Between Scientists and Journalists
A large gap divides the scientific and journalist communities when it comes to deciding what is newsworthy. The ongoing nature of peer review in the scientific community makes it difficult to report interesting advances in scientific discovery. Consequently, this can create a focus on the negative aspects of medicine and science; causing journalists to report on the mistakes of doctors or misconstruing the results of research. However, journalists are not the only ones to fault as scientists have also broadcast their promising initial research to the media in attempts to secure future funding. For example, research done by George Washington University in 1993 on in-vitro fertilization was warped by the media into a horrific foray into human cloning.
Read more about this topic: Medical Journalism, Conflict of Interest
Famous quotes containing the words scientists and/or journalists:
“Maybe we were the blind mechanics of disaster, but you don’t pin the guilt on the scientists that easily. You might as well pin it on M motherhood.... Every man who ever worked on this thing told you what would happen. The scientists signed petition after petition, but nobody listened. There was a choice. It was build the bombs and use them, or risk that the United States and the Soviet Union and the rest of us would find some way to go on living.”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)