Science Journalism Vs Consumerism

Science Journalism strives to present primary scientific litterature to the general public in simple and appealing well presented language, this kind of Journalism faces challenges in reaching people in proper context and questions the methods of addressing various ranges of scientific backgrounds.

This topic is complicated because it is increasingly affecting the development of societies and the problem is in such a way that the part that reaches the public is the "newsy" part of science, seller science that is set to take part in forming governmental policies and switching the public mind towards a direction or another for example focusing coverages on climate models or biomedical research or string theory. but there is more to it than this, if you examine the amount of pages dedicated to science in a typical newspaper, you'd be amazed that it doesn't exceed an article or two, how will a journalist in science section convey a complete research in a page to explain controversial issues that science is currently discussing and how will he manage the space and affect opinions? you'd end up saying after a reading something like "so? and? what do you want to say?? or what do you want to tell me?" simply pure sciences don't have to have a social or political reasons to exist, this is a problem in outreach when the addressed audience has not done science at college and it has been noted that a politician for example doesnt have the time to follow up beyond the first five lines a scientist starts explaining a theory, they are only interested in results when its the method is what is important to make a decision and if you examine journals that are dedicated to science, you will find that they are more and more including cover stories that are catchy and appealing and not theory-science centric that journals like National Geographic Magazine for example shifted to in order to compete on the stands to widen the base of readers which doen't suit scientists because it turned commercial.

It is important to realize that scientific truth and the truth in the news media are not the same thing. Scientific truths exist in context. They exist relative to past discoveries, and are constantly subject to review and revision. There are uncertainties associated with most discoveries, but they are accepted as working theories, and as such they can be used as stepping stones to a new level of understanding. so when you read a science paper in order to understand you need to pay attention to details that are carefully put by the journalist who had to cut information for space but aims for you to understand because its no longer ordinary litterature, it has to convey certain technical terms so you form an understanding and afterwards an opinion.

now, some are posing the question of "How Much Science One Should Know "?!?

well, if you want to be able to have a proper judgement on any issue you need to learn quite a bit more on science and dig into it, because not everything you read is right, but you will develop a feel for whats right after you do some reading in science, thats why its no longer valid not to have scientific background no matter what field you are in, because it grew to a level that it became part of making controversial decisions that currently Europeans and Americans are questioning how much should they add to science knowledge under high school studies so they would fill the gap.

Always keep in mind that news agencies and journals owners are selling you information, someone is paying for this information spread. this is fine, but you should know, that there are more important researches and studies that are worth digging into and are not given coverage and this is your part of the balance, take part in learning and thinking and deciding. even the most reputable institutes and journals want to sell at the end of the day, but that shouldnt stand in your way to find knowledge. when in doubt, look for the source.