are responsive to the time sensitivity that typically accompanies their interview requests:

“I think [SciLine’s value comes from] the fact that they are pretty quick to respond and that they reach out to the [source] ahead of time. So, when they get back to you, they are coming back to you and saying, ‘Here’s Dr. so-and-so, who’s an expert in this topic and has agreed to speak to you by your deadline. Here’s their contact information.’ “

Many journalists noted a deep appreciation for SciLine’s steady ability to connect them with expert sources who have personal characteristics that are helpful for their interviews. For example, journalists often described how SciLine consistently made efforts to connect them to sources with appropriate topical expertise who also have specific demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, race, etc.) that they requested.

Additionally, journalists commonly detailed how SciLine consistently connects them with expert sources who, in addition to being sensitive to time deadlines, are generally clear and effective communicators. Only one interviewee described a negative experience with respect to the communication skills of an expert sourced by SciLine.

Finding 2: SciLine Could Improve with More Quick Reference Services and Self- Promotion

Although journalists’ views of SciLine were overwhelmingly positive, most journalists suggested ways in which SciLine could potentially improve its services and offer more value. Most of these suggestions described different services that SciLine could offer. One service mentioned by a handful of journalists was a sort of “quick reference tool” that could keep journalists up to date with background information about timely scientific and health issues. One journalist, for example, stated:

“I could see a resource for SciLine to do just ‘Hey, you know you have misinformation that’s circulating in your community [about science topic x] … here are the things you should do right now, and here are the things you shouldn’t do right now.’ “

In addition, a handful of journalists suggested that SciLine could curate and share reference lists that provide deeper contextual information about their expert sources:

“I think maybe you know, [if] SciLine [were to] give you a little summary of who the expert is and what kind of research the person does, maybe their previous interactions with the media. So, for example, one of the ones I got — they put me in touch with [state name of exert], who’s done a ton of media stuff on Covid but she’s kind of controversial.”

Other journalists mentioned similar desires for SciLine to provide more information about expert sources, especially when it comes to flagging experts who have a track record of expressing their personal opinions in previous media interviews:

“I think the big problem that we’re facing right now is how do you find experts who can speak well about an issue without seeming like they’re taking a side?”

Journalists also suggested that SciLine consider organizing conference-style events designed to bolster journalists’ professional development (e.g., expanding science reporting skills, building more expansive networks among science journalists), and designing collaborations with other expert databases that exist within the journalist ecosystem.

Many interviewees expressed a desire to see SciLine improve its marketing as they were concerned that not enough journalists know about the service. Journalists discussed how they wish they had known about SciLine sooner and that they wanted SciLine to consider how it can more effectively promote itself across the journalism community.

Although less explicitly described, interviewees frequently expressed curiosity about the extent to which SciLine could help them better connect with STEM experts from traditionally under-represented groups and, likewise, provide transparency with respect to the ways in which SciLine is currently thinking about inclusion in how they structure their service. One journalist remarked:

“[I’m] hoping that they get what I’m talking about without me saying ‘stop giving me white men to do these interviews’. So, I would say that it would be great if I had a better sense of how SciLine took [source diversity] into account.”

Finding 3: Journalists Share Similar Perceptions of Their Audiences and Commonly Express Desires to Connect with Broader Readerships through Increasingly Localized, Representative, and Action-Oriented Reporting

When asked to recount the core characteristics of their audience, many journalists described their audience members as having an intrinsic interest in scientific information. This interest was often specified as being connected to individuals who have some sort of science-related background, be that direct (e.g., working within STEM) or indirect connections (e.g., reaching a level of education that conveyed an understanding of the scientific method):

“I would like my audience to be people who aren’t already super interested in science or steeped in the science world or people who don’t have a scientific background …, but in reality … I think it’s really more scientists who are reading it or people who are pretty well educated already.”

Journalists often described their core audiences in terms of age, often reflecting on what they perceive to be a skew toward an older audience:

“So, I think the main characteristic that my newspapers’ owners want is somebody who can afford and will take out a subscription to the newspaper, and who will pay for the journalism consistently, and then that in general tends to be older folks.”

Most journalists mentioned the skew as a cause for concern, sometimes emphasizing their employer’s continued efforts to attract more youthful audiences. Even journalists who did not describe their audience in terms of age commonly discussed a broader, ongoing challenge among traditional journalism institutions to connect with younger audiences.

In terms of race, some journalists described their audience as being racially homogeneous, while others mentioned having a more racially diverse audience. Similar to their concerns with the age of their audience, journalists commonly emphasized the need to cultivate an increasingly diverse audience for science news:

“Our audience tends to skew highly college-educated white liberal. And so, I’ve, especially in the last few years, really tried to look beyond that… we’re doing a lot more, you know, like community engagement to try to reach out to, you know, beyond just our standard audience.”

When subtly prompted to elaborate on possible methods to achieve more diverse audiences (in terms of interest, race, age, etc.), many journalists mentioned a similar subset of tactics. One of these tactics was the importance of anchoring their reporting on a local angle:

“We always like to think, [mentions name of news outlet] is gonna have all kinds of like big, high-level news. But what can we do to localize it and kind of give our listeners a sense of how it matters to them?”

More specifically, journalists commonly described connecting science issues to their impacts — or potential impacts — on local communities, especially by “shining light on medical issues” and relevant health implications. Related to the localization of science issues, journalists mentioned attempting to connect with broader audiences by writing/ producing stories that include actionable takeaways (i.e., behaviors) related to the topic.

Journalists often mentioned presenting science issues in terms of social justice related to racial minorities and disadvantaged communities. They described news institutions as having historically underplayed social justice, especially related to issues of science and the environment. Some journalists mentioned a reorientation toward issues of social justice:

“I think it’s just a better story the more voices you get. That’s a better, richer story. I mean one example I encounter a lot is let’s say there’s a project that’s happening. I’m thinking of one where they captive-reared Scarlet Macaws and release them back in the jungle. The head of the organization wanted to talk to me and he had a lot of big picture things to say, but I really wanted to talk to the person, the group of people who lived in Guatemala that were feeding the parrots every day… I just think, yeah, different perspectives make it a stronger story, and maybe also relatable to a wider audience.”

