Reporting on Science

[SquidDNA]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2437749.ece

This is about the worst science news item I have ever read. It is as if this was written by a 13 year old who wanted to make sure he got at least a C on it.

I am curious about the underlying causes of this phenomenon. I won't presume to say that science news reporting is universally bad, and it's also quite likely that I pay more attention to the quality of science news writing and I consequently notice that it's bad more often than I notice horrible news copy on other topics.

Most generally then: why is it that publishers allow stories like this to be run? Do they not know that it's bad or do they just not care? I have difficulty believing that it's a matter of saving money by hiring untalented writers.

[Rusty Nail]

An article full of one-liner paragraphs and unexplained claims to greatness? If anything like that was posted here be one of the members, it would be shot down in an instant due to it's poor quality and lack of supporting evidence or links explaining the relevance.

I take refuge in the knowledge that there are still semi-decent science reporters around and that I don't read the UK Sun.

[Ash]

Here is another fantastically well-researched and extraordinarily accurate article from the same publication!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/ufos/article2326671.ece

This all might have more to do with The Sun than with the state of reporting scientific news to the public.


As a general phenomenon, it's representative of the fact that, because learning science is a difficult process, only a small percentage of the general population know any serious science. Not only are editors less likely to see how an article is a load of garbage, the general readership probably won't either.

[Taiko]

I'm not sure if you're being completely fair. The article admittedly gives a very brief and basic outline of what the fossil discovery may mean. I'm not a paleontologists so I don't know the veracity of the claims being made. However, you would have to keep in mind the target audience, Joe and Jane Public, who are not in their fourth year of doing a post-grad degree, so to write a major thesis on the find as a news paper article would seem a little redundant.

I know there is a scale that is used in terms of the actual quality of writing so 1-7 scale is for a primary school level, and so on upwards until you reach the post-doc level. This article is in that 1-7 range. I agree with your sentiments, but it is a newspaper and not a journal. I think that the only benefit from such a article would be that it may attract the interests of the younger audience. As such, making science more assessable to children at the primary level is not such a bad thing is it?

[Zir]

The Sun is renowned for its ineptitude. This is a newspaper in which page 3 is dedicated to tits.

[Zwebbie]

Atrocious article published!

By Zwebbie
Published 20 May 2009

THIS 8-paragraph report from The Sun was bashed on an Internet forum.

The article - "Fossil is evolution's "missing link" - was not well received by the Relicnews community.

Posters say that the article is "as if this was written by a 13 year old who wanted to make sure he got at least a C on it."

Other forumers commented that The Sun "is renowned for its ineptitude."

Relicnews did not like the article.

Sir Zwebedeus J. Zwobber declared Shakespeare "would have been disgusted" to read the article.

[Bowkers]

The Sun, is, and yes I am going to insult a few people here, but hey ho, aimed primarily at the celeb-gossip guzzling people who care little for actual intelligent news. This isn't to say that the newspaper should be advocating this type of garbage which is written in this article, although, if you pick up The Sun on any day, it usually has either a footballer that has been doing drugs, or has been spotted with another celebrity. Usually a Page Three girl will be in each copy on a daily basis, and typical articles will usually, such as this, be basic, and, dare I say it, aimed at the unitelligent.

Conversely, whilst we are on the 'angry at media' thread, one thing I have become increasingly irritated by, is the frequent mistakes that are becoming more and more common, on the BBC website. It's little things, such as spelling, but one would have expected these guys have a little bit of education before they, in turn, try to educate us about the news. Perhaps its the modern masses that have been not educated in how to string sentences together, or perhaps it's a simple overreaction, however I don't see how, wanting the website being correctly spelt is an overreaction.

However, I really don't think The Sun really cares that much, so long as it continues to sell in high volumes, which it does. Joe Public will continue buying it, if only just for the football scores. Also, in your reply to if the editors know it's bad, my assumption would be no, and I would be immensely shocked and suprised if this turned out to be totally different.

Anyhow, The Sun is a notoriously bad paper, and sorry if I've offended people with my snobbery, but it is.

[JAL-18]

From what I've read and seen, the Sun seems to be the British equivalent of our National Enquirer, Squid.

[LoCo]

Actually ... People should stop blindly screaming "Duh! It's TheSun!" and start looking at the quality of the news all round.

