Some Non-Creationists Hate Science Journalists Too

It's just one of those days, filled with negativity and the overwhelming sense that people are trying to crush my soul under their heels. So I was already in a blue mood when I realized that a piece in the Guardian has released a flood bile directed towards science journalists. The piece was written by Ananyo Bhattacharya, who is chief online editor for the journal Nature. In this cmomentary piece, he accused scientits of not understanding journalists. It was kind of interesting but I felt it exaggerated conflicts between the two professions.

The one part I agree with dealt with headlines:

The purpose of a headline is not to tell the story. That's the purpose of the story. The purpose of the headline is to pique the interest of readers without lying.

That just begins to touch in the massive misunderstanding the public has over newspaper headlines. Reporters traditionally don't write our own headlines for a reason. Long after all the stories are written and edited, someone decides what goes on the front page and then the paper is laid out. Only then does anyone know how much space the headlines get. Back before it was all computerized, copy editors had to write the headlines within an exact number of characters. It was actually worse than that, since some letters such as M count as a character and some change. It was a mind-boggling word puzzle and I was amazed they did as well as they did considering the pressure.

This magic all took place late at night when the reporters were asleep, in a pub somewhere or otherwise in no condition to pull off this feat. I saw the headlines when I got my paper in the morning. Sometimes they were mangled, but often they were wonderfully clever.

A number of bloggers posted on the Guardian piece, including Brian Switek and Jerry Coyne. I got a nice shout out by Coyne, for which I'm thankful, though I was still taken aback by all the hate that flowed out through the comments sections. For all their bad feelings, there were few concrete examples of this hideous, stinking science writing.

My experience with scientists has been almost all positive. We both enjoy the interviews for the most part, and the scientists are almost always pleased with the end result. This was true when I worked for Science, and even more so when I decided to try my hand at newspaper reporting.

Much of the criticism following these blog posts was lobbed at the front page news story format. There is another traditional format I think works much better for covering science and that's the weekly column. Having a weekly column frees me from any pressure to hype journal articles as "breakthroughs" and allows me to write on ideas and concepts, trends, people, or anything else I think might help communicate the wonders of science, debunk misconceptions, or tell interesting stories.

I started begging the Inquirer to give me my own column years ago, and at one point was told that I couldn't have a science column, but there was a sex column available. I took it, thinking I could at least use to it to prove I was a good columnist. That's when I learned what it's like to be truly despised. Thousands of horny, sex-hungry readers were horrified to confront columns about the sex chromosomes in the platypus and parthenogenesis in the Komodo dragon. It sounds ridiculous, but it was punishing. The only people who liked the column were scientists or science nerds.

Last spring I got a real science column. I should count my blessings. Maybe life isn't so bad after all.

And one other note to those comment-writers who asserted that all journalists except Carl Zimmer were fooled by the arsenic bacteria claim – you're mistaking your own limited experience with reality. There were skeptical pieces that you just didn't happen to see. Or as Higgs the cat would say, you're talking out of your tail end.