science journalism

Jeremy Laurance: When Science Journalism Goes 'Meh'

Sat, 06/12/2010 - 13:42

Over the last week, a miniature storm has been brewing on the intertubes, and it concerns a subject which everyone is sick of talking about, but which everyone feels compelled to talk about anyway: no, not house prices, but the state of science journalism.

Specifically this is a response to Jeremy Laurance, a man who does not like criticism, and so will probably not like this post, should he ever develop enough of an understanding of the internet to find it and read it.

Bloggers vs. Journalists: A Response to Fiona Fox (and Richard Littlejohn)

Wed, 04/14/2010 - 13:44

In a fit of apparently unintentional irony, Fiona Fox of the Royal Institution's Science Media Centre, has posted a blog on the BBC's journalism blog about how blogging isn't journalism.

I'll get to that in a second, but Richard Littlejohn has also criticized blogs recently, and I can't resist sharing his views with you. Littlejohn is a man with many intelligent and nuanced points to make about new media, as evidenced in his latest column, published on the internet:

Too Much Choice is Bad

Wed, 10/07/2009 - 19:46

Id like to make an overly obvious comment today....

Why....I ask.....are science news sites so overwhelming?

Sites like ScienceDaily, Seed, and even Wired offer a plethora of news stories--wait, plethora is the wrong word--these sites offer a overabundance--no--a gargantuan quantity of news stories on their front pages, as if the reader would be comforted by the sheer number of options offered for greedy consumption.

Well, im here to tell you--cross-eyed, overworked editors of online news rags--too many choices are just as enraging as having too few. According to APA online (this seems like a no-duh to me: By the way--someone actually said no-duh to me today. Ha!)

Blogging in the 19th Century: The Future of Journalism

Thu, 05/21/2009 - 13:46

The Victorians had some great ideas about the future of blogging. Indeed, many people in the Victorian era were much wiser when it came to blogging than a lot of 21st century bloggers are, which is surprising, given that trying to talk to a Victorian about "blogging" would probably land you in an insane asylum. Having said that, I would imagine that any readers able to travel through time at will would probably not find a 19th century asylum that hard to escape from, but I digress.

(Edit: I think some American readers may be taking my use of "evangelist" the wrong way. As a British guy, to me it means the same as "fundie", or "nutter" - I'm not attacking the good media-analysing bloggers out there.)