Finding 4: Journalists Source Experts for the Backbone of Their Science Stories and Prefer Experts Who Align with the Story Topic, are Skilled Communicators, and Can Reflect Diverse Audiences

In addition to asking journalists about their audience, we also sought to learn about the sources they incorporate into their stories. Simply put, journalists uniformly regard expert sources as fundamental to their reporting about science news. As one journalist stated:

“[Including experts] adds a lot — it’s an essential component of the story. It adds credibility for one thing. It gives a stamp of legitimacy to the story, like this is, you know, endorsed by someone who knows what they’re talking about.”

Although the inclusion of expert sources is seen as an absolute necessity, the interviewees prioritized sourcing experts who have specific attributes. The attribute mentioned most often is the need for a source’s expertise to closely align with the topic covered in the story (i.e., the goodness-of-fit issue discussed in Finding 1). Maximizing the synchrony between story topic and source expertise is the most fundamental and widely sought-after requirement for the journalists we interviewed.

Also important is using sources who are skilled, fluid communicators. When asked to elaborate on what they mean by ‘skilled communicators’, journalists commonly described preferring source experts who excel at distilling the complexities of scientific research and issues and who can explain them to non-experts — journalists and, by extension, the audiences of their reporting — in ways that are understandable and compelling. Many journalists expressed how critical it is for an expert source to be able to speak clearly and provide usable soundbites during interviews:

“Can [the expert source] speak in complete sentences? … You’d be surprised how many times you get to the end of the interview sometimes and you feel like ‘I could write about this in a compelling way, but I’m not going to be able to use any of these quotes.’ “

Journalists discussed how these communicative skills are even more acutely important for projects that are on tight deadlines or are being broadcast live.

The preference for communicative experts was followed closely by a desire to use diverse expert sources, specifically in terms of race (i.e., non-white) and gender (i.e., non-male). Although journalists often shared frustrations about ongoing institutional homogeneity within science and how that contributes to suppressing diverse voices, they also reflected on their personal efforts to find and incorporate more diverse voices into their work:

“I think I do not do as good a job with this as I’d like. But I do try to not quote white men in my stories when possible. And sometimes on deadline, I do end up doing that and that’s not ideal, but I would always choose a woman or somebody who is underrepresented in their respective field.”

Additionally, journalists who emphasized the issue of cultivating diversity among expert sources stated that they did so both because it makes their reporting more compelling and because it represents a personal and professional ethical standard. To this end, these journalists often described their commitment to supplement expert voices with voices of individuals or groups whose experiences have previously been scant — or altogether absent — in media coverage. Functionally, journalists said this means making extra effort to ensure their reporting includes sources with previously undervalued or unexplored connections to science and health topics. It also means making extra effort to incorporate viewpoints from sources who are being negatively impacted by some aspect of a scientific issue.

Journalists also mentioned two additional attributes they seek in their expert sources: an ability to communicate without outwardly voicing personal opinions (i.e., conveying objectivity) and having a direct attachment to the journalist’s geographic media market.

Finding 5: Journalists View Science as Having Vast Societal Value But Perceive Challenges in Reporting Science News That Stems From Its Norms and Structure

Journalists interviewed for this study uniformly regard the scientific enterprise as being highly valuable. Not only do each of the journalists regularly report on science issues, but, as mentioned in Finding 4, they see scientists as the backbone of stories involving science. Additionally, many journalists spoke directly about the vast societal value of science and how including science enhances the quality of their reporting. For example, one journalist described how science can make smaller stories connect with broader societal trends. Another interviewee shared an example illustrating how science enables them to unpack complex and/or widespread issues for their readers in helpful ways, in this case, to explain the specific mechanisms behind a weather crisis:

“We had this historic week of incredible cold in Kansas, in February and really across the Midwest last year … And suddenly somebody in Little Rock is turning off the lights in Kansas City, and people are freaking out about it. You know, I reached out to SciLine. They put me in touch with a scientist at a university in Kansas who knows more about the power grid than anybody who could explain to me what’s happening and why.”

Beyond this widely held, macro-level appreciation for science, journalists cited challenges they face in their science reporting that stem from institutional and normative issues within science. The most common of these challenges was raised in earlier sections of this report: scientific institutions and workforces are traditionally homogeneous when it comes to racial and gender identities, which, in turn, makes it hard for journalists to find diverse expert voices. To wit, one journalist stated:

“Like I was recently doing an atmospheric chemistry story, and I really couldn’t find anyone to talk to who wasn’t an older white male, aside from the postdoc who was lead author on the study I was covering, but he was just a younger white male.”

A subset of journalists, however, perceived that scientific institutions and workforces are becoming more diverse and that it therefore may become easier for journalists to include more diverse expert sources in their science stories. Still, one journalist pointed out an ongoing trend that may attenuate that shift: journalistic attention to individual scientists still tends to snowball to a few well-established and already well-covered scientists simply because they have earned a reputation for being ‘good’ interviewees:

“I think that there’s this, there’s this tendency in the world of journalism to talk to people who get talked to, and I think that we’re all susceptible to it because I’m, you know, we’re looking for an expert on X, Y, or Z and we see that someone’s been quoted in the New York Times or the Washington Post or this or that. And then we think, ‘Okay, they’re a good talker. They give a good quote. Let me reach out.’ “

Another challenge journalists encountered was their ability to navigate the scientific norm of peer-review, specifically because of the recent challenges many faced while figuring out how best to report issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. One journalist, for example, described with exasperation their ongoing struggle to determine how to accurately cover COVID-19:

“It’s just these rapidly changing recommendations and what you should do, how we treat the virus, how we know to treat the virus … The virus is changing, too. So, kind of what we know, and how the virus acts changes, too.”

