Tag Archives: science journalism
Scicommers as knowledge producers
Reading the latest edition of Raghavendra Gadagkar’s column in The Wire Science, ‘More Fun Than Fun’, about how scientists should become communicators and communicators should be treated as knowledge-producers, I began wondering if the knowledge produced by the latter is … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged journalism, knowledge production, Raghavendra Gadagkar, science communication, science journalism
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Anti-softening science for the state
The group of ministers (GoM) report on “government communication” has recommended that the government promote “soft topics” in the media like “yoga” and “tigers”. We can only speculate what this means, and that shouldn’t be hard. The overall spirit of … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Scicomm, Science
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, COVID-19 pandemic, free press, Gautam Adani, government communication report, Group of Ministers report, independent media, Mukesh Ambani, neglected tropical diseases, Patanjali Ayurved, Principal Scientific Adviser, research and development, S.S. Bhatnagar Award, science journalism, soft topics, tigers, vaccine apartheid, vaccine nationalism, yoga
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The commentariot
The following post is an orange flag – a quieter alarm raised in anticipation of something worse that hasn’t transpired yet but is likely in the offing. Earlier today, at the end of a call with a scientist for a … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged anti-journalism, BJP government, Narendra Modi, nationalism, science journalism
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A Q&A about my job and science journalism
A couple weeks ago, some students from a university in South India got in touch to ask a few questions about my job and about science communication. The correspondence was entirely over email, and I’m pasting it in full below … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged class symbols, copy editing, English language, grammar, journalism on the internet, newspapers, Science, science editor, science journalism, scientific method, scientism, The Wire, The Wire Science
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Why scientists should read more
The amount of communicative effort to describe the fact of a ball being thrown is vanishingly low. It’s as simple as saying, “X threw the ball.” It takes a bit more effort to describe how an internal combustion engine works … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged active voice, Casimir effect, communication, complexity, English as second language, ESL, first language, grammar, Learning, mainstream media, meaning making, passive voice, physics, quantum physics, reading, science communication, science journalism, scientific knowledge, teaching, wisdom
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Clarity and soundness
I feel a lot of non-science editors just switch off when they read science stuff. A friend told me this earlier today, during yet another conversation about how many of the editorial issues that assail science and health journalism have … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged clarity of thought, coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, editing, editorial decisions, health journalism, newsroom, science communication, science journalism, sound argument
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Journalistic entropy
Say you need to store a square image 1,000 pixels wide to a side with the smallest filesize (setting aside compression techniques). The image begins with the colour #009900 on the left side and, as you move towards the right, … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged conspiracy theories, coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, entropy, fact-checking, false balance, health journalism, image compression, Indian Council of Medical Research, information theory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Priyanka Pulla, pseudoscience, science journalism, thermodynamics, Washington Post
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Poor journalism is making it harder for preprints
There have been quite a few statements by various scientists on Twitter who, in pointing to some preprint paper’s untenable claims, point to the manuscript’s identity as a preprint paper as well. This is not fair, as I’ve argued many times before. … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Science
Tagged Ars Technica, COVID-19, journalism, misinformation, peer review, preprint papers, preprint repositories, preprints, press release, science journalism, scientific literature, scientific publishing, The Lancet
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In conversation with Sree Srinivasan
On May 1, I was hosted on a webinar by the American journalist Sree Srinivasan, along with Anna Isaac of The News Minute and Arunabh Saikia of Scroll.in. As part of his daily show on the COVID-19 crisis, hosted by Scroll.in, Srinivasan hosts a … Continue reading
Posted in Op-eds, Scicomm
Tagged Anna Isaac, Arunabh Saikia, COVID-19, data journalism, Indian Council of Medical Research, Indian journalism, Irrfan Khan, mainstream media, novel coronavirus, pandemic, Rishi Kapoor, science journalism, Scroll.in, serological tests, Sree Srinivasan, The News Minute
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The journalist as expert
I recently turned down some requests for interviews because the topics of discussion in each case indicated that I would be treated as a scientist, not a science journalist (something that happened shortly after the Balakot airstrikes and the ASAT … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm, Science
Tagged COVID-19, expertise, experts, fourth estate, holism, journalism, science journalism, specialization, synthesis, temporary experts, virology
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