Weiss and his Picks for Top Science Policy Stories
December 22nd, 2008Posted by: admin
While the axing of the entire CNN science unit made bigger news, an equally disappointing move in journalism was the departure of science reporter Rick Weiss from The Washington Post. While I know nothing of the circumstances that prompted Weiss to move to blogging for the Center for American Progress/Science Progress, I regret that not nearly as many eyeballs will be reading his material – the pending death of newspapers notwithstanding.
Weiss recently posted his picks for the top eight science policy stories of 2008. These are not necessarily stories about science policy, but include science stories that have serious implications for policy in the near future. Quibble about the order if you must (I certainly could), but amidst the expected choices (Obama’s magical restoration of faith in science, climate change still a problem) there are some that are still under the radar of many. If you think he missed a story, let him know.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I just had a look at his top eight stories and have to say that he certainly will not be missed. From what I can see Mr. Weiss is more interested in politics than in science. Shouldn’t one of the top stories be about the lack of global warming over the past decade? How about the fact that ocean temperatures have been falling for the last five? Or the fact that the meteorological quality control is extremely poor. Or the fact that the paleo folks keep using proxies that are better measures of changes in precipitation and carbon dioxide content than they are of changes in temperature.
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I hadn’t heard of the CNN “reorganization” or the depature of Rick Weiss. Hearing of both at the same time made me wonder if what we are seeing isn’t just an aspect of some broader long-tail trend in journalism and media in general.
With the advent of the internet, people enjoy easy access to more in-depth, thoughtful, and continuing coverage of their areas of interest than CNN or any newspaper can provide. Science is especially accessible, given that much of the “news” corresponds to the release of some report or article. At the time when the science story becomes a story, the reports and articles are already widely available. (Compare this situation to say political news, where key politicians may chose to speak with only one or two correspondents, who in turn may guard their scoop and refuse to release all of the relevant details.)
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Agreed that this is part of the general trends in media. My problem with it where science and technology news are concerned is that these are stories that need to be pushed to the general public and current trends in internet media don’t push media to folks that haven’t expressed interest. Whereas if you’re reading the Times, or the Post back when Weiss was still writing for it, you could thumb through and be shown the story whether or not you were looking for science news.
Another issue is the gradual disappearance of longer-form journalism. Blogging is arguably the antithesis of it, and reporting by retyping of press release isn’t much to read.
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
The key here is the way newspapers, as bundled products, got things like Weiss’s science coverage before an audience that wouldn’t otherwise self-select for it. Science is only a special case of a general problem here. Mainstream media created a common space where people were exposed to a broad array of topics and ideas that they might not have self-selected.
This is an argument I’ve laid out in more detail here:
http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/?p=3039
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Well, there is still the Economist, which usually has excellent science and technology reporting.
On the other side of the coin maybe more scientists should make their work more accessible. We talked about this the other day in your post about mandated wikipedia pages. I didn’t like the specific approaches that we discussed there, but in general it is an area where I think well-crafted policies could further the public good.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:26 am
It is interesting that the “dream team” of scientists who will be advisors to the Obama administration who need to address important policy problems described as
“Climate change, energy needs, food insecurity, and economic chaos—all are threatening global peace and undermining the human quest for justice. ”
seems to be missing agricultural and social scientists- people who might have the right scientific backgrounds to address, say, food insecurity.
It seems to me that if you are getting scientists because of their unique scientific expertise to help with social problems (policy issues), then their disciplines should match.. otherwise we are engaging in a legitimacy of science “bait and switch.” And we are implying that some disciplines can speak for Science in the absence of others.
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
docpine: What are you talking about? Do you think the scientists in question are going to be advising Obama about, well, science? I don’t, but maybe in your mind maybe these are things science advisors say: “No Mr. President, while materials like gallium arsenide do enjoy band gaps well-matched to visible photons, unfortunately the same is not true of camembert cheese, so I advise against your renewable energy idea.”
My point is that these dream team scientists do not in most cases have any “policy” credentials, and yet that is what they are likely going to be doing. His team is smart people, and given that everyone seems willing to trust them to switch to policy advice despite their qualifications being (mostly) technical, why don’t you trust them to recognize the importance of agricultural and social science?
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
doc, Curt, these last two comments are the start of a good discussion. However, we’re getting off topic, so I want to spin this into another post, working from your comments. If you don’t want me to quote you, let me know. Otherwise I’ll have something run tomorrow evening.