This struggle was commonly experienced among the journalists, although a number of them also mentioned how parsing uncertainty related to scientific issues is just part of their job, even though it has been especially challenging lately.

We also asked interviewees for their thoughts about the increased availability of pre- press studies — scientific results shared publicly before they have undergone peer-review. Although many journalists were unaware of them, those who were expressed concern that generalist reporters use information from pre-print studies without realizing that this information has not undergone the same rigorous review of a conventional, peer-refereed scientific publication:

“I think, for the most part [pre-prints] are a good thing, but they do give rise to, you know, irresponsible journalism … I think people should know what to do with the preprint and maybe treat it a little more gingerly than something through review.”

Finding 6: Journalists Regard Their Profession as a Rigorous Endeavor That Seeks to Serve and Improve Society

Among the journalists we interviewed, rigor and quality were held as uncompromisable attributes of the profession. One interviewee, for example, emphasized their commitment to accuracy and reporting the truth:

“… but legitimate mainstream media is reporting the truth and they are recording accurately. And they’re doing a hell of a job … the job that I see being done by my colleagues that I work with every day, and people that I know at other papers we work really hard to make sure that things are accurate.”

When it comes to communicating science information, several themes emerged about the key roles journalists seek to fulfill. The most common of these themes is to successfully make science accessible to non-technical audiences. Journalists also described their commitment to conveying scientific information in ways that connect it to bigger-picture issues (e.g., centering science within broader social contexts). Conversely, many journalists emphasized their aim to personalize science issues when possible:

“Keep humans in your stories, and it will revive you as a journalist. It will help you from burning out, and it will also guide you. And I think it’s really easy to become overwhelmed by all the things you don’t know if you don’t have a science background … so just stay focused on people. And at the end of the day you should always be asking …‘What does this mean for the average person?’ And that will ground your reporting, and it will ground you.”

Journalists commonly cited how journalism is not simply a means of conveying information accurately, but also an endeavor that fulfills pro-social roles that have traditionally been seen as functions of journalism. One example includes speaking truth to power:

“I’m always writing to like raise awareness of issues that I want people at the top to read and be like, ‘Oh, wow! They know about this now.’ … like the pregnancy piece, I was like, ‘I hope that somebody at the FDA reads this, and it lights a tiny fire under their butt to actually prioritize this task force that they’ve been ignoring for 2 years.’ “

Another example is giving voice to disadvantaged individuals:

“I think it varies a little bit, but usually, I cover public health and healthcare for my city and county and with a focus on vulnerable populations and people who are most at risk.”

Overall, this collection of themes suggests that journalists see their profession as serving a unique and valuable role, not just in the conveyance of scientific information, but also in how their reporting of science and health issues can be done in ways that have the potential to help positively transform society.

Finding 7: Journalists’ Typical Work Extends Well Beyond the Act of Producing a Story

When asked about their typical routines, journalists described not only practices directly involved in writing science stories but also practices leading up to and following the production of these stories. Many interviewees gave insight into their research process, detailing the media they consume to become familiar with the topics they are writing about:

“Well, if I’m going to be writing the news, and I have to write stuff that’s relevant to today, and that is important in the whole landscape of things, then I need to know that landscape and know what’s going on, especially in my niche…Therefore I can come up with ideas of like, you know, like what’s the latest, and where are the questions still?”

Some noted how this process of collecting background information can be especially important for science stories because of the high requisite of technical knowledge required to write them.

After immersing themselves in the background required to understand the context and significance of the story, many journalists next discussed interviewing the scientist sources whose contributions would serve as the backbones of their stories. This is when many journalists first mentioned their experiences working with SciLine, as discussed at length in Finding 1. Several journalists emphasized the importance of speaking to multiple expert sources rather than just one. As one interviewee explained, this process allows journalists to verify that the information is relevant and accurate across a broad scientific community:

“A new study comes out by a researcher at The University of [redacted] and as a reporter, not a classically trained scientist, you know that this is a just a common thing in science journalism where you know the reporter will want to reach out to at least one source who wasn’t connected to the study but does have some ability to evaluate the study what the researchers did, what they found. To ask: ‘are these people full of baloney?’ “

In addition to their function as hype detectors, journalists commonly noted the steps they regularly take to ensure they spot and disclose any potential conflicts of interest between researchers and their work.

Many interviewees also discussed the work they do on their stories following publication. These post-publication practices generally revolve around using online media to promote the visibility of their work; something that seems especially critical to freelancers:

“[My website] is a very basic website. But it has my work on it, and there have been some people that find me through that, you know, if they read an article. They look at my website. They say, ‘okay, she’s got some experience here,’ and they’ll email me and say are you looking for work? And I’m on Twitter … I’ll tweet when my article comes out and I’ll maybe retweet something once a week.”

Not all of the social media work that journalists do is positive, however, as a major point of discussion regards journalists’ ongoing struggle to effectively engage with the often misinformed — and sometimes aggressively inflammatory — comments that users leave in reply to their work. The journalists we spoke with generally said that they do not engage with these types of online commenters, and some discussed the struggle to resist natural urges to counter-argue and defend their work. Previous Center for Media Engagement research has suggested that while journalist comments may be effective at reputation management, some are more effective than others, particularly comments that acknowledge the commenters’ emotions. 7 Journalists often discussed how emotionally taxing it is for them — and for journalists more broadly — to see their work become distorted online. This represents a critically important key form of undesired, detrimental, and invisible labor that all contemporary journalists must do: consistently manage strong negative emotions and pressures associated with simply doing their job:

“I have had some pretty big episodes of burnout during the last 2 years. And yeah, I mean it just honestly, it is, I mean, kind of demoralizing to just look at our, you know vaccination numbers, and just to be out in the city, and just see, you know, people who are pretending like this [the Covid-19 pandemic] just didn’t exist. … But yeah, I mean, just in order to be a sane journalist right now you kind of have to, I don’t know, have to not pretend that you can solve all the world’s problems, and to recognize that this is, you know, a team effort. And yeah, the work of journalism, you know, is an ongoing thing. And yeah, any single one of us is not going to be able to kind of change the world through, you know, just one piece of reporting or even though you know 2 years of working on a beat.”

