4 ms·

Thinking out loud here and this might be a terrible idea, and maybe at the risk of snubbing journalism majors, but what if the dependency was inverted? As in,

Thinking out loud here and this might be a terrible idea, and maybe at the risk of snubbing journalism majors, but what if the dependency was inverted? As in, what if, instead of having journalists who take a few classes here and there in various subjects, we instead had people who majored in subjects who also took some journalism classes, so they could write on subjects within the field? What I mean is, instead of having a journalist who took an intro chem series writing about chem topics, we had people who majored in chemistry with a few journalism classes writing the articles instead? You might say "well people who majored in their science field probably want to work in that field", but I'd say look no further than at the amount of science degree people doing dev work. Something something, a trained ai chatgpt-like tool might also help bridge the gap to journalism? Perhaps a pay gap would also need to be addressed.

regular_trash 3y ago
You basically described Hamilton Morris from Vice. He does a great job at covering psychoactive substances. Although he does at times seem to be an active proponent instead of giving an unbiased perspective. Regardless, it's refreshing to hear qualified people give their opinion and reportings on things than it is to listen to those that don't understand what they are commenting on.
peteradio 3y ago
Alternatively leverage LLM and feed the papers to the LLM, massage for impact, tweak for demographics and print and publish my dude
solardev 3y ago
I was an environmental science and sustainability major in college, along with a journalism minor. I enjoyed journalism but prior year classmates who worked the local beats would always share their nightmare career stories. Terrible pay, zero respect, long hours, poor benefits, constant downsizing, writing on deadline... for how important a job it is, it's terrible how they treat their writers. Who's going to want to do that? Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for journalists, but the overwhelming majority of them get the short end of the stick. It's a very exploitative industry dominated by soulless conglomerates. Put it this way. I dabbled in coding in college, doing some WordPress stuff. After two years I was paid better than most journalists after a decade. Granted dev work is really overpaid (especially before 2023) but journalism has been really underpaid, and getting worse all the time, so the difference was quite stark. One has you doing almost no work for tremendous pay and benefits. The other has you working your ass off every week and weekends for nothing, with very little growth opportunities too. It may be decades before you pay off student loans. It's not a livable wage in most areas. Want better journalism? We gotta treat our journalists better.
- mycall 3y ago
  > It's a very exploitative industry dominated by soulless conglomerates. Sounds like a good reason to do a worker cooperative where money is important but stability of the whole is key component, so their decisions are often to keep united.
  - solardev 3y ago
    I think the industry as a whole isn't in a great spot. It was in a death spiral before Trump brought some temporary relief (through endless controversies), but I'm not sure if they were able to keep that momentum going. Nobody pays for news anymore, and that was before GPT. Even worker coops need a source of income. At this rate I'd be surprised if the industry survives at all...
- pmichaud 3y ago
  I think this is a chicken/egg dilemma, because if you could peek into an alternate universe where every journalist was a fully qualified professional in a STEM field, suddenly the power dynamics in the whole industry would shift because every journalist could credibly say "treat me right and pay me well, or I'll have a different, better job tomorrow."
- fallingknife 3y ago
  > It may be decades before you pay off student loans Easy fix there. Stop requiring degrees. Carl Bernstein failed out of college.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Science reporting is one of those things that I think a formal education could actually help with. Especially since much of the job is dealing with academics and interpreting their jargon and unspoken assumptions for the public. Those are three very different cultures (academic sciences, journalism, mainstream) and it's not trivial to flow between them. Most readers don't have even a rudimentary grasp of scientific methods or statistics. A large part of our curriculum was looking at the challenges of science communications (especially in regards to climate, but also cultural conflicts, land use, blah blah). The background context in the field was super helpful as a news reader. I can't imagine trying to write good stories with sensible context without that sort of understanding. Could someone self-learn it? Probably. But I think the risk there is blindly falling into some tribe or another and becoming another controversial screaming head (and some would use the same argument against formal academia). The more I learned about the field, the more I saw it as a no-win scenario. :/
smohare 3y ago
[dead]
djtango 3y ago
I went to a very academic uni and my professor grumbled that while our students were all "clever" none of us knew how to make a poster. Which is also kind of important when you're doing research and presenting your findings

regular_trash 3y ago

You basically described Hamilton Morris from Vice. He does a great job at covering psychoactive substances. Although he does at times seem to be an active proponent instead of giving an unbiased perspective. Regardless, it's refreshing to hear qualified people give their opinion and reportings on things than it is to listen to those that don't understand what they are commenting on.

peteradio 3y ago

Alternatively leverage LLM and feed the papers to the LLM, massage for impact, tweak for demographics and print and publish my dude

solardev 3y ago

I was an environmental science and sustainability major in college, along with a journalism minor. I enjoyed journalism but prior year classmates who worked the local beats would always share their nightmare career stories. Terrible pay, zero respect, long hours, poor benefits, constant downsizing, writing on deadline... for how important a job it is, it's terrible how they treat their writers. Who's going to want to do that? Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for journalists, but the overwhelming majority of them get the short end of the stick. It's a very exploitative industry dominated by soulless conglomerates. Put it this way. I dabbled in coding in college, doing some WordPress stuff. After two years I was paid better than most journalists after a decade. Granted dev work is really overpaid (especially before 2023) but journalism has been really underpaid, and getting worse all the time, so the difference was quite stark. One has you doing almost no work for tremendous pay and benefits. The other has you working your ass off every week and weekends for nothing, with very little growth opportunities too. It may be decades before you pay off student loans. It's not a livable wage in most areas. Want better journalism? We gotta treat our journalists better.

mycall 3y ago
> It's a very exploitative industry dominated by soulless conglomerates. Sounds like a good reason to do a worker cooperative where money is important but stability of the whole is key component, so their decisions are often to keep united.
- solardev 3y ago
  I think the industry as a whole isn't in a great spot. It was in a death spiral before Trump brought some temporary relief (through endless controversies), but I'm not sure if they were able to keep that momentum going. Nobody pays for news anymore, and that was before GPT. Even worker coops need a source of income. At this rate I'd be surprised if the industry survives at all...
pmichaud 3y ago
I think this is a chicken/egg dilemma, because if you could peek into an alternate universe where every journalist was a fully qualified professional in a STEM field, suddenly the power dynamics in the whole industry would shift because every journalist could credibly say "treat me right and pay me well, or I'll have a different, better job tomorrow."
fallingknife 3y ago
> It may be decades before you pay off student loans Easy fix there. Stop requiring degrees. Carl Bernstein failed out of college.
- solardev 3y ago
  Science reporting is one of those things that I think a formal education could actually help with. Especially since much of the job is dealing with academics and interpreting their jargon and unspoken assumptions for the public. Those are three very different cultures (academic sciences, journalism, mainstream) and it's not trivial to flow between them. Most readers don't have even a rudimentary grasp of scientific methods or statistics. A large part of our curriculum was looking at the challenges of science communications (especially in regards to climate, but also cultural conflicts, land use, blah blah). The background context in the field was super helpful as a news reader. I can't imagine trying to write good stories with sensible context without that sort of understanding. Could someone self-learn it? Probably. But I think the risk there is blindly falling into some tribe or another and becoming another controversial screaming head (and some would use the same argument against formal academia). The more I learned about the field, the more I saw it as a no-win scenario. :/

smohare 3y ago

[dead]

djtango 3y ago

I went to a very academic uni and my professor grumbled that while our students were all "clever" none of us knew how to make a poster. Which is also kind of important when you're doing research and presenting your findings