The future of science journalism is on the net

By Stephen Strauss

One of the numerous — and probably apocryphal — stories about how Canada got its name relates to Portuguese fishermen returning home after hauling in cod from off The Grand Banks. When asked what of value existed on the land adjoining cod heaven they supposedly replied ca nada, "nothing here". We now know Canada was a locale (codfish aside) which could be better called ca muito – much here.

I bring the naming story up because it reflects many of my feelings about Peter Calamai's take on the present state of science journalism in Canada (R$, December 23/08). Calamai argues that we are witnessing increasing science journalism canadaism, especially when compared to a more glorious past where staff science writers in traditional media were found in relative abundance. As a result there is a growing reliance in the media on press releases as general assignment reporters don't have either the time or the background to come up with original material.

Accordingly, he proposes that an organization be set up to help general assignment reporters find more original news and write about it more authoritatively.

I absolutely agree with his depiction of what is happening to traditional media. But I just as absolutely disagree that this means science journalism is becoming increasingly ca nada. The truth is that nobody in traditional media is sure that any of their institutions are going to exist in a decade. Newspapers, for example, created a universe where somewhere between 75 and 85 per cent of their revenue came from advertising.

That advertising worked on a model which presumed that to reach a small number of potential customers you had to pitch ads to a vast number of non-customers. It is a business model which has not just been broken — it has been shattered as people go to Craigslist or eBay or Expedia to search for things once found in classified newspaper ads. On the Internet, buyers and sellers come together — sensibly in my opinion — without any news media intermediary.

Accordingly the Internet is now full of sites entirely devoted to newspaper layoffs, http://graphicdesignr.net/papercuts/, newspaper death watches http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com and traditional journalists believing their profession is on the path to becoming as extinct as dinosaurs http://newsosaur.blogspot.com.

That's the bad news. The good news is that there likely has never been a time where there is more science information/news more readily available to more people. The Internet is now awash with science blogs written by professional scientists, journalists, and just interested individuals, and the untold secret is many of them are beyond interesting. I refer you to http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/01/science_blogging_anthology_the.php for a list of what was judged in 2006 as the year's 50 best blogs.

In my judgment many of them are better than most of the science reporting which ever came out of traditional daily media. It is also true that any person with computer access can go to press release agglomerating places such as www.eurekalert.org and dailyalert@alphagalileo.org and see the releases themselves and not the truncated versions which traditional media publish.

And who can overlook that many original research papers being available on-line and the large number of authoritative websites which science organizations of one sort or the other have mounted.

Not only can people go to the Internet for their news but they are. A recent analysis from the Pew Research Institute, revealed that in the United States, the Internet had surpassed the daily newspaper as the place people were going for national and international news. There is no reason to believe this hasn't or won't soon happen in this country. Thus I would argue that the traditional news information model is not just passé but itself is increasingly headed toward a 21st century ca nada.

And what does this mean for reporting science and research in this country to organizations that either generate or support that research? In the short term you don't stop trying to help traditional journalists get the story right.

But you must accept that all indications are that the Internet is where the future of Canadian science and research communication lies. That means off the top:

(1) Organizations must assume their releases are publications unto themselves. They must be crafted not with the notion that some professional journalist will pick them up and make them better, but with the belief they will stand alone. Indeed, they must be written under the supposition the Internet might be the only place they are read.

(2) Because organizations have become in effect publishers of scientific information, to expand their potential audience the same releases must be written with Google search terms in mind.

(3) Organizations must understand that their websites must not just look pretty but must become effectively reference sites. They must become the most authentic sources of information there is on what the organization is doing. And they must be designed thinking of ways to boost their viewerships in the 21st century Googling universe.

(4) When it comes to blogs, if they get something wrong you should correct them. If they get something right you should congratulate them. You must communicate with people who are talking about you, as the media world has turned into a media network.

I am not saying there aren't problems in a web science universe. Without the stamp of editorial approval that comes from existing media it is hard to know how authentic anything is. Without the existing readership/viewership of present day media it is hard get a very large audience. Nobody has come up with a good business model that is going to pay journalists to write blogs or work for independent Internet-based publications.

Nonetheless, if Canadian research establishments are looking for a place to put money and effort and a hope for the future, it is not — and I say this with the heavy heart of a traditional print journalist — it is not in existing media. That is a place which increasingly deserves to be called Ca nada and while the Internet has become Ca muito.

Stephen Strauss writes a regular CBC.ca column on science and travels the country giving lectures on science on the Internet. He is a former science writer for the Globe and Mail.