It became clear that modern journalists find it difficult to separate their professional identities from their personal lives. The standard professional practices of a modern journalist are value-laden and connect directly with issues that are often intensely politicized and aggressively debated. In a sense, journalists are on the front lines of sense making about these issues. And, as our interviews suggest, they are aware of that status and are regularly trying to manage the fallout — both emotional and physical — of their professional mandate to infuse rationality into discussions of modern issues. Taken together, these findings suggest that the work of contemporary journalists is regularly following them home, often in ways that are not healthy.

Finding 8: Journalists Emphasized That Previous Experience, Data Literacy, and a Professional Reputation Help Them More Effectively Report About Scientific Issues and Successfully Connect with Expert Sources

It was common among interviewees who had previous professional experience in the sciences — either direct or indirect — to describe how that background gives them an advantage in producing high-quality science reporting:

“I do feel like [my Ph.D. in a STEM field] gave me confidence, and it gave me a base of understanding where I can kind of come into reading a lot of these studies and talking to scientists where there’s like a shared vocabulary and things are easier in some ways.”

Although journalists with this previous experience generally regarded it as an asset when interviewing experts, they also discussed how they sometimes downplay their science credentials because they found that experts gave better interviews when they believed they were talking to someone without specialized science knowledge:

“Sometimes I like to not tell a source … that I have a Ph.D., or even a background in science, because if they know they’re talking to another science person, they’ll immediately use a lot of jargon and complicated language.”

Independent of their professional background, many interviewees emphasized the professional value of data literacy. They described how having high data literacy allows them to better vet the significance of scientific information:

“I really like to interrogate data pretty aggressively. I think that’s another thing that we saw during the pandemic; that our data systems at the local, state, and federal levels were deeply fraught. And so [for example] dealing with the number of Covid cases that, say, Texas is reporting on a given day. I thought it was really important that reporters understand where that number came from, how it was developed, and what caveats we had with that number.”

The journalists consistently emphasized how possessing adequate data literacy enables them, crucially, to avoid being deferential to scientific data that underpins their reporting.

Beyond these aspects of scientific experience and savviness, many participants highlighted the importance of amassing their own networks of trusted and responsive expert sources, and of carefully developing their own professional reputations. One journalist, for example, explained how their carefully curated professional reputation is vital when trying to speak with expert sources who may be otherwise reluctant to speak with journalists:

“[Experts] knew when they talked to me they weren’t just gonna get cut down to a 30-second sound bite from like a 30 min interview.”

All told, most journalists we spoke with feel that better science reporting is correlated with reporters who have some level of familiarity with the scientific process and who are comfortable evaluating, to some degree, the data on which scientific findings — and their implications — rest. These views dovetail with other findings in this report that highlight journalists’ shared concerns about the increasing number of generalist reporters tasked with covering scientific and health issues.

Finding 9: Journalists Perceive an Erosion of Trust in Journalistic Institutions — Intensified By Misinformation — That Disproportionately Affects Science Journalism

Journalists expressed a sense of intense and pervasive concern regarding recent developments in the industry of journalism, especially related to the domain of science journalism. One of the strongest areas of concern stems from a commonly held perception that trust in journalistic and scientific institutions is declining. Regarding this perceived decline in trust in journalistic institutions, one interviewee said:

“I think the biggest issue right now is just simply the trust, the trust of the public. How do you win it back when you didn’t lose it in the first place, right? It’s not that we’ve lost it, it’s that it’s kind of been taken from us. How do you get that back? And honest to God I’m really not sure what the answer is to that. You know so many people say, ‘fair and balanced.’ But again, you can’t give balance to crazy ideas, you know, or to conspiracy, you just can’t.”

Another journalist spoke about how conveying the trustworthiness of their work has become a defining feature of their job:

“And so [my] challenge is to come from facts and science, and, you know, cut through the noise and just tell the truth. But also to not to talk down [to the public] and to maintain credibility.”

Our interviews suggest that the journalists overwhelmingly perceived this erosion of trust in journalistic institutions as both new and intensely acidic. Interviewees commonly described the lack of trust in journalistic institutions as being connected to — and compounded by — a contemporary lowering of trust in scientific institutions. Many of these journalists recounted, with palpable angst, the ongoing and complex challenges they face to report about science amid what feels like a growing trend toward distrust in authorities and experts.

Interviewees were quick to attribute these perceived declines in trust to one key factor: misinformation. Every journalist we interviewed described misinformation as rampant and as representing what feels like a seemingly intractable challenge. Said one interviewee:

“[Us reporters] find that people have a different set of information than we do. And I don’t always know where they’re getting their information, but there’s a clear divide, about the COVID-19 stuff and vaccines especially, you know. These are people who have not had the briefings with the hospital administrators and the state health officials that I have. They’re not signing up for the CDC reports that I’m looking at and reading. They’re not looking at the SciLine webinars, and they’re certainly not reading my stories, except for when I write about an anti-vaxxer being wrong on a bunch of things then suddenly somebody will engage with us. But the information that they have is very different. And I don’t know how to bridge that divide.”

