Journal Links and Writing Science Articles

[Buster's Uncle]

So I feel like I've posted some worthwhile stuff, but I've neglected to get to that nit-picking/editor pass on the story again. Sorry.

Y'know, I could do you a re-write in news style for you to compare; does that sound worthwhile?  Another possibility would be -I saw 5-10 different articles about the ISS 'nauts landing this morning, and only posted the first one I came across from a venue I deemed solid- it happens with some new exoplanets, the latest fusion research making a publicity push, physics and/or astronomy stuff a lot of editors happened to deem sexy the same day, things like that Macedonian tomb last year, and sometimes ape science, because we all love moneys somehow.   So, the next time I see something astronomical getting heavy coverage and the one I pick has a journal link, how about I post everything I find here for style comparison, and if you're willing, you write it up, too.

-We can also girldog about the bad write-ups for both education and fun, which should rope in Uno and Geo for sure.

[Lorizael]

It's that way because -dig this- a correspondent sending a story long-distance by telegraph needs to get the most important info across first in case Indians cut the line or something, and the paper back home only got the beginning of it...

I kid you not.

That's fantastic.

Y'know, I could do you a re-write in news style for you to compare; does that sound worthwhile?

That sounds like a lot of work for you, but probably useful if you're willing.

So, the next time I see something astronomical getting heavy coverage and the one I pick has a journal link, how about I post everything I find here for style comparison, and if you're willing, you write it up, too.

Yeah, that would be a useful exercise. One of the reasons my pieces tend to lack a lede and be kind of meandering and also not in reaction to breaking news is that I don't want to tell the same story a half dozen other outlets are telling. But you're absolutely right that if I want to get into the business, I need to learn the basics of telling that story everyone else is telling.

We can also girldog about the bad write-ups for both education and fun, which should rope in Uno and Geo for sure.

Well of course.

[Buster's Uncle]

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/02/20/1714341115
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-02876-y

[Buster's Uncle]

A Vox article about a food scientist, but quite relevant to your interests. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/2/28/17061828/joy-of-cooking-brian-wansink-cornell-p-hacking

[Buster's Uncle]

This and the next two posts re: Neanderthals highly relevant to the purpose of this thread:  https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/more-evidence-published-that-neanderthals-were-little-different-from-modern-humans.629155/#post-15057693

[Buster's Uncle]

Meet the largest science project in US government history—the James Webb Telescope

No particular need to click and read -I haven't- posted because, on the face of it, the headline is not just misleading, but just plain wrong.  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration -of which the JWT project is a tiny, tiny, portion- is, in fact, "the largest science project in US government history".  I strongly assume one could parse it much, much finer than just NASA and still bump JWT way down the list.  One suspects the Manhattan Project, for an easy/obvious example, had more people working, and perhaps more adjusted-for-inflation dollars.  The Mercury program surely comes out ahead.  The Gemini program surely comes out ahead.  The Apollo program surely comes out ahead.  The Shuttle program surely ate all the money in the world for two and a half decades straight and employed thousands year after year.

It's just plain a silly factual assertion to make, and I say that without bothering to actually research the issue, but with very firm confidence...

Headlines have to physically fit in a RL print context, and work better in any format when they're short/catchy/pithy.  -Just plain Bad Editing comes into it, too, not least in science news, where the editor may not have understood a word of it.  And that's why you suggest headlines, to save the editor that much time/trouble if you luck out and get something used, and at least point them in the right direction otherwise, and --- it's REALLY irritating when they blow it, which is frequent, and most people assume w/o reflection that the person bylined is to blame...

[Buster's Uncle]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544031830030X

Yo, I like history and archaeology, and go out of my way to pick those stories to post -you can tell a lot about what sciences tend to curl my toes by what sort of thing I pick to post- also because this one has a picture of a mummy that Uno will dig.

-Which brings up the Gatekeeper Function of mass media, and especially news - which is a huge complex subject and quite relevant to your goal of covering the science mainstream venues don't.  More later.

[Buster's Uncle]

Something kicked in about two hours ago to make me really sleepy after a late supper.  Perhaps this will help me keep comments on a topic that begs for digression all over creation, the Gatekeeper function and the enormous power information services can hold, brief.

So for instance, consider that the science forums here make AC2 an aggregator science news venue of sorts -my journalism background definitely informs the decisions I make as I format a post to our house header/credit format and religiously avoid correcting obvious mistakes as I'm often tempted to- and that if you imagine we were actually universally-read/important, the fact that I keep going when I see a headline about evidence in favor of dark matter -not when it mentions evidence against- would really matter.  Hey, if I was the Walter-Cronkite-circa-1980 of science news, the fact that Uno likes pictures of mummies and human bones, and anything the Maya and Aztecs ever did, suddenly makes certain branches of archaeology a lot more popular, probably WAY easier to get funded, 'cause some clod congressman has heard of it.  Likewise, Rusty and sunken sailing ships.  Jack Horkheimer is suddenly back polluting PBS, 'cause Geo likes to go in the backyard at night and look up and I copy/paste more of those stories than I would otherwise.

