We are pleased to announce that a recent co-authored article we wrote has been chosen to appear in The Best American Science Writing 2010, edited by the New Yorker's Jerome Groopman and Jesse Cohen. Our piece, entitled Unpopular Science, originally ran in The Nation last July. It was our documentation of the death of science journalism, and the failure of science on the web to fill the gap, and we are honored to have it featured among the year's collected essays. Here's an excerpt:
In light of the media upheaval, scientists can no longer assume that a responsible, high-minded press will treat their ideas with the seriousness they deserve, delivering them to policy-makers and the public for sober consideration. Instead, partisan media will convey diametrically opposed versions of where science actually stands on any contentious subject--consider, for example, the difference between how Fox News and NPR cover climate change--even as most of the public (and many policy-makers) will tune out science more or less completely, besieged by other information options. That's the media reality we live with, and facing it head-on is necessary not only for scientists but for everyone who cares about the impact of science and good information on public policy. We must stop assuming today's media will dutifully carry the best and most reliable knowledge to policy-makers and the American public. Rather, it falls to us to shift gears and carry that knowledge to the entirety of the remaining media, and well beyond. In the latter endeavor, we may have to create media of our own.
The 2010 anthology arrives in September and you can pre-order your copy through Amazon here.