Moreover, some journalists think related trends, such as a rise in conspiratorial thinking about science, are creating higher demands for misinformation. Several identified various online personalities as being key sources of misinformation. Other interviewees, however, reflected on how journalists themselves may worsen this problem by unintentionally boosting science misinformation. One way they may be doing this, they suggested, is through employing ‘false balance’ — producing news stories that convey equal ‘balance’ across two sides of an issue regardless of when one side or argument is demonstrably incorrect. Beyond this issue of false balance, other interviewees expressed concerns that some journalists may simply not know the scientific facts necessary to make informed decisions about their coverage, especially when reporting on supplemental items like press releases:

“The first thing I say [to other reporters] is read the study. Yeah, do not, for God’s sake, do not rely on the press release, because the press releases are always wrong. They’re written by well-intentioned people. I used to write press releases for science. I can tell you, yeah, they’re always wrong so read the study. Talk to the author.”

Overall, it was striking how emotive journalists became when they discussed the topics of misinformation and diminished trust in science and expertise. Many journalists described how thinking about the contemporary state of science journalism instills in them feelings of doom, existential crisis, and/or professional burnout:

“Yeah, you know, like I’m feeling burned out. I know a lot of my coworkers — anybody who’s had covered fracking and climate change for like 10 years — and to just see nothing ever happen. And, you know, people I follow are like, you know, disconnecting their newsletters or taking a step away to deal with mental health.”

Indeed, a notable subset of journalists we spoke with mentioned a colleague who has, or plans to, leave the journalism profession because they are tired of fighting against what feels like a rising, insurmountable tide of misinformation and antagonistic distrust of expertise. Some of these same journalists admitted that they, too, wonder about their professional future and ability to maintain a healthy, sustainable balance between their journalist and personal identities. Overall, it is evident that the perceived lack of public confidence in journalism and science — and the accompanying surfeit of misinformation — represents a serious challenge to the journalists that participated in this study.

Finding 10: Contemporary Structural Aspects of the Journalism Industry are of Great Concern to Journalists, Especially When It Comes to Reporting About Science

In addition to concerns related to misinformation and distrust, journalists described another subset of challenges stemming from the contemporary structure of journalism. Most interviewees expressed concerns about financial aspects of the industry, in particular, those related to inadequate compensation and benefits:

“I have a real problem with how journalists are paid. I think we are mostly underpaid, except if you have these sort of few, rare staff positions, you know.”

It was a generally shared sentiment among journalists that the profit structures that previously supported the journalism industry are no longer sufficiently lucrative. Although interviewees elaborated on that sentiment in numerous ways, one primary reason stood out: a shift wherein audiences are no longer willing to pay for news:

“… [young people] all get their news from scrolling through social media, and just from the headline, they don’t actually click on anything, because a lot of things have a paywall But we have a paywall because we have to stay in business. I’m scared of a world without newspapers. You know, I’m scared of that world, and it seems like it’s coming hard and fast at us, you know. I mean [newspapers] are shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and they are your best source, your best source for accurate information. They just are. There’s just nothing else that terrifies me. That’s the one that keeps me up at night.”

Additionally, several journalists mentioned an accompanying trend wherein financial hardships are substantively eroding the quality of reporting, particularly when it comes to covering complex science and health issues. They expressed concerns about how news organizations have downsized and replaced specialized science reporters with general assignment reporters who are less able to effectively understand and therefore accurately cover scientific topics. For example, they described fears about an increased propensity among general reporters to be overly deferential to press releases about scientific topics:

“I know that, like in professional spaces with other science journalists, that seems to be kind of the norm. Just treat everything in the press release with a grain of salt, or just ignore the press release entirely. But outside of science journalism, I don’t know if that’s the case … I get the sense that skepticism isn’t shared universally.”

Notably, after describing these challenges, the journalists we spoke with often turned the conversation back to SciLine, noting, without prompting, how it is precisely the type of service needed to help address them.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Sciline should emphasize its value and commitment to expertise and dei and should consider the addition of certain services.

The interviewees suggested that journalists view SciLine not only as an important part of their own work but also as an essential public service to the broader ecosystem of science journalism. Journalists emphasized this point by consistently suggesting that SciLine proactively expand its effort to reach more journalists writing about science issues, especially those who do not specialize in science journalism. As discussed within this report, journalists believe SciLine has some clear, compelling, and unique selling propositions that should be emphasized in future marketing efforts: their ability to find highly niche experts who possess strong communication skills and their ability to deliver these experts on quick turnarounds that help journalists meet deadlines. SciLine may improve its user experience by making it easier for journalists to connect with expert sources who have identities traditionally under-represented within STEM. The journalists we interviewed all expressed a desire to boost diversity within their sourcing and an appreciation for anything the SciLine service could do to make it easier for them to integrate more diverse sources and perspectives into their reporting. Part of this, journalists suggested, could include SciLine making it clearer on the back end what they are doing to maximize diversity within their broader network of expert sources.

The interviews also conveyed that science journalists may be experiencing especially challenging times. These challenges — caused by a multitude of factors including misinformation, politicization, polarization, the pandemic, and online media — are wearing down journalists and, in some cases, causing them to switch careers. As an important part of the science journalism landscape, SciLine should consider what role it can play in facilitating the availability of new structures and opportunities for science journalists to access expanded and effective professional support.

Other suggested areas for SciLine expansion centered around additional services, such as the creation of reports or best-practice guidelines on how to efficiently handle common pieces of science-related misinformation and access to more background information about expert sources.

Journalists Should Maintain Their Focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Science Reporting

There was a near consensus among the interviewed journalists that there is an urgent need to increasingly focus on people that have traditionally been left out of science journalism. For our interviewees, this meant both addressing the issues of disadvantaged individuals and communities in science reporting as well as including their voices in interviews and as expert sources. Although there are significant challenges in fulfilling this latter point due to structural inequities in STEM, most journalists noted that with enough time and effort they can find diverse expert voices for most science issues. One key way they accomplish this is by making dedicated efforts to interview scientists who are early in their careers and who have not yet received extensive media coverage. Overall, the journalists we spoke with emphasized that centering DEI enables reporting that is both of higher quality and of a higher ethical standard.

