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NPR's science reporting has been abysmal for the past few years. Maybe they don't have the click-bait problem (debatable), but they routinely report everything
by timr 4y ago
NPR's science reporting has been abysmal for the past few years. Maybe they don't have the click-bait problem (debatable), but they routinely report everything one side of the political spectrum says as scientific fact. They also fall victim to the "experts say..." and "scientific consensus is..." tropes. Their "scientific expert" source list looks suspiciously like a group of the loudest voices on Twitter.
I say this as someone on that side of the political spectrum.
- zenithd 4y agoTwitter influence is now a not-insignificant leg up in faculty hiring and academic politics. It’s becoming really hard to take academic science seriously.
- openknot 4y ago>"Their "scientific expert" source list looks suspiciously like a group of the loudest voices on Twitter." That's probably where the journalists find people to interview, likely because a large majority of journalists are active on Twitter. This definitely isn't the only place, because there are free services like SciLine by the AAAS (source: https://www.sciline.org https://www.sciline.org) and many others for connecting journalists to researchers. Many universities also have their own expert directories set up, and journalists can also find papers and contact their authors. However, for many journalists on deadline, it's just far less effort to message vocal professors on Twitter, so this may be a reason for this effect if it's true. The people who market their research more on Twitter may be more likely to get covered in the press, and thus interviewed.
- junofan 4y agoWhat really sucks is some funders are becoming interested in metrics that track social media engagement and other forms of attention, rewarding Twitter punditry.