Science Journalism

Interesting editorial from Columbia Journalism Review:

Like many beat reporters, science journalists spend a great deal of time educating their editors about the peculiarities of their fields, and by and large those exchanges are not only illuminating but ultimately lead to better stories. But there’s one place we hit a wall.

No, it’s not that editors aren’t smart enough to understand science. Actually, it’s the opposite: they’re too accustomed to being smart, and thus can’t deal with the fact that they don’t understand it. And because they’re uncomfortable feeling confused, readers are left in the dark about a universe of research that eludes easy explanation.

I was discussing this problem recently with a colleague who had been beating his head against the wall for months trying to get a story about a mysterious “dark force” in cosmology past editors at The New Yorker: “They kept saying they didn’t understand it!” he complained. Well, of course they didn’t understand it. Nobody understands it. That’s precisely what makes it so interesting.