Journalists Should Leverage Their Resources, Skills, and Interpersonal Contacts to Cope with Challenges in the Industry

Previous research has suggested that, as a result of a wide swath of developments in the journalism industry, non-specialized reporters are more commonly tasked to write science stories, especially stories related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This issue arose in our interviews and, in fact, many of the journalists we spoke with are general assignment reporters experiencing this shift in their daily work. While the specialized science journalists we spoke with emphasized the value that their specialty adds to their reporting ability, many journalists shared successful strategies for science reporting that were independent of specialty. Services like SciLine were found to be especially valuable for non-specialists. Additionally, the use of professional contacts and the development of professional networks were seen by many as valuable, and, while it may take some extra effort, others emphasized the importance of developing basic data literacy among specialist and non- specialist reporters.

Journalists Should Prioritize Curation of Their Personal Credibility in a Reality Marked by Mistrust

It was a widely held perception among the interviewed journalists that both journalism and science institutions are facing a crisis of public confidence. To manage this perceived shift, many journalists are increasingly sensitive to ensuring unimpeachable standards of accuracy in their work and are more frequently mindful of their audiences’ values and lived experiences. This increased awareness of audience orientations comes with benefits, such as producing stories that are more relevant to readers and producing stories that include perspectives from previously overlooked communities, but it must be balanced with an imperative to resist giving space to misinformation. Journalists need to be increasingly careful to not share misinformation unintentionally, and, likewise, to not treat scientific information as overly certain. Stakeholders who seek to support quality science journalism must continue to ask themselves what they can do to help reporters more easily report scientific issues accurately at a time when the stakes have become especially high.

METHODOLOGY

We conducted semi-structured interviews in March and April of 2022 with 19 journalists who report on science and related issues. Journalists were selected from a list of journalism professionals who have used the SciLine expert matching service. From this list, we contacted potential interviewees with an eye toward maximizing variance in terms of the journalists’ primary medium (e.g., print, audio, or video) and self-identification as a specialized science (or related) journalist. Of those we interviewed, 13 journalists worked in print, six worked in an audio medium, and none worked in a visual medium. Additionally, 13 journalists self-identified as specialists of science or related reporting. All interviews were conducted online using video conferencing software with the exception of one interview that was conducted through email to accommodate the participant’s disability needs.

Prior to conducting interviews, journalists completed an online form that affirmed their consent to be interviewed and were asked a short set of demographic questions. From this intake survey, we observed that nine journalists identified as cisgender women, six journalists identified as cisgender men, two journalists identified as gender-fluid, one journalist identified as cisgender nonbinary, and one journalist identified as queer. Additionally, 16 journalists identified as white, one journalist identified as Asian and Caucasian, one journalist identified as Hispanic, and one journalist identified as South Asian. The intake survey also revealed that 12 journalists have a master’s degree, five have an undergraduate degree, one has a Ph.D., and one has a graduate diploma.

We developed the protocol for our semi-structured interviews after conducting an extensive literature review of relevant peer-reviewed research that examined science reporting. The core research questions focused on the following topics:

• What journalists most value about the SciLine expert matching service
• How journalists think the SciLine expert matching service could improve
• What journalists think expert sources add to science reporting
• The characteristics of sources that journalists value most, and how diversity factors into these assessments
• What journalists consider to be the characteristics of their audiences
• Journalists’ views of the state of science misinformation and how science misinformation affects their work
• Journalists’ experiences working in a predominantly digital ecosystem

Interviews were designed to obtain qualitative insights and lay the groundwork for future research focused on science journalists.

SUGGESTED CITATION: Anderson, J., Dudo, A., and Terrell, G. (July, 2022). The state of science reporting in today’s digital media landscape: Interviews with journalists who use SciLine’s service. Center for Media Engagement. https://mediaengagement.org/research/the-state-of-science-reporting-in-todays-digital-media-landscape

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• Čapek, S. M. (1993). The “Environmental Justice” Frame: A Conceptual Discussion and an Application. Social Problems , 40(1), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/3097023 . [ ↩ ]
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Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT announces 2024-25 fellows

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The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT (KSJ) will welcome 12 fellows in August. In addition to 10 Academic-Year Fellows, KSJ welcomes the inaugural Fellow for Advancing Science Journalism in Africa and the Middle East, and co-hosts a Sharon Begley Fellow with Boston-based publication STAT .

The Knight Science Journalism Program, established at MIT in 1983, is the world’s leading science journalism fellowship program. Fellows come to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to explore science, technology, and the craft of journalism in depth.

The class of 2025 represents the expansive media environment of today’s journalism. Together, the group has award-winning experience in a wide array of journalistic media, reaching the public through podcasts, documentaries, photographs, books, YouTube, TV, and radio.

“It is a privilege to welcome journalists to our programs who are so deeply aware of the importance of quality science coverage, who are eager to improve their craft, and who will continue to contribute positively to the public understanding of science once they leave here,” says Deborah Blum, KSJ director.

The fellows will spend their time in Cambridge studying at MIT and other leading research universities in the Boston area. They’ll also attend seminars by leading scientists and storytellers, take part in hands-on classes and workshops, and visit world-renowned research laboratories. Each journalist will also pursue an independent research project, focused on a topic of their choice, that advances science journalism in the public interest.

“Many of the biggest headlines of our era derive from science and technology — and the way we apply it to the world around us,” says Blum. “Our fellowship program recognizes the dedication and understanding required for stories that do justice to these issues. We bring fellows to MIT to provide them with an opportunity to enrich and deepen that understanding.”

Fabiana Cambricoli is an award-winning Brazilian journalist based in São Paulo, working as a senior health correspondent for Estadão newspaper, with a focus on in-depth and investigative stories. Before that, she contributed to major media outlets like Grupo Folha and was a fellow at ProPublica. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in public health from the University of São Paulo, receiving over 10 awards and grants for her work. Cambricoli’s reporting uncovered government negligence during epidemics, highlighted health disparities, and investigated funding behind scientific disinformation. She also co-founded Fiquem Sabendo, a nonprofit promoting transparency and supporting journalists in accessing public information.

