Plans to replicate Britain's Science Media Centre in the United States

[Jarod]

Just what we need. Better coordinated propaganda. :headache:

"Two nations divided by a common purpose"

Plans to replicate Britain's Science Media Centre in the United States are fraught with danger, warns Colin Macilwain.

14 March 2012:


The original Science Media Centre (SMC) began in London in 2002. It offers the media a clearing house for scientific briefings and packaged quotes from scientists. On its own terms, it has been an outstanding success. A combination of factors lies behind this impact: the energy of the centre's staff; the backing of sponsors, including scientific societies, major corporations and most governmental and non-governmental research funders; and a close-knit London media circle.

Science media centres similar, but not identical, to that in London already exist in locales as far apart as Australia, Canada and Japan. But it seems to me, as someone who has worked as a reporter and an editor on both sides of the Atlantic, that there are formidable obstacles to a successful introduction of the concept to the United States.

For a start, the 'problem' regarding science and the public is different in each place. The London SMC was set up because UK scientific leaders were upset that environmentalists had successfully fought the introduction of genetically modified food; they felt that the UK media were too susceptible to environmental scare stories about new technologies.

Second, US journalists, justifiably or not, have higher self-regard than their British counterparts and are likely to take strong issue with the 'churnalism' aspects of the SMC. Under pressure as US reporters may be, they don't want to share 'pooled' quotes.

http://www.nature.com/news/two-nations-divided-by-a-common-purpose-1.10224

 

[Esther12]

It does seem like US science journalism is much better than UK. In the UK, many just seem to be writing up press releases from researchers without doing any critical thinking or research of their own. It's a very different mentality to that taken by political journalists, and this is to the detriment of honest and accurate science reporting.

 

[Enid]

That close-knit London media circle lead to a concerted publicity campaign to denigrate ME sufferers in 2011. The downside if misused.