REALL 1995 V03N09

Why the Media So Seldom Get It Right Milton Rothman's article "Scientific Illiteracy in the Press" (Skeptical Briefs, March 1995) was right on target in its assessment of the sorry way in which the press handles stories on scientific subjects. I say that with some sadness because I myself am a worki

Milton Rothman's article "Scientific Illiteracy in the Press" (Skeptical Briefs, March 1995) was right on target in its assessment of the sorry way in which the press handles stories on scientific subjects. I say that with some sadness because I myself am a working reporter and see examples of this

assessment of the sorry way in which the press handles stories on scientific subjects. I say that with some sadness because I myself am a working reporter and see examples of this scientific ignorance among my colleagues on a regular basis. I think, however, that it is not particularly surprising th

working kit; thus reporters tend to be no more aware of the special rigors of science than do lawyers, CPAs, or dogcatchers, for that matter. You would think that, since the press applies the skeptical razor to claims made by politicians (and, for the most part, does it well), it would make the same

does it well), it would make the same effort to examine critically the claims made by, say, psychics. Unfortunately, this often does not happen. As a rule, a newspaper's best reporters are not assigned to do the traditional Halloween haunted house story; this is most often handed to a junior reporte

these assumptions -- media outlets are businesses, money-making enterprises that must cater to a fairly wide audience of readers/viewers. Scientists read the newspaper and watch the news, but so do believers in astrology or UFOs or ghosts, so provision must be made for them. No medium for the wide d