Emily Foxhall is the climate reporter at The Texas Tribune , where she focuses on the clean energy transition and threats from climate change. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after two years at The Los Angeles Time s and its community papers and seven years at The Houston Chronicle , where she covered the suburbs, Texas features, and the environment. She has won multiple Texas Managing Editors awards, including for community service journalism, and was part of the team named a 2018 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Hurricane Harvey. She is a Yale University graduate.

Ahmad Gamal Saad-Eddin is a science journalist based in Egypt. He graduated from the faculty of medicine at Zagazig University in Egypt, and worked as a psychiatrist before leaving medicine and beginning a career in science journalism, first as a head of the science section in Manshoor.com, then as an editor at Nature Arabic Edition . He is currently working as a script writer and the fact-checker of “El-Daheeh,” the leading science YouTube show in the Arab region. His writings have also appeared in several outlets including Scientific American Arabic Edition and Almanassa News . His main writing interest is the interaction between science, its history, and the human experience.

Bryce Hoye is a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He covers a range of topics, from courts and crime to climate, conservation, and more. His stories appear on TV, radio, and online, and he has guest-hosted CBC Manitoba’s “Weekend Morning Show” and “Radio Noon.” He has produced national documentaries for CBC Radio, including for the weekly science program “Quirks & Quarks.” He has won several Radio Television Digital News Association national and regional awards. He previously worked in wildlife biology monitoring birds for several field seasons with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Jori Lewis writes narrative nonfiction that explores how people interact with their environments. Her reports and essays have been published in The Atlantic Magazine , Orion Magazine , and Emergence Magazine , among others, and she is a senior editor of Adi Magazine , a literary magazine of global politics. In 2022, she published her first book, “Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History,” which was supported by the prestigious Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and a Silvers Grant for Work in Progress. It also won a James Beard Media Award and the Harriet Tubman Prize.

Yarden Michaeli is a journalist serving as the science and climate editor of Haaretz , Israel’s sole paper of record. During his 10 years as a writer, reporter, and editor at Haaretz , he became best known for editing the newspaper’s science vertical during the Covid-19 pandemic and founding its climate desk. Among other things, Yarden served as Haaretz ’s first reporter on the ground during the war in Ukraine, covered the war in Gaza, and was dispatched to report on the forefront of the climate crisis during storm Daniel in Greece. Yarden was born in Israel and he is based in Tel Aviv. He has a bachelor’s degree in American studies and economy from the Humboldt University in Berlin and he is a member of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi is a two-time winner of the CNN Africa photojournalist award. He is currently with the Associated Press in Zimbabwe. Previously, he was the chief photographer at the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe. With an eye for detail and a passion for multi-format storytelling, he has managed to capture the essence of humanity in his photographs across Africa, Europe, and Asia. He instilled his dedication to his craft and hard work in other photojournalists in his past teaching role with the Norwegian Friedskorp, World Press Foundation in the Netherlands, the Pathshala Institute in South-East Asia, and in his pioneering gender and images work with SAMSO across the southern and East African region.

Aaron Scott  is an award-winning multimedia journalist and the creator of the podcast Timber Wars, which was the first audio work to win the MIT Knight Science Journalism Program’s Victor K. McElheny Award, along with the National Headliner Award for Best Narrative Podcast and others. Most recently, he was a host of NPR’s science podcast “Short Wave.” Before that, he spent several years exploring the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest as a reporter/producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting’s television show “Oregon Field Guide.” His stories have appeared on NPR, Radiolab, This American Life , Outside Podcast, Reveal, and elsewhere.

Evan Urquhart is a freelance journalist whose work has focused on science and medical questions relating to the transgender community. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, his stories have appeared on Slate , Politico , the Atlantic , Vanity Fair , and many other outlets nationwide. In 2022, Evan founded Assigned Media, a news site devoted to fact-checking misinformation relating to trans issues. He has appeared as an expert on propaganda and misinformation relating to trans issues on radio shows and podcasts including NPR’s “St. Louis on the Air,” Slate ’s “Outward,” The American Prospect ’s “Left Anchor,” “What the Trans?,” and “It Could Happen Here.”

Jane Zhang is a technology reporter and the China representative of Bloomberg’s global AI squad based in Hong Kong. Over the years she has covered the Chinese internet and Beijing’s tensions with the United States over tech supremacy before jumping feet-first into reporting China’s historical crackdown on its largest corporations, including Alibaba. She has won awards for extensive on-the-ground reporting and exclusive interviews with industry heavyweights like Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei. Her current focus is on covering the incipient AI technology and the regulations around it. Zhang holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Hong Kong.

Sharon Muzaki joins KSJ as the 2024 recipient of the  Fellowship for Advancing Science Journalism in Africa and the Middle East . She has been with UGStandard Media since 2019, reporting on the environment and climate change in Uganda. Muzaki graduated from Makerere University in 2019 with a degree in journalism and communication. While working for UGStandard Media, she has attended numerous trainings at the Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications, honing skills in storytelling, data journalism, and mobile storytelling. Muzaki will be the first recipient of the Africa and Middle East Fellowship. The fall semester fellowship, created in honor of the pioneering Egyptian science journalist Mohammed Yahia, is funded by Springer Nature. It is designed to enrich the training of a journalist working in Africa or the Middle East so they can contribute to a culture of high-quality science and health journalism in those regions.

Anil Oza is co-hosted by KSJ and Boston-based publication STAT as the 2024-25  Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellow . Oza earned a bachelor’s degree in science from Cornell University, where he reported for the campus newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun . Oza has interned at Nature , Science News , and NPR’s “Short Wave.” Oza also interned at STAT during summer 2023, helping produce the health-equity-focused podcast, “Color Code.” Oza will be the fifth recipient of the Sharon Begley Fellowship. This fellowship pays tribute to Sharon Begley’s outstanding career while paving the way for the next generation of science journalists and fostering better coverage of science that is relevant to all people.

