Rennie urges changes in science journalism

Feb. 3rd, 2011 by Andrew Van Dam
Filed under: Health journalism 

In the Guardian, former Scientific American editor in chief John Rennie adds his two cents to the meta discussion of science blogging that has grown out of ScienceOnline2011. Rennie’s hope is that the emergence of science blogs and readers’ access to press releases will force mainstream sources to fix their “systemic faults.”

By my reading, Rennie’s key peeve is the “new” part of “news.” As anybody who has attended a few AHCJ conference sessions could tell you, science is incremental. It doesn’t lend itself to big splashy one-time headlines. Yet, seduced by embargoes and journal publication cycles, science journalism doesn’t follow the same plodding path.

Rennie’ s column suggests that’s where the Internet comes in. With journal and university press releases already directly available to the lay audience online, science bloggers are forced to find ways to differentiate themselves from the news cycle. And those ways, Rennie hopes, include long-term reporting and follow-up stories. These days, identical stories and blog posts are just a click away, as the cliche goes, and publications can’t afford to crank out “interchangeable” content.

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5 Comments on Rennie urges changes in science journalism

  1. Tweets that mention Rennie urges changes in science journalism : Covering Health -- Topsy.com on Thu, 3rd Feb 2011 12:48 pm

    2. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Pia Christensen, Patric Lane. Patric Lane said: Salient pts for ALL science comms (us PR types too, IMO) RT @AHCJ_Pia: @tvjrennie urges changes in science journalism http://bit.ly/encbBe [...]

  2. Elaine Schattner, MD on Thu, 3rd Feb 2011 2:39 pm

    3. Rennie’s got a point that many blogs (and newspapers) tend to cover the same health stories, simultaneously. Often I’m surprised by what gets featured in numerous stories, sometimes after publication in an obscure journal, and what doesn’t get mentioned at all.

    This tendency limits the public’s awareness of findings that journalists overlook.

  3. The pitfalls of made-for-media scientific research : Covering Health on Fri, 11th Feb 2011 8:01 am

    4. [...] archive, you’ll find plenty of discussion about how the rhythms and demands of the newsroom impact media coverage of science, but what about the other side of the [...]

  4. Adding context to embargo-driven journalism : Covering Health on Fri, 11th Feb 2011 11:31 am

    5. [...] at the Nieman Journalism Lab, Matthew Battles latches onto John Rennie’s column about the future of science journalism, then talks to Ed Yong and AHCJ’s own treasurer, Ivan [...]

  5. Finding balance between daily reporting, narratives : Covering Health on Tue, 1st Mar 2011 1:01 pm

    6. [...] Still basking in the glow of her AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, PLoS blogger and independent journalist Hillary Rosner returned from the AAAS annual meeting with some ruminations on preserving and expanding diversity in the science news ecosystem. She notes that she and many of her fellow award-winners earned their spots because publications gave them the time and space to create long-form narratives, pieces which she points out are powerful anecdotes to the quick-turn-around-no-follow-up churning so lamented by John Rennie in his recent (and justifiably well-circulated) column. [...]

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