The Future of Alternative Media Is Unknown, But Critical

The possibility of reforming the science writing profession seems very unlikely, as science writers remain locked inside their own community—constrained by partisanship, class, education, and cozy ties to their sources. Any criticism pointing this out is often either ignored or deemed to be proof that the critic is politically conservative, lacks education, or does not have the contacts in science to understand the complexities of research.

One of my first media memories was watching the evening news with my Dad in the 1970s when the broadcast reported that soldiers in South America were fighting gorillas.

"That's actually true of some. There are often very fine reporters, correspondents. In fact, the media does a fine job, but within a framework that determines what to discuss, not to discuss." Around the same time Chomsky published his book, journalist and author Joan Didion began writing a series of reports for The New York Review of Books that deconstructed journalistic coverage of politics.

While 76 percent of Americans think reporters should give equal coverage to all sides of an issue, only 45 percent of reporters agree.

In many cases, the people who report on science and medicine view themselves as assistants to the academic scientists they cover-voices they must amplify to ensure that the unwashed masses understand the beauty and importance of science.

In "The Watchdog That Didn't Bark," investigative reporter Dean Starkman wrote that access journalism in finance lessened reporters' appetite to dig into systemic corruption on Wall Street.

In one glaring example, reporters at O'Dwyers, which covers the public relations industry, reported that financial reporters in New York attend an annual "Financial Follies" dinner.

The board is made up of reporters from National Public Radio, CNN, Scientific American, and PBS. Other board members include the former head of the FDA, as well as professors of science and science communication, and an official at an organization that teaches scientists how to better communicate their research.

A year after the election, multiple outlets confirmed the emails' authenticity, and Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, tweeted that suspending the New York Post for reporting on the emails was "Incredibly inappropriate." While this Hunter Biden laptop fake fact-check shut down critical reporting, similarly suspect fact-checks have attacked science reporting with less public scrutiny.

To further emphasize the coziness between reporters and sources, the CNN reporter who wrote the article-with no critical scrutiny of Pfizer's information-is on the board of SciLine, the organization that works to teach reporters how to report accurately.

In a chapter of the handbook on "Scientific controversies," Laura Helmuth wrote that reporters should "Expose the politicization and false controversies" because "Controversies about where the novel coronavirus originated have fueled racism." Helmuth offered no credible reason why reporters shouldn't question where the virus came from; apparently, merely asking such questions was fueling racism.

Commenting on the train wreck coverage of the pandemic, veteran science reporter Nicholas Wade wrote that science writers often act as PR agents for their sources instead of holding them to account: Why are science writers so little able to report objectively on the origin of the virus? Innocent of most journalists' skepticism about human motives, science writers regard scientists, their authoritative sources, as too Olympian ever to be moved by trivial matters of self-interest. 

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-future-of-alternative-media-is-unknown-but-critical/