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CHALLENGES IN COMMUNICATING SCIENCE TO CANADIANS ::
How Print Reporters and Editors Construct their Science StoriesINTRODUCTION
To gain insight into how newsrooms obtain and handle science news, as well as the role played by the news media in communicating science, the Science Journalism Research Group performed interviews with both newsroom editors and journalists who cover science in English-speaking Canada. We talked to a total of 25 staff reporters, editors, and freelance journalists. The results of our interviews are presented in a collection of articles.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Knowledge of science and the scientific process are essential because it allows informed public participation in a democratic society. A science communication shortage in society leads to the unquestionably dangerous situation of low public understanding of science. However, media coverage of science remains sparse. Newspapers rarely hire staff science reporters and, apart from specialty programming, science news on television broadcasts is scarce. Science reporting is often limited by misinformation, biased advocacy and inadequate journalism. This research thus tackles the questions:
(1) What is the science communication process that produces science journalism?
(2) What roles do the news media play in communicating science?
To gain insight into how newsrooms obtain and handle science news, we performed interviews with both newsroom editors and journalists who cover science in English-speaking Canada. We talked to a total of 25 staff reporters, editors, and freelance journalists.
A list of journalists covering stories related to science was established using professional association directories (associations of journalists at large or of scientific journalists) and by noting the names of journalists regularly covering science.
The list included two categories of journalists: Journalists known and recognized as scientific journalists and claiming to be so, and journalists working frequently on scientific stories (based on observation of media content). This census is limited to journalists active in general-interest media.
All journalists identified as working significantly on science-related stories were systematically solicited for interviews. Likewise, editors of science or health or environment etc. sections of media were solicited. All interviews were conducted by telephone (except one, which was done by e-mail) and followed a prepared script.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
The questions asked of the journalists and editors fit into the following categories:
• Introductory and general: Questions such as how journalists came to be a science reporter, why they are a science reporter, what other kinds of reporting have they done, where they work, etc.
• Types of stories: What they cover, what kinds of stories (news, features...), story angles, what makes a science story newsworthy.
• Resources: How much time do they get to do their work? How long are their stories, usually?
• Sources: Who do they talk to? How many people? How do they find them?
• Feedback: Do they get much feedback? How is the feedback dealt with?
• Big picture: Questions about how they see their role as a science journalist, how they think it could be improved.
• Levels of the newsroom: There were reporter- and editor-specific questions that asked about the relationship between reporters and editors.
Some results of our interviews are presented in this collection of articles on our Web site.
Currently, the same interviews are being done with French-speaking Canadian journalists as well as in France and Belgium, which will allow us to compare trends across countries, and within country in the case of English- vs. French-speaking Canada.
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