This is not limited to science news, and it is quite possible that science news is only now just feeling the effects because it is an area that demands accuracy and as such has been able to stem the tide until now.

The problem is that reporters are not allowed/able to spend enough time on a story to be able to polish it and research it well because they have to constantly move on to the next story. If they fail to move on to the next story, the abysmal and free blog-news will get there before them which will eventually put them out of business.

Why pay for good reporting when you can get bad reporting free and fast? At the moment reporters have to at least be faster than the blog-news crowd so that people will pay to get it first/fast. The day they become slower is the day people stop paying. Hell, a lot of them are slower already.

The effect of this is what you see in the OP. Shoddy reporting trying very hard to be as simplistic as possible in as few words as possible but ultimately ending up being nothing but a collection of words on a page.

[NeCoHo]

Case and point Pravda articles in their Science section. I won't link it because months ago Squidy said he would ban me from #hw if I ever linked Pravda again, but go look it up if you care to face-palm you keyboard at terribly written articles about wonderful topics like "Russian man invents unbreakable locking device" and "Quantum transition to transform mankind in 2012."

[Lampshade111]

Well honestly, not many people care about such at thing which effects the quality of the article. I could hardly care any less about some monkey thing that may or may not be distantly related to us, and it's bones aren't going to effect us in anyway. Yet I could discuss the development of the F-35 for well over half an hour. Yet, articles on military tech are also rarely very detailed.

[Bowkers]

The problem is that reporters are not allowed/able to spend enough time on a story to be able to polish it and research it well because they have to constantly move on to the next story. If they fail to move on to the next story, the abysmal and free blog-news will get there before them which will eventually put them out of business.

So this problem is obviously widespread within the entire journalism world. I pick up The Mirror, for example, and it will be ten times better than what The Sun is. I used The Mirror as a similar example to The Sun, in that they are both tabloids. However, let's use the paper that I read, on a fairly frequent basis, The Times. The Times have fairly accurate articles, they are also fairly filled out and informative. Now I know it's not a good example to use, because the two papers, The Sun and The Times are two completely different papers, but if The Times can research information on an article, there is no reason why The Sun as a newspaper can't do the same.

I'll tell you why The Sun doesn't have good quality articles. It's because it's busy concocting stories about the various celebrities that it apparently saw in the High Street with a new hubby. This is the news that sells unfortunately.

So before we all claim that every newspaper is the same, bear in mind there are two different types; broadsheet and tabloid. Broadsheet, you obviously pay more for, but you generally get far superior journalism.

[DougyM]

Dear non Brits:

The Sun is not and never has been a serious newspaper....

Last week its first page was dedicated to a Rangers footballer who tried to mircrowave an egg... only for it to explode and cause him to have a minor burn.

Yes... in these troubling times of economic doom, terrorism and other wide ranging issues... The Sun decided that an incident that caused a Footballer to "call his mum and dad" was worthy of the front page.

[roflmao]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Missing-Link-Scientists-In-New-York-Unveil-Fossil-Of-Lemur-Monkey-Hailed-As-Mans-Earliest-Ancestor/Article/200905315284582?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15284582_Missing_Link:_Scientists_In_New_York_Unveil_Fossil_Of_Lemur_Monkey_Hailed_As_Mans_Earliest_Ancestor

[Noir]

I recently heard the Huffpo was pretty atrocious on their science and health sections...not that I think most people there would actually GO for those sections.

[Zir]

Well honestly, not many people care about such at thing which effects the quality of the article. I could hardly care any less about some monkey thing that may or may not be distantly related to us, and it's bones aren't going to effect us in anyway.

The Sun is for people who think like this. Why waste time researching for people to go "LOL a monkey thing"?

[Moe]

Why report it at all then?

[SquidDNA]

Moe has hit upon what bothers me most. If the paper thinks its readers won't understand a remotely informative article on the topic, why bother writing one at all?

I mean, all this article says is "A bunch of smart people are very excited about something, but it's all very complicated. Don't worry. Just thought you ought to know."

[DougyM]

Because it helps fill pages and gives the paper the ability to claim that it at least tries to cover events outside of what celebrity "forgot" to wear underwear while getting out of her car the previous night.

Whats the big problem?

