15 ms·

Maybe reporters just shouldn't be reporting on every little paper but rather universities should have a media department with scientists that handles press rele

by feet 4y ago

Maybe reporters just shouldn't be reporting on every little paper but rather universities should have a media department with scientists that handles press releases so they don't suck ass

davrosthedalek 4y ago
Having seen the PR disasters from CERN, I'd say we need less PR releases.
- feet 4y ago
  Yea because those were undoubtedly worse than your average scientific reporting from whatever Times? Honestly, come on
  - davrosthedalek 4y ago
    The problem is that they caused that reporting. No PR about superluminal neutrinos, no hysterical reporting about them. This would have given the community time to find the bad connection which caused the bad data.
photochemsyn 4y ago
I'm sure that would go down well, I mean what better way to make enemies at your university than by publishing critical reviews of your colleagues work in a public press release. A better idea would be to have the anonymous peer reviews published as an addendum to each paper, that would be fun. Also highlight whether or not the work was published in a 'private club' journal with lax standards or not. Maybe interview the lab techs as anonymous sources to see what kind of standards the lab really operates with? Do some investigative journalism? Cue furious PIs demanding the entire media relations department be fired... University media relations departments are just not going to to point out flaws in the work of their own PI-led research groups, they're in the business of fluffing their reputations, because that means they might get more students, more grants, more positive media coverage, etc. It's a business these days, isn't it? Corporate PR professionals are running that show more often than not.
- feet 4y ago
  I agree with essentially everything you say, although I would hope we could figure out a way to structure our research organizations to prevent that sort of bias but having a dedicated scientific reporting organization of some kind that does serious due diligence I think could definitely work
solardev 4y ago
Universities do. But they're biased and try to hype up the science. Reporters are supposed to sort through that and find the good ones. It's just not easy. You can try it yourself sometime if you'd like. Choose a field of science, comb through a year (or a month's) worth of primary liteature on Google Scholar and Sci Hub, along with press releases from research labs, without resorting to secondary sources like blogs and science news. See if you can pick out the top 10 stories in any given time period and accurately summarize them for an 8th grade reading level. Email competing labs and other experts to get contrary opinions. Write it all up within a day or two, per article. Try to get it published somewhere, and get paid for it if you can. It's not an easy job...

by feet 4y ago

Maybe reporters just shouldn't be reporting on every little paper but rather universities should have a media department with scientists that handles press releases so they don't suck ass

davrosthedalek 4y ago

Having seen the PR disasters from CERN, I'd say we need less PR releases.

feet 4y ago
Yea because those were undoubtedly worse than your average scientific reporting from whatever Times? Honestly, come on
- davrosthedalek 4y ago
  The problem is that they caused that reporting. No PR about superluminal neutrinos, no hysterical reporting about them. This would have given the community time to find the bad connection which caused the bad data.

photochemsyn 4y ago

I'm sure that would go down well, I mean what better way to make enemies at your university than by publishing critical reviews of your colleagues work in a public press release. A better idea would be to have the anonymous peer reviews published as an addendum to each paper, that would be fun. Also highlight whether or not the work was published in a 'private club' journal with lax standards or not. Maybe interview the lab techs as anonymous sources to see what kind of standards the lab really operates with? Do some investigative journalism? Cue furious PIs demanding the entire media relations department be fired... University media relations departments are just not going to to point out flaws in the work of their own PI-led research groups, they're in the business of fluffing their reputations, because that means they might get more students, more grants, more positive media coverage, etc. It's a business these days, isn't it? Corporate PR professionals are running that show more often than not.

feet 4y ago
I agree with essentially everything you say, although I would hope we could figure out a way to structure our research organizations to prevent that sort of bias but having a dedicated scientific reporting organization of some kind that does serious due diligence I think could definitely work

solardev 4y ago

Universities do. But they're biased and try to hype up the science. Reporters are supposed to sort through that and find the good ones. It's just not easy. You can try it yourself sometime if you'd like. Choose a field of science, comb through a year (or a month's) worth of primary liteature on Google Scholar and Sci Hub, along with press releases from research labs, without resorting to secondary sources like blogs and science news. See if you can pick out the top 10 stories in any given time period and accurately summarize them for an 8th grade reading level. Email competing labs and other experts to get contrary opinions. Write it all up within a day or two, per article. Try to get it published somewhere, and get paid for it if you can. It's not an easy job...