You know, it came out last week that Boko Haram has thrown another big rape party - I daresay I can guess why that's not a big story, and I agree with you in finding that deplorable.  -But, I dunno, you talk all the time about crap, it puts notions in evil heads; does anyone seriously believe that any of the astonishing number of school shootings that have gone down since the new year would have absent the mass media group mind going into a massive, overwhelming feeding frenzy in the early 90s the second time a disgruntled mailman shot up work?

Gatekeeping function.  Simply choosing which events to focus your finite time and column inches on determines what's in the public eye and, QED, what's important.  Nobody in tha' bidness makes a lot of money without being Carl Bernstein or being on TV, but man, buncha d00dz w/ neckties at half-mast gots the power.

No really; this topic wanted a bunch of examples from politics brought up, and to be only 10 times as long if I avoided that pushing into the "liberal" news media smear and how they shafted Bernie -and I wonder how much of that was on purpose/conscious- and bunches of stuff.

I suppose I eventually should talk about the intersection of lazy reporting, slanting the news on purpose -and how, so you'll know what to avoid doing if you're not a dirtbag- my high school principal and how they got it so, SO wrong, and how I subtly retaliated against a politician I interviewed who mildly offended me (somewhat dirtbag moment - that casts light on coverage of the Pig).  Holy crap!  I forgot to talk about the Pig, putting his name in the swear filter here, and how the mass media group mind screwed up and appointed him president via hating too hard.  -Also, my mom feeding the chickens as a little girl actually being relevant to all this.  Tomorrow, maybe.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, one succinct way of putting it is to say that the media properly exercises its gatekeeping function when they ignore Lyndon LaRoche and David Duke running for president to death.

Either could very conceivably demagogue his way into the white house, given enough free publicity - the mass media group mind just tripped up and forgot that -save Huffpo, briefly, of all places- when confronted with a dirtbag fame-hungry celebrity whose look-at-me novelty campaign inexplicably found a lot of primary voters willing to play with their own poop.  He engaged in a time-dishonored proven dirtbag tactic of his -picking fights with other celebrities via dirtbag insults, and good God; mobs are always stupid, the mass media is collectively no better, and they fell for it like all the suckers in the world.  Bad-mouthing -which they did beyond the bounds of ethical journalism and still do- didn't work when they spelled his name right, 'cause he could never have been more open about his own dirtbagedness than he long has been, so exposing him as a rude, crude, horrid person was futile, and still free publicity.

WELL -and as I was saying at the time, even if you agreed with all his loathsome/stupid policy pronouncements, He. Was. The. Wrong. Guy for the job- this forum is a public place, anything you post could be googled, and nobody's using MY house to contribute to the problem.  His last name became smilie code until he was sworn in.  Not a single soul who said anything about it was in favor, and that's tough.  If he runs for reelection, you're going somewhere else to do it if you're determined to type his name and give him free publicity.  Bad-mouthing him as the dirtbag scum he is has been abundantly proven not to work, because we are a nation of idiots, a nation that went borderline fascist 16 years ago, made up of mostly idiots.

Yo, the gatekeeping function is important is all; you can't cover everything, so just as well keep in mind what getting the light shined on it will do some good for the world.

[Geo]

..., 'cause Geo likes to go in the backyard at night and look up and I copy/paste more of those stories than I would otherwise.

What else can I do on those rare clear nights walking between the garage and the house entrance coming home after work at night?

[Buster's Uncle]

Beats me; you swear the seeing is better where I am, which seems pretty sad.

[Geo]

Simply a matter of light pollution.

[Buster's Uncle]

I royally resent that amount we get HERE, you poor city boy.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yo, the gatekeeping function is important is all; you can't cover everything, so just as well keep in mind what getting the light shined on it will do some good for the world.

And on a libertarian sort of note, you're a man, not a lemming; to the extent you have any freedom in a science writer gig, even when you know pointing the light where you're choosing won't do any good, you should AT LEAST choose to not be part of the problem when the lemmings are shining it where it's doing harm.

---

"Covering the science nobody else is" could have some hiring pitch appeal, besides.  New Scientist isn't exactly making itself competitive when they cover stories that Newsweek, AP, UPI, AFP, Business Insider, International Business Times, Bloomberg, all the broadcast TV networks, The Atlantic, Vox, Wired, Popular Mechanics, Live Science and what-have-you already have...  A venue could conceivably make major hay out of having a young man reading/writing up professional journals; finding your own stuff to cover is a big trick to scooping the competition, being as you're habitually breaking stories...

[Buster's Uncle]

I have a thing in progress that's distracting me and has burned hours already today, and I'm hopelessly behind on my routine - and not in a great mood over it, either.  Sorry.

You're going to say it's okay, but it's not; my inner child doesn't want to do work I promised to, and it's already been long enough to risk a procrastination cycle I can't overcome.  My inner child don't mind much talking about the philosophy behind stuff, and that's definitely useful, but I GOTS to get that in-depth reading done and reacted to, and I don't see any chance of that for about 24 hours and I AM sorry.