Its not a proper paper, nobody reads it to actually learn about science, politics, the Economy or basicly anything serious.

Its like asking why the UK's "Loose Women" or the US's "The View" doesnt delve feet first into a completely serious investigation over global warming/Evolution/Quantum Theory etc. etc. etc.

This so called missing link find is relatively big news, and thats just how the gutter press have chosen to present it.


Im realy not seeing how this is something to be shocked about.

[NoneSuch]

I think people are missing the point. The article isn't trying to inform people of an interesting discovery, it's attempting to grab attention with a eye-catching title.

If it was "Fossil monkey found" or something like that no one would really bother reading it or atleast the average sun reader wouldn't. Yet if they make it sensational with bad science and claims with no evidence it's much more interesting. The reader then has something to discuss down the pub, with the other mums at the nursery or with fellow workers at mcdonalds. We've all heard it before, someone bringing up a subject they know little about but because they can remember a few things from a newspaper they talk as if they're an expert.

Complaining about The Sun not being mature or intelligent is like complaining that Science Weekly doesn't include enough Celeb stories about their sex lives. It's just not a newspaper for that sort of thing.

[CommodoreKitty]

Why do they let it run? Honestly I assume it has gotten to the point where news represented in such a terrible manner has become accepted or even the norm in some cases. If this is true, then it really would not make any sense to put any effort into an article if people are just going to skim it anyway. Given what I have heard about the Sun, it would seem like its readers would not have the attention to read a full-blown article anyway. This short and uninformative one may be all the average reader really cares to read into it. As for why they would put it there in the first place if that was the case, well, filler.

[Zir]

Because it helps fill pages and gives the paper the ability to claim that it at least tries to cover events outside of what celebrity "forgot" to wear underwear while getting out of her car the previous night.

Whats the big problem?

Its not a proper paper, nobody reads it to actually learn about science, politics, the Economy or basicly anything serious.

Its like asking why the UK's "Loose Women" or the US's "The View" doesnt delve feet first into a completely serious investigation over global warming/Evolution/Quantum Theory etc. etc. etc.

This so called missing link find is relatively big news, and thats just how the gutter press have chosen to present it.


Im realy not seeing how this is something to be shocked about.

The thing is neither Loose Women or The Sun are aware that they're not serious journalism. The Sun isn't "tongue in cheek", they're genuinely oblivious of the real world. They can't take anything seriously.

Loose Women tries to discuss important topics, but none of them have any interest in world events, so they throw together some attempt at sounding insightful and end up infuriating the viewer with a simplistic, ignorant, but oh so DRAMATIC opinion. And they're sexist too.

[tadamir]

I was under the impression that, in the UK at least, the more Red there is on the papers' front page, the less likely it is that the paper has anything actually factual to report in it, and the more likely it is you will find a lovely pair of jubblies somewhere around page 3?
Feels like accurate reporting and 'infotainment' crossed paths a while ago and spawned some unholy child.

[Mac_Bug]

I'm more impressed by the comments in the Sky news link

[NoneSuch]

I find the religious comments on that sky article to be mind-boggling and utterly strange. Don't get me wrong I have full respect for anyone who believes in god. But there's a huge difference between that and then those people who decide to ignore fact and babble on about how scientists are evil and darwin sucks.

I have no intention of triggering a religous debate and I must insist I'm not Insulting all people who believe in religion. Just that certain group who have to freak out everytime Evolution is mentioned.

[Mac_Bug]

but it's 10x more entertaining than this actual topic itself

[roflmao]

Why report it at all then?
Maybe because everyone else is reporting on it, so they feel the need to report on 'x subject no one cares about' themselves for credibility and prestige reasons? [If this is the case then] the irony is hilarious.

LOL..........THE WORLD WAS FLAT ONCE.............

[Surrealitycheck]

Yet I could discuss the development of the F-35 for well over half an hour. Yet, articles on military tech are also rarely very detailed.

That's a reason for NOT doing it, not doing it badly!

And yes, it is the sun but in general science reporting is utterly abominable. The basic truth is that unless you have a vaguely scientific education it's unlikely you'll educate yourself, whereas an interest in history and literature is much more common. The chances of finding a scientific musician are zero, but finding a musical scientist is very common...

