14 - How should science journalists behave?

Summary

Gerald Wheeler was both an American university teacher and a television science presenter. His presenter experiences show clearly that successful science communication is subservient to media agendas and that popularization should not aim to be too ambitious. Almost by accident Wheeler was asked to do a series of Saturday science shows for children, which he called ‘sidewalk science’. He approached these shows as an opportunity to jazz up what he was already teaching to undergraduates but that approach didn't work. Running shows round principles like ‘forces’ was of no interest to anyone. He had been lulled into supposing that people were interested in that kind of thing from his captive undergraduate audiences. They wanted to be physicists or engineers and had to pass the exams. Schoolchildren at leisure had no such incentives.

He also learned that classroom science demonstrations and classroom pace were not effective on television. He had to have a ‘tease’ at the top of the programme and everything had to be much faster and less hedged with caveats than a lecture or class. While he got better at entertaining his juvenile audience, his colleagues criticized him for the ‘errors’ he was introducing. At first this worried him, until he realized that such ‘error’ is inevitable and did not matter for the purposes of his audience.

Later he acted as an advisor on another television show for young viewers and observed how scientists and media people talked in different languages and were focused on different issues. It took a long time to work out situations that were scientifically correct but also worked as television. […]