Stories tagged journalism
OK, Science Buzz writers! Time for a pop quiz. Let’s say you were writing a blog post based on the following two facts:
- Arctic sea ice, 2007: 1.59 million square miles (the lowest on record)
- Arctic sea ice 2008: 1.74 million square miles (the second-lowest on record)
What would your headline be?
Well, you could give it a positive spin and say something like, Sea ice grows, but that would rather miss the big picture, doncha’ think?
Or you could go all negative and say Sea ice near historic lows, which again would be accurate, but overlooks the dynamics of the situation.
A nice fair-and-balanced approach would be to say Sea ice grows, but remains near record low. That covers all your bases.
The one thing you cannot do is lie and say Arctic sea ice shrinks to 2nd-lowest on record Because it’s not, actually, you know, shrinking. It’s growing.
Lying is a bad idea, even if you don’t necessarily subscribe to the Ninth Commandment.
- Lying is bad for journalism. People look to journalists to give them the straight dope. If a newspaper can’t be trusted, why bother reading it? (This may explain the recent precipitous decline in newspaper readership.)
- Lying is bad for the environmental movement. When the lies are exposed – and they always are, though usually not in the second freakin’ paragraph – it confuses those who are undecided as to where they stand on this whole global warminging thing, and it gives ammunition to the skeptics who say it’s all a hoax and a scam.
- And most of all, lying is bad for the Earth. Governments are setting policies in response to climate change. If we take action based on the belief that sea ice is shrinking, when in fact it is growing, it could very well mean the end of life on this planet.
Just a little something to keep in mind as you compose your Buzz posts. Be careful out there.
Tags : Genitals genitals genitals! Also: spiders and stuff.
in Life Science, Structure of Matter, Scientific Inquiry, Interdependence of Life, and Human Organism
A brown recluse: What do you suppose it's thinking about? I think I know.
Courtesy Mean and PinchyYou know what we love? Genitals. And I think you know which brand I’m talking about: the funny kind. And we just can’t get them out of our minds!
Take, for instance, some new research on spider venom. In addition to its long-established killing stuff properties, it turns out that some spider venom contains compounds that could aide the development of treatments for health issues ranging from arthritis to erectile dysfunction.
Whoa! Did I just type what I think I typed? “Erectile”? “Erectile dysfunction”? Whoa ho ho ho! Ha ha ha! Erectile dysfunction! That means that, you know, the elevator isn’t reaching the top floor! That, like, junk isn’t… Ha ha! Man, I love spiders! They are hilarious! Let’s see where else this research into comedy gold will take us.
It seems that some scientists at Cornell University have developed a new way of analyzing the molecular makeup of spider venom. Using “nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy,” the scientists were able to obtain detailed information on the molecular composition of spider venom, and, especially exciting, found entirely new molecules that had been overlooked in previous analysis of venom. The venom of the brown recluse spider, in particular, yielded some remarkable compounds.
“Remarkable compounds”? What is this? Get back to the erectile dysfunction! What happened to that stuff?
Hiding behind some larger molecules, the brown recluse venom was found to have some very small and interesting molecules called “sulfated nucleosides.” These molecules are quite similar to RNA, a basic component of our genetic material. Studying the sulfated nucleosides could lead to a better understanding of how brown recluse venom works.
Works at what? Curing impotence? Something like that? Gosh, it actually seems like this research was mostly about a new method of chemical analysis. But remember the part about, you know, wieners? Ah ha ha! Good stuff. Love it! In fact, the headline of any article about this research should focus on that incidental piece of information.
You’re welcome, scientists. We weren’t interested in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, so we changed the focus a little. Now you’ve given us what we want. (Genitals.)
What does this even mean?: Science! Or, like, shower curtains? Secret cancer fat? Whatever.
Courtesy I_vow_to_youPsyche! Y’all been duped, Buzzketeers! There ain’t no “green sex fat cancer secret”! Or maybe there is, but you’re not going to find it here. No, this is simply a lesson in critical thinking (or something like that).
But, JGordon, why would you of all people do this to us? You, who we turn to you for all that stuff we aren’t that interested in when we’ve already read all the other posts on Science Buzz. Et tu, JGordus? Et tu?
Yes, me tu, y‘all. This is part of your training. Like, remember when Luke Skywalker was learning from Yoda in the Degobah System, and Yoda would be telling him to focus his chi on some rock, and then he’d wallop Luke in the junk with his little walking stick? It was all to teach Luke to protect the jewels, even when he was focusing his chi. This is exactly like that: protect your stuff (intellectual integrity, we’ll say), even when you’re focusing your chi on some rock (i.e. trying to do some learning on the internet).
See, not so long ago, a press release was picked up by ABC (and ultimately several other news outlets) reading “Toxic ties to ‘New Shower Curtain Smell’ Evident,” or something along those lines. It was all about how shower curtains are constantly farting dozens of toxic chemicals, and it came with some pictures of a young mother holding her young baby in a bathroom (presumably to get farted on by their shower curtain?). Google it, jokers.
Some news organizations ran with it, some went about debunking the story; some people continued on with their normal lives, some people began showering out in the open, and, for some people, that was their normal life (weirdoes). Eventually, the Consumer Products Safety Commission stated that there were some serious problems with the original study’s testing methodology, and that the issue deserved some more research before people start getting too scared of their shower curtains.
Whatever the case (the authors of the study at the Center for Health Environment & Justice stand by their research), the point here is that news organizations went bonkers over the story, and people were all about it. The New York Times, then, wrote this article on the situation, pointing out that writers of press releases are well aware of the language that will get people fired up about their dumb, and perhaps questionably accurate stories. Some of the key words to snag a reader’s interest? “Green,” “sex,” “fat,” “cancer” and “secret.” Who isn’t intrigued by green sex fat cancer secrets?
It was interesting to me, too, that so many of those terms are science, or quasi science related. “Green,” sex,” “fat” and “cancer” all seem to qualify. Certainly they’re important issues, if you expand them beyond buzzwords, but some of their importance comes from their ability to get our attention. They get our attention because they’re important, but they’re important because they get our attention. It’s perhaps a worthwhile thing to consider when looking at what science developments are getting a lot of notice in the press, and eventually in public policy. What I’m getting at is this: write your representative and tell her or him to vote “no” on the Fat green cancer/secret sex initiative (prop 401). We don’t need that added to our water.
Fair and balanced: Or leaning to the left, as it often does. Journalism often presents science in less-than-accurate ways.
Courtesy nick farnhill
You'll never find any of that here! ;-) But the American Association for the Advancement of Science recently discussed how the public receives and understands science news. The situation is discouraging – there’s a lot of bad information out there, much of it the result of sloppy reporting. One of the big culprits was a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of statistics.
Meanwhile, biochemist Michael White complains about how the human desire to tell a good story often misrepresents how science really works.
In the past several weeks, protestors have crowded the streets of Rangoon, Burma to demand an end to the military dictatorship there. Like dictators everywhere, the military responded violently, and tried to cover up the news.
But modern technology is making that more difficult. Bloggers have used the Internet to broadcast news and pictures of the demonstrations. And high-definition satellite images confirm the violence, forced relocations, and other human-rights abuses.
In the past, a dictatorship was able to control the flow of information. That’s no longer possible. Whether or not the international community responds to this evidence in any meaningful way remains to be seen.
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