- from 'The Phantom Tollbooth' [Norton Juster]
[Readings:06] Writing about science vis-à-vis science blogging
Friday, August 6, 2010Space-Time “Wrinkles” Igniting Odd Gamma-ray Bursts?
To me at least, journalists have vital roles to play in relaying to the public the advances (and mishaps) of science. For example, the Telegraph article on airships might not have succeeded in “getting the message across” about the history and future of the industry had it been written by “an expert.” This expert might more or less have a bias for or against these “hybrid air vehicles,” not to mention that he doesn’t have the automatic knack to make a seemingly boring subject interesting.
This knack also seem to be the key in making the “mulish” lay people/reader get the significance of highly complicated and distant topic, as in the article from the National Geographic. I now dare generalize, but it seemed almost elementary that the experts in the field are not usually keen in “going down the level” of the non-specialists’ understanding of a subject. I presume that since the writer of this article is, well, a writer by profession, he labored to explain the basics of gamma-rays and cosmic strings and describe them in a concrete manner.
The idea of blogging replacing journalism when it comes to reporting science will be an unending debate, the winning side of the moment determined by whoever is trying to make the point. Blogging has become a fertile medium for scientists, or those who purport they are, since the “traditional media” has not been warmly receptive of their endeavors. It has the advantage of being accessible and fast, and its effects as a new media can be exemplified by the success, and now the gradual dying, of ScienceBlogs.com.
But Virginia Heffernan hits home when she said that blogging about science is has become “a form of redundant and effortfully incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word ’science.’” I opine, then, that both those in the journalism profession and those engaged in science blogging strive to develop the competence and ethical standards in their respective fields. Writers don’t have to give up writing about science just because experts are already blogging about the field. Instead, the inherent skills and orientation of writers—ability to connect, extensive research mindedness, objectivity, knowledge of what a reasonable reader needs from a written piece—will be utilized and highlighted when writing about and trying to make the reader understand science.
