Science Journalism: Fire, Ready, Aim

"What is most disappointing, as usual, is that the mainstream media generally failed to properly report this story. This is a speculative paper, and honestly is not even worth reporting to the public as a news item. The bottom line, expressed in the headline, is highly misleading, and is not a finding of this paper. This type of speculative research should be relegated to the technical literature, or at best popular science magazines where the nerdy details can be explained thoroughly and the paper put in its proper context."

A problem with science journalism is the temptation to "fire, ready, aim" in the reporting of new findings.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/titius-bode-law-and-exoplanets/

 Another example:

"This is also a general pattern in the way scientific research progresses vs how it is reported. Battery and solar technology are very similar – you can read just about every week about some new breakthrough in battery or solar technology, but the reporting rarely puts the preliminary research into proper context, and then you never hear about these amazing breakthroughs again. Meanwhile, the science continues to progress incrementally. Incremental advances (the reality), however, do not make good headlines. Breakthroughs (rarely the reality) do.

I wish science journalists would be more sensitive to how the lay public will perceive their reporting.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/ultrasound-for-alzheimers-disease/

How it should be done:

http://www.cjr.org/analysis/understanding_science_journalism.php