More than 400 leading science journalists from six continents have graduated from the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT. KSJ also publishes an award-winning science magazine,  Undark , and offers programming to journalists on topics ranging from science editing to fact-checking.

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Case Studies in Translational Science: Identifying Best Practices to Accelerate the Translational Process

In early 2024, the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Coordination, Communication, and Operations Support (CCOS) Center awarded Working Group (WG) status to the “Translational Science Case Group”. This group, officially known as, "Learning about the Science of Translation: Identifying Best Practices to Accelerate the Translational Process Through Case Studies" is co-led by Clara Pelfrey, Director of Evaluation at the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC) of Northern Ohio, alongside Deborah DiazGranados, Evaluation Director for Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Clinical and Translational Research. This WG aims to explore best practices in accelerating the translational process by investigating case studies. The award from CCOS includes 30 CTSA hubs involved as members or contributors of translational success stories.

Translational Science (TS) works to translate research discoveries into real health improvements, a process that can take 18-20 years to develop new medical treatments. The National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) established the CTSA to enhance research infrastructure in the United States. Assessing the effectiveness of this investment in improving human health involves showcasing success stories through TS case studies. A case study is an intensive analysis involving the collection of data to allow an in-depth understanding of a specific process or situation. A retrospective translational science case study is uniquely suited to look back over the development of a successful health intervention to systematically assess the complex processes involved in effectively translating an idea or a discovery into better human health. As an evaluation method, case studies are a valuable type of storytelling using a rigorous method to help readers see the whole story.

We have been developing a process for and conducting case studies of successful research since 2017 to learn about the clinical and translational process – how it works when it is working well, as well as discovering the challenges and how those obstacles were overcome, leading to discoveries and improved health.

The Translational Science Case Studies WG has worked on several individual TS case studies over the last few years.  Several notable successes include:

• Publishing a rigorous protocol for conducting a TS case study in collaboration with NIH researchers in Science Policy & Planning and Evaluation, Performance, and Reporting. 1   
• Transforming the TS Case Study Protocol paper into a science podcast or "SciPod". 2
• Successfully lobbying the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science (JCTS) to create a new manuscript category: the “Translational Science Case Study”. 3   
• Creating a classification system for the TS case studies to enable future cross-case analysis.4   
• Numerous publications of successful TS case studies. 4-8    
• Collaborating with NIH scientists at the ACTS TS 2022 meeting on a presentation: “Advancing translational science: using case studies to identify, teach, and disseminate effective approaches”. 9

We are excited that this new WG has attracted a total of 30 CTSA hubs to this project.

The goal of this WG is to conduct a comparative case study (e.g., a meta-synthesis) of translational science case studies. This will involve developing new case studies through interviewing investigators and collaborators, as well as identifying existing case studies that are published online and conducting further interviews with investigators to discover the challenges, facilitators and societal impacts from their existing case studies. The goal of this collaboration is to generate new knowledge about the nature of the translational science process by investigating and comparing successful translational science cases that have led to positive impacts on human health. During this process, we will discover critical facilitators, challenges, methods of overcoming roadblocks, and human health impacts. Translational Science Case studies can illustrate the impact that CTSA hub services have had on individual researchers. Comparing case studies to each other in cross-case analyses has the potential to reveal valuable insights that we can use to develop a best practices model for multiple different stakeholders, including TS trainees, established investigators, healthcare stakeholders, research teams, institutions, CTSA hubs, funders, Congress and the public.

By fostering collaboration among CTSA hubs, the WG seeks to generate actionable insights that will advance the translational science field and promote effective approaches for improving human health outcomes.

• Dodson, S., Kukic, I., Scholl, L., Pelfrey, C., & Trochim, W. (2021). A protocol for retrospective translational science case studies of health interventions. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 5(1), E22. doi:10.1017/cts.2020.514
• Charting How Research Leads from Discoveries to Improved Health
• TS case study manuscript category at JCTS
• Qua, K. Swiatkowski SM, Gurkan UA, Pelfrey CM. A Retrospective Case Study of Successful Translational Research: Gazelle Hb Variant Point-of-Care Diagnostic Device for Sickle Cell Disease. JCTS, 2021.  doi:10.1017/cts.2021.871
• Brewer SK, Davis JM, Singh R, Welch LC. Establishing evidence-based pharmacologic treatments for neonatal abstinence syndrome: A retrospective case study. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. 2022;6(1):e96. doi:10.1017/cts.2022.431
• Samuels E, Champagne E, Gravelin M, Racklyeft J, Weatherwax K. Adapting an Expanded Access program to enable investigational treatments for COVID-19. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. 2022;6(1):e77. doi:10.1017/cts.2022.403
• Rojas C, Spector SA, Cale B, et al. A framework and road map for rapid start-up and completion of a COVID-19 vaccine trial: A single clinical trial site experience. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. 2022;6(1):e21. https://doi.org/10.1017/cts.2022.3
• Smith, M., Gigot, M., Harburn, A., Bednarz, L., Curtis, K., Mathew, J., & Farrar-Edwards, D. (2023). Insights into measuring health disparities using electronic health records from a statewide network of health systems: A case study. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 7(1), E54. doi:10.1017/cts.2022.521
• Jessica M. Faupel-Badger, PhD MPH; Amanda L. Vogel, PhD MPH; Clara M. Pelfrey, PhD; Deborah DiazGranados, PhD.  Advancing translational science: using case studies to identify, teach, and disseminate effective approaches. Translational Science 2022. Association for Clinical and Translational Science. Chicago, IL. Apr. 21, 2022. https://www.actscience.org/Translational-Science/Program/Thursday-April-21

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