More than 100 science journalists responding to Nature's survey offered their thoughts on the future of the field. Here's a sample of what they had to say:
"Science journalism is dying in the mass media. It has always been a niche subject, but only those really interested in it will continue to purchase specialist science media. Print publications will become more niche but will survive. TV news and documentaries will become dumbed down in order to compete with the idiocy on the Internet."
"The public remains interested in science. They pack science fairs and museums; they buy popular science books; they watch TV documentaries. But I'm not sure the public's appetite for science is so great that people need daily science news. So when this or that media outlet cuts its science desk, it could be in response to what they can now measure on their websites: which topics really engage the public day to day."
"I am a scientist who is freelancing occasionally for a science popularization magazine published by my institute. Most of the time, the description of the scientific result in a press release is so dumbed down that I cannot find out what the result actually was in the terms of an expert! Instead of dumbing down the science to the level of the general public, we should be trying to educate the public."
"It has been shocking to see the public come to view science news as a bulk commodity. Readers seem to make little or no distinction between professionally written reports from independent news organizations and promotional writing masquerading as news on various blogs and science 'news' websites."
"Commercial pressures are polluting science journalism. The mainstream media has pitifully low standards of science journalism where the herd mentality prevails. There is a prevailing view among newspaper editors that science does not deserve as much coverage as other fields, founded probably on nothing other than these editors personal chip on their shoulder regarding their own scientific education."
"I'd love to know if the monks were wringing their hands over the horrible shallowness of thought sure to follow the invention of those funny little letter bits squashed on paper with a press."
G.B.