[Pocktio]

I just get annoyed when they make these science articles and don't mention any science and any that is mentioned is so flawed as to be more akin to a cosmetics advert than proper science.

They should either NOT report them or a standards agency should be set up to stop such disgraces.

On the vague topic of cosmetics has anyone ever contacting them to explain themselves???

[Jake]

Because that particular publication is aimed squarely at an audience that has been so crippled by generation upon generation of crap schools, inept parenting and -arguably- bad genes to not know any better?

More generally, however, I have to say that the rise of instant communication has cut both ways here. TV reporters can bring Breaking News live from the scene of some crisis, so the print media tried playing catch-up by rushing to print something, anything as fast as possible at the expense of all else. It has only recently occurred to some of the brighter ones that maybe they should have tried playing to their strengths; playing the same thirty seconds of Handycam footage and babbling about what a terrible tragedy it all is whilst updating the casualty figures two or three at a time -even though it's spectacularly obvious that that number is going to go a lot higher- is rather a lot less useful than a long, detailed article explaining exactly what happened and how bad it was, and maybe offering some suggestions about how to prevent it happening as badly in future. How are you supposed to do any investigative reporting when you're expected to have an article typed up and ready to go inside 24 hours? Much easier to just rehash a press release, pad it out with some buzzwords and go on to your next piece.

Oh, and if there are any television news executives watching, here's some advice; if you have nothing new or informative to say about the day's Big News Story, just go on and do the rest of the day's news. Your viewers, particularly those with close kin at Ground Zero, will thank you for it.

[DougyM]

The thing is neither Loose Women or The Sun are aware that they're not serious journalism. The Sun isn't "tongue in cheek", they're genuinely oblivious of the real world. They can't take anything seriously.

Loose Women tries to discuss important topics, but none of them have any interest in world events, so they throw together some attempt at sounding insightful and end up infuriating the viewer with a simplistic, ignorant, but oh so DRAMATIC opinion. And they're sexist too.

Oh i completely agree...

But as long as the vast majority of people realise that the Sun or the Daily Record, Daily Star, The Sport etc.... are not pinnacles of objective reporting theres no real harm in it.

Besides, the number of times a retarded article in one of those papers has led to a interesting discussion down the pub or over lunch at work is quite high for me.

Random guy will quote a story he barely knows about: and if i know a bit more of the background to the story than what they have learned from the paper.... i enjoy enlightening them. (and vice versa).

[Harmanoff]

I won't presume to say that science news reporting is universally bad, and it's also quite likely that I pay more attention to the quality of science news writing and I consequently notice that it's bad more often than I notice horrible news copy on other topics.
I think you are right in that you notice the science articles more. I would say horrible news copy is absolutely rampant in todays world. There are plenty of 'free' ad-financed papers being thrown around on subways all over and plenty of sub-standard newspapers like The Sun and they all have writing on the 13-year old level. They generally get the majority of their content from news agencies, don't even bother researching and adding details to these items and hardly even rewrite what they get. The remaining few percent is usually one or two columns, too often by rookie journalists writing for free(empirical evidence on my side here.. can't say anything about the world outside stockholm) and then ads ads aaads.

In short, i don't think this is a problem with science reporting but reporting in general. You have to sort through alot of crap.

[edit] I give Zwebbies post my official approval! :murph:

[Colonel Temp]

It's the Sun. Don't expect a quality science report from them, it simply isn't what they do.
Here's a report on the same topic, but from the BBC. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8057465.stm) So I think that pretty much proves that not all Science reports in the media are bad. Though you can't expect an in depth analysis from a Tabloid newspaper that just wants to sell more papers.

[Kirjava]

Oh gods I hate tabloids. It's not just that the style is simplistic- which it is, as the Sun has been proven to have been written at the level of a fucking 12-year-old- but that there are basic linguistic errors in that. The beautifully preserved remains – dubbed Ida - is believed to be a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.Holy shit what did you learn at school and does your editor lack a functioning brain?!?

Meanwhile, there's two articles on the same topic in the Guardian, one of which goes into considerably more depth. Could one of our more SCIENCE!-inclined members have a quick glance over them and tell us if they're any better, from a SCIENCE! perspective?
The Ida Fossil at a Glance (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/fossil-ida-at-a-glance)
Extraordinary Find is 'Missing Link' in Human Evolution (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/ida-fossil-missing-link)

[SubZero]

The Sun is a light-hearted simplistic newspaper. It always has been and it most probably always will be.

