• Question: Should journalists learn more about science and how it works before writing a story on a scientific subject?

    Asked by Tartanish to Angela, Robert, Sarah on 21 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Robert Bowles

      Robert Bowles answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      They should certainly be able to check the facts in a story and make sure what they print is true. Realistically though not many journalists come from a scientific background so that’s not always possible. What we as scientists and people interested in science can do is offer to help them though. We can offer to explain science better to journalists and communicate better about what we do too.
      What we can do is challenge them on it when what they print is wrong or factually incorrect. There’s some great organisations out there that can and do help.
      http://www.senseaboutscience.org/
      http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/

    • Photo: Sarah Harris

      Sarah Harris answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      I think having a science background is certainly useful for journalists writing about science, but what is more important is that they’ve got the facts right and reported it accurately. This doesn’t mean they need to know all the science, they just need to have good journalistic skills!

    • Photo: Angela Stokes

      Angela Stokes answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      Hi Tartanish
      They need to understand the facts! I have seen some very good reporting and some awful science reporting – simply because they didn’t take time to understand before they wrote the story.

Comments