Consider the Source

Why do scientists hate journalists so much? They're counting the ways over at Tara Smith's Aetiology blog. She definitely struck a nerve with her post asking fellow academics how they handle press requests. Lots of vitriol in the responses, especially about being misquoted (understandable) and a strong belief that journalists mostly stand in the way of good communications.

I have a quibble or two about the broader diatribes. But they serve as a useful reminder that most of what we read about health or science whether in the mainstream media or online is mediated by someone, even if he or she is quote unquote an expert. That's why I pay a lot of attention to the byline of whoever has written an article or post that I'm reading and I try, whenever possible, to check out the original sources for an article--whether it's a scientific paper or an interview. Is the author trying to be objective? (And that doesn't necessarily mean every argument has two sides.) If you drop all the adjectives and adverbs, what are you left with?

You get a feel for certain writers and their credibility. You learn to trust certain journalists/outlets more or less than others.

We all need to be doing a lot more weeding and evaluating of sources in coming days. One of the truisms of the Information Age was that information is not the same thing as knowledge, or wisdom. Nowadays in the post-Information Age in which Opinion (the more provocative the better) is King, we need to realize that neither is all content the same as information.