It makes it's money by appealing to the stereotypically lower classes with common topics being sport, women and the odd humorous take on a news item.

It isn't the epitome British Newspaper nor does it see itself as that - but it has a massive fanbase.

[Gorb]

Loose Women tries to discuss important topics, but none of them have any interest in world events, so they throw together some attempt at sounding insightful and end up infuriating the viewer with a simplistic, ignorant, but oh so DRAMATIC opinion. And they're sexist too.Top Gear is also sexist. What's your point?

Apart from that, I agree 100%. I just thought the random comment about sexism was uncalled-for. It's a show for women, hosted by women who have been through a lot (insofar as TV personalities can "go through a lot"), whether it be bad marriages, bad nights out or whatever. You expect it to be nice and unbiased?

[Meatkin]

The Sun is written like it is on purpose. The people who write for the Sun are very very clever individuals, anyone who thinks they are stupid are sorely missing the point. They are in the business to sell newspapers, and meticulously target their audience as such. The way the story is written like that because if it was in depth like say, a broadsheet, then Sun reader would simply not read it.

[DougyM]

Top Gear is also sexist. What's your point?

Apart from that, I agree 100%. I just thought the random comment about sexism was uncalled-for. It's a show for women, hosted by women who have been through a lot (insofar as TV personalities can "go through a lot"), whether it be bad marriages, bad nights out or whatever. You expect it to be nice and unbiased?

Top Gears not sexist, its comicaly bigoted. And the hosts are playing up to the image of being a petrol head.

[chelovek_veliki]

As somebody who used to work in journalism (specifically foreign journalism), here is my opinion.

Journalists rarely know what they are talking about. This applies to journalists who work for almost all media outlets, not just tabloids. A journalism degree -- no offense meant to anybody who has one -- does not teach you the basics of what you are going to be writing about. It teaches you basic writing skills and how to make phone calls.

Moreover, most journalists are generalists with a heavy workload. For instance, here in Moscow, a foreign journalist working for the NYT or a similar paper may be expected to churn out 4-5 stories a week. One may be on the ballet. Another may be on business. Another may be on the Russian space program. There are tight deadlines on all these articles. The journalist likely has no knowledge about the ballet, business, or the space program, and has no time to obtain any (or likely interest in doing so). Instead, they make some phone calls to people who seem like they could give catchy quotes.

This is one reason why journalism is, in general, crap.

In fact, the roommate of the woman I am sort-of vaguely seeing is writing articles on the Russian economy for a very well-known and highly respected British periodical that shall remain nameless in this forum. She is TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD. Not that there is anything wrong with being twenty-two years old, but I don't think the readers of the very well-known and highly respected British periodical that shall remain nameless in this forum realize that the articles they are reading were written by a woman just out of university with no background in economics whatsoever.

[Octopus Rex]

Meatkin has it. They are not in the business of informing their readers, they are in the business of selling newspapers. They have naked breasts on the infamous Page 3 for a reason: it sells newspapers. (Topless models are often referred to as Page 3 Girls, here in blighty as page 3 is a time-honoured tradition) Notice that the top link in the "NEWS" section is JADE GOODY. :facepalm:

@Squid - Seriously, why does ropey science reporting rankle you quite so much? You must realise that, heartbreaking though it must be, a great many people simply do not give a shit about the details? They just want to go "ooooooh, shiny!" for five seconds and move on. If I were to kick off about every ignorant article about music that lacked any significant musical depth and analysis and consisted only of vague descriptors then I would've headbutted myself to death by now.

[Moe]

I think we need more people posting that the sun is not a serious newspaper. I don't think the first twenty times were enough.

People, please read the thread before you reply.

[Genome]

google even used it lol

http://www.google.co.uk/

but the second link after clicking the image seems more sensible about a skull found

[Zir]

Top Gear is also sexist. What's your point?

"Men are just stupid, LOL!"

Top Gear might be comically offensive towards everything but I don't recall them ever putting women down. The studio is full of them.

Loose Women seriously try to claim men fail at life and need female support. They don't seem to realise that the ones who enjoy their company probably aren't very bright. What I expect from equality-seeking feminists is, well...equality. They seem to just want to flip sexism the other way round.

[Maximus Awesome]

I don't get it. So the Sun reported on a monkey skeleton, big whoop. How does that correlate to evolution?

I have never read the Sun, but according to that article, it looks a lot like the World Weekly News. The Sun may be composed of bigot writers, so why even discuss what they write? That article made no sense about... whatever the hell they were talking about.

[NoneSuch]

I don't get it. So the Sun reported on a monkey skeleton, big whoop. How does that correlate to evolution?

I have never read the Sun, but according to that article, it looks a lot like the World Weekly News. The Sun may be composed of bigot writers, so why even discuss what they write? That article made no sense about... whatever the hell they were talking about.

The monkey has "nails" and a certain bone in the hand or somesuch which is similiar to the apes we evolved from. The problem is the media are reporting as if it was THE missing link which ties humans and apes together, while it's not. This "missing link" ties apes and lemur-like creatures together.

If you quickly skimmed an article in the sun you'd think we found some sort of half-ape, half-human missing link creature.

[Coey]

Just keep hammering away Maximus Awesome and you will hit the nail on the head eventually.

[Kirjava]

Hence the dilemma. Misreporting like this makes people think the wrong things. So... do we care whether the kind of people who read the Sun are fed partial information and half-truths or not?

[Wildhound]

The BBC article is the best I've read yet, despite having read some from dedicated science websites.

[Oh,John,no!]

I've read some of the comments on several of the newspages discussing this. SOme of them are just plain stupid, either "LOL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE DOLTS!" or "LOL CHARLES DARWIN IS SPAWN OF SATANZ!" Neither of which I get. Why post arguments like that if you can't provide evidence?

The problem is that the Sun did just that, they didn't preovide any evidence. Proving that it's aimed at people of lower intelligence. However, I don't understand why people hate it for this. If you don't like the sun or its reporting style, simply don't buy it and read another article on the same topic in a different mag. I apologize for the simplification, but it's worked before. :)

[Jhesam]

This little comic (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174) made me chuckle a little last night when posted by a friend working in London. It just so happens to be relevant to this thread despite it's nature.

[Mantaray]

has anyone pointed out to Squiddy that this is 'The Sun' were talking about?
its the nearest thing Britain has to a tabloid daily porn mag... (page six yes, we are accusing you)

i wouldn't trust anything written in the sun any further then if some random guy with a beard came to my door and asked me to believe he was Jesus.

does not suprise me as to the lack of depth... and lemur monkey? please...

EDIT:

what i forgot to post was that the article itself was actualy on the 12th page of the sun today, in the middle where people dont read... this fills up the 'bit between the tits and the football results'

this is the answer to squids question, as i believe the article was to fill space with a picture and some words, not because they care about what there saying, and if they did then it does have to be readable by the average pervert who might have opened the paper in the middle accidentally and got interested by a pic of some skeleton.

[LoCo]

Oh,John,no!: Part of the reason for the "hate" is that there are a lot of people out there that could contribute more to the race as a whole if only they were educated. Things like TheSun go against the idea of educating people, and that takes away a large group of people who could benefit the world.

And in a more wistful way, it could be seen that TheSun and things like it have supported the non-education of people and in so doing have crushed many of the people who could have helped us develop those all too important future defining items: One piece suits coloured to describe your job, flying cars, space stations, space elevator, replicators, world peace, cure to world hunger, end to poverty, etc.

While the people affected by things like TheSun may not be completely responsible for those things, it is possible that some of them would/could have contributed to them.

It is for this that people "hate" TheSun and things like it. It takes away the potential, and leaves gibbering idiots. It is a burden on the world, a blight.

[Flagg]

A lot of you guys must live outside of the UK. The Sun has NEVER BEEN ABOUT NEWS. Its all about Page 3, baby. Type in The Sun and Page 3 into Google and all will become apparant...

I read that article today in The Guardian.

[Pocktio]

Precisely Flagg. That's why it shouldn't try and report real news because it butchers it and furthers the ignorance in the lower classes. It should just stick to it's mindless celebriity worship and leave the real news to actual newspapers.

