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Media don't convey thrill of science news, report says
01.01.98
Poor news judgment threatens to strip away all that is interesting and fascinating about science and technology, a panel of scientists and journalists said Jan. 20 at the unveiling of a new report, "Worlds Apart: How the Distance Between Science and Journalism Threatens America's Future."
"We are so terrified to think that [the public] might be interested in the idea behind something," said Curt Suplee, science writer for The Washington Post. "We don't say, 'There are terrific mysteries of the cosmos to be exposed here that are neater than anything you ever saw on 'The X-Files.' Instead, we say, 'Boy, we will have a sharper MRI scan' … or 'Trust me, trust me. You'll have better refrigerators.' "
In "Worlds Apart," veteran NBC science reporter Jim Hartz and former NASA scientist Rick Chappell detail the problems that exist between scientists and the media, mostly because they both have failed to communicate clearly. The gap between the two, Hartz and Chappell say, threatens the USA's dominance in science and technology.
Although nearly $180 billion each year goes toward research, the co-authors said science reports rarely make it into the newspaper or onto television news.
"It is more difficult to cover science and technology than it is to cover red lights and red tape," said Hartz, a former "Today" show host.
Willing to change
But Chappell said that among scientists there "is a very clear possibility for cultural change." He noted that 81% of the scientists surveyed for the report said they not only were willing to communicate more, but were willing to learn how to communicate better.
Hartz said journalists, too, stand ready to change their ways. "We think we've found a willingness," Hartz said. "Neither the journalists nor the scientists felt the issues were too complex to find ways to work together."
The panelists agreed with the report's findings that much is lacking in the reporting of science. Key innovations often don't get reported while others get sensationalized.
Mark Schleifstein of the The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune said editors often are afraid to turn reporters loose on big projects, particularly science-related ones. He said Times-Picayune editors nearly passed on "Oceans in Trouble," an eight-day series on the nation's fisheries that won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize for public service.
'Deafening silence'
But are The Washington Post and The Times-Picayune doing it right? Suplee said he doesn't know.
"I don't have a clue what people think of our coverage," he said. "If we get one thing wrong in the bridge column or we have one third-string junior varsity kid's name wrong in the high school basketball championship, there's a work stoppage. But you know what happens if we skip a major science story? Deafening silence."
Moderator John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, asked the panel why old research often seems forgotten. He said that the news media seldom report on the $25 billion in research that went into the Apollo missions.
Jack Schmitt, a former U.S. senator and Apollo astronaut, said the press offered great coverage of the Apollo program through the moon landing and briefly for the aborted Apollo 13 mission. But missions after Apollo 14, including the Skylab missions, mostly went unreported as news organizations deemed them to be routine, Schmitt said.
"Why is it that there just seems to be a problem with covering things that are continuously positive?" he asked.
But while the space shuttle Challenger explosion brought negative news, it generated a wave of popular support for the space program, Schmitt said. Some polls in 1986 showed approval ratings as high as 85%.
Americans continue to have a love affair with science, said Julia Moore, director of the National Science Foundation's legislative and public affairs office.
"When I tell people that my agency underwrites Bill Nye, the Science Guy, that we're partly responsible for development of the Internet ... I am revered," Moore said. "It's something that the American public feels is almost a part of the national character. The same fascination that the public once had with Lewis and Clark, they have with space travel."
Hartz agreed. "So much of it is just so plain fascinating to the American people," he said. "I think that in the end, it will sell newspapers and it will sell television shows."
For a copy of the report, call 800/830-3733 and request publication 98-F02.
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