Chris Mooney and his regular collaborator Sheril Kirshenbaum have distilled just about every morsel of insight that’s been floating around lately into how the collapse – in the US primarily – of journalism and science journalism in particular is affecting how the public gets its occasional bit of science news. It is freshly on line in The Nation after a run in its print issue.

The spot-on title: Unpopular Science. The Tracker has been a bit surprised and gratified recently to have so many people who have no particular connection to our business ask about its situation and its prospects. Perhaps others in the trade have, too. This article is the best answer. It’s not particularly cheerful, and has the usual slim ray of hazy sunshine – the web and outfits such as university public affairs offices will pick up some of the load. The Tracker’s response is to hope that the genuinely journalistic and largely on line science news outfits that are soldiering along will gain popularity and a revenue stream (Sci. American, Wired News, Nature News, Science News, ScienceNOW, Nat’l Geo, etc.) And, eventually and somehow, a new popular media will rise, making money, and revive some semblance of the old, cohesive common conversation that one might argue is essential to a thriving society.

The most depressing part of their piece is a brief reference to the sites that in 2008 led the so-called science category in the annual Weblog awards.

-CP<

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 1:58 pm and is filed under About Journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.