[Ifitmovesnukeit]

Top Gear might be comically offensive towards everything but I don't recall them ever putting women down. The studio is full of them.

Not to drag this too far off topic, but if you apply for tickets to attend a Top Gear recording they insist that your party is at least 50% female. :p

[Starfisher]

Read the thread before commenting on the Sun, please. This is getting comically tragic.

Squid: Some rays of hope (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1900057,00.html) in science reporting poke through the clouds on occasion.

[Octopus Rex]

Pocktio: surely not including it at all will further their ignorance even more? Should the Sun even include titties if it isn't going to include full gash? I mean, if you're going to do a job then...

[Kirjava]

Ugh. Gash. What a horrible word for it.

[NoneSuch]

There's a bunch of self-proclaimed intellectuals here I see who just love to insult "lower classes" with broad sweeping statements about ignorance and stupidity. I find such comments ignorant themselves.

An article in the sun isn't going to "increase education" that's what school, college, uni, wikipedia and such is for. People don't want to "learn" when they're reading the sun, they want to be entertained. It's like claiming that anyone who plays a computer game is ignorant because games aren't designed to increase education but merely for cheap entertainment.

Making absoloutly absurd claims as if the Sun is responsible for people being dumb or not "contributing" to making flying cars is silly. Plenty of intelligent people read The sun for entertainment, much like how plenty of intelligent people play Mad world for the Wii or mindless FPS games. Stop insulting The Sun for not doing something it was NEVER trying to do in the first place.

If people want to "learn" or be "educated" they can pick up the actual serioues newspapers.

[Wildhound]

Insulting the readership aside, if you're going to claim it is just for an entertaining read, then the point still stands. Why bother reporting on science? There's nothing entertaining about this article, it's watered down to pointlessness. It has no informative or entertainment value, and amounts to little more than a poor filler.

[Kirjava]

Indeed. If you're going to pass yourself off as a newspaper, then the word 'news' is pretty integral. Either report the news properly or fuck off and be a gossip magazine for people too stupid to know any better.

[NoneSuch]

Insulting the readership aside, if you're going to claim it is just for an entertaining read, then the point still stands. Why bother reporting on science? There's nothing entertaining about this article, it's watered down to pointlessness. It has no informative or entertainment value, and amounts to little more than a poor filler.

That's it. It's just filler and it's relatively big news so why wouldn't they report on it? People will read it and then have something to talk about. It might not be factual but it's obviously going to be something which will interest people and it fills up a page.

The thing is people just don't really care that much about things like that. For the most part it's not important to the average person has it has no impact on them. In the perfect world they should of dedicated more time to the article and actually informed the readers about the discovery.

But like I mentioned before the people buying the sun aren't buying it to read about new scientific discoveries. I know that doesn't really answer why they included it but it's not like they couldn't of put it in considering all the other newspapers would be doing an article on it to.

[Moe]

No, that argument is unsound. If they wanted to be like all the other papers they'd hire someone who can user proper grammar and they wouldn't have titties on page six or whatever it is.

[NoneSuch]

No, that argument is unsound. If they wanted to be like all the other papers they'd hire someone who can user proper grammar and they wouldn't have titties on page six or whatever it is.

I never said they were trying to be "like" the other newspapers. They simply can't afford not to cover a story other papers are covering, or they could lose out to competition or be seen as not covering as much stuff as the others. Not mentioning the fact the other newspapers are almost if not equally as bad as the sun usually.

[Moe]

"Not mentioning the fact" followed by the fact is in fact mentioning the fact. Ahem. With that out of the way, how could they possibly lose out? You said they provide entertainment and they're not trying to do "serious" news for lack of a better word. People buying the sun, according to you, do not expect these things from that particular publication. So why is it that they can't afford not to cover a story that by your own admission their target audience isn't interested in anyways?

[NoneSuch]

You're overcomplicating this. It's simple, There's a big scientific discovery which makes it in to the news. The sun being a non-scientific newspaper with porn on page 3 and mostly trashy celeb stories covers it because it's a big story but as expected they leave out the facts and indepth info.

Their audience isn't interested in anything deeper than that. It doesn't mean they won't read a filler article which has bad science and is relatively dumbed down to make it more sensational. If they didn't include this article they probably wouldn't of lost anything. But at the end of the day they aren't losing anything for including it iether.

