SOME SCIENTIFIC THOUGHTS
I’ve been following a number of scientist-journalist discussions in the last year in various places, including ScienceOnline2012, in the blogosphere, and on Twitter. Increasingly, I’ve come to suspect that there is often a profound lack of understanding of the respective professional cultures of scientists and journalists, which has important relevance to the ways in which this discussion has played out. For example, during the ScienceOnline2012 panel on Why Scientists Hate and Fear the Media, many scientists were shocked to learn that not all journalists read the paper they’re covering, and it seemed to come as a surprise to some science writers that there are institutional barriers to scientists interacting with the media. In spite of these many conversations, I think there are still some serious holes in each group’s knowledge of how the other’s field works. So, when someone urged scientists to “engage with the media” (and not just “put…
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