In recent years, as newspapers have severely downsized and/or gone under, much of the concern has focused on investigative reporting. But the call to action has been taken up by numerous foundations and individual donors, who have helped launch well-funded and well-staffed new media outlets, such as Pro Publica. There appears to be no such equivalent call to action for science journalism. As NYT science writer Natalie Angier said recently to Poynter about her profession:
It's basically going out of existence.
To which Tom Yulsman dryly notes,
This isn't exactly breaking news.
And which leads me to wonder again why science journalists aren't rising to the challenge and making a case for their own Pro Publica's. Let's not sit around and bemoan what's lost. The denuded newspaper landscape is going to become more barren and forlorn in years to come. Magazines like Discover and Scientific American can only plug so many holes, and in any case, they are a different beast than a newspaper, which traditionally has provided regular "beat" coverage of science. So there's this tremendous need for new outlets to spawn a new era of science journalism. Yet, I'm not aware of any pioneering new media initiatives that are filling the science journalism vacuum, much less a groundswell of concern for the profession. In that same Poynter article, Mariette DiChristina, Scientific American's editor-in-chief, says:
It behooves us in science journalism to make it clear to readers why science matters to them.
Absolutely, but if science journalism as a "beat" is withering because of continuing newspaper cutbacks, which is obviously the case, then it also behooves science journalists to convince funders and other institutions (such as universities) to help rescusitate it--on the web.