Oh and I can't believe you've never heard anyone use the phrase "not to mention" before.

[Octopus Rex]

God forbid a newspaper shouldn't treat your chosen discipline topic with the same diligence and reverence you yourself do. Seriously guys, what is all the fuss about?

[Wildhound]

"Not mentioning the fact" followed by the fact is in fact mentioning the fact.

Yeah to be fair, you get -1 MoeIsAlwaysRight Points for being unnecessarily obtuse. ;)

[Moe]

The sun being a non-scientific newspaper with porn on page 3 and mostly trashy celeb stories covers it because it's a big story but as expected they leave out the facts and indepth info.People don't want to "learn" when they're reading the sun, they want to be entertained. The thing is people just don't really care that much about things like that.For the most part it's not important to the average person has it has no impact on them.

It's a big story that people are interested in, and people don't give a shit. I don't understand how that works.

[Black]

I think what he means is that people want to know about it, but don't really care about the details.

[Mantaray]

Quote:
The sun being a non-scientific newspaper with porn on page 3 and mostly trashy celeb stories covers it because it's a big story but as expected they leave out the facts and indepth info.
Quote:
People don't want to "learn" when they're reading the sun, they want to be entertained.
Quote:
The thing is people just don't really care that much about things like that.For the most part it's not important to the average person has it has no impact on them.


It's a big story that people are interested in, and people don't give a shit. I don't understand how that works.

i think he was over generalising. i believe by 'people' he meant 'sun readers'
the fact that we have seen very little defence in this thread by forumites that seriously buy and read the paper (if they exist) says something about the audience the sun is attuned to.

i believe the story is put there for the average person/sun reader with more of a blossoming peanut of a brain who might be interested in actual news. if people really cared that much they (like us) would scourge the internet for more detail.

[NoneSuch]

I think what he means is that people want to know about it, but don't really care about the details.

Yup that about sums it up. Sorry for not being more specefic.

I don't actually like the Sun, I dislike most tabloid newspapers and sadly I find things like the guardian boring so I only ever bother reading newspapers when I find them on the train or someone in the house buys one. I just didn't like how a bunch of people were just out-right insulting everyone who reads the sun by calling them lowerclass idiots and such.

[Moe]

That's not my point. It's not about the details, it's about misreporting. I'm fairly sure that nobody minds when newspapers report only a condensed version - they are after all not scientific journals. It becomes a problem when the guy writing the article obviously lacks even a basic grasp of both the subject and elementary rules of grammar.

[Black]

Perhaps it was bring your child to work day.

[Rusty Nail]

It becomes a problem when the guy writing the article obviously lacks even a basic grasp of both the subject and elementary rules of grammar.Perhaps it was "bring your child to work" day?
Speculation aside, your issue with this subject is not aimed at the quality of articles that report on scientific news, but more against the quality of the work from this particular writer, which makes this avenue of argument veering off-topic to the presented issue of scientific news being poorly presented to the masses.
If this is the extent of the problem, I'll happily go back to reading the New Scientist and ignore the dismal english skills of someone who works for a publication that presents topless models on page 3.

EDIT:
Black ninja'd my "bring your child to work" day crack

[Moe]

I have nothing against topless models on page three, in fact I think there should be more topless models everywhere. The problem is that the Sun's staff seems to be composed mainly of people with the aforementioned lack of expertise.

[CommodoreKitty]

This all assumes that The Sun Either is solely built around the idea of providing information, or solely around providing entertainment. But it is actually quite easy for the paper to do both at the same time, as crazy as that sounds. Its primary purpose could be to entertain, while at the same time "educating" (or more properly telling the people that such and such has happened. That article doesn't strike me as the type of thing that was meant to inform as much as tell people that A Cool Thing just happened) people on important or popular issues. It is hardly exclusionary.

As for the quality of the article itself, that is an issue with that particular Writer moreso than the industry as a whole. And even if this was a chronic problem on all of the entertainment education papers, it still would not truly reflect the quality of science articles as a whole. Again, The Sun is not primarily concerned with explain scientific information, but a Science journal would be. Now, if the quality of science journals, or serious papers, was going down, than there would be a case for the overall quality of information decreasing. But