I'm too lazy to have summarized my talk at AAAS from last Friday--but Cristine Russell, who was also on the panel, has written it up for CJR. Thanks! Here's what I said, she says:
Surprisingly, it was the prolific Chris Mooney, the youngest panelist and a prominent member of the new generation of science bloggers, who was the most wary of the future. Mooney, 31, who runs The Intersection in addition to writing magazine pieces and three books, admitted that he sounded like the “old man” of the group, contending that the other panelists were “way over-optimistic.” Mooney said that the consequences of the “dismal and disturbing” cutbacks in traditional mainstream science journalism “are pretty disastrous” and warned against putting too much stock in the online world. “Does the new media offer any real salvation?” asked Mooney. “It’s a Wild West out there. … I fail to see how it replaces what is being lost.” He noted that while “science blogs are booming,” there is a lot of competition in the blogosphere from commentators who promote the anti-evolution, anti-global warming, anti-vaccine mindset. “Polemics are more important than accuracy,” said Mooney, and the biggest problem is that people tend to go online looking for things that reinforce their own point of view. “There is a lot of back scratching,” said Mooney, who will spend the next year in Cambridge as part of the new crop of MIT Knight Science Journalism fellows announced this week. Alas, he added, there is also “no money in blogging” at present.
All of which is completely accurate--although if I said "no money," I didn't mean it literally. There is some money in blogging, and some careers are being made. But if you compare the institutional science journalism careers that are being wiped out right now to what blogging gives back in career opportunities--by which I mean, providing enough stability to allow people to raise families and maybe even have a retirement--then it isn't remotely parallel or comparable. I'll stand by that, young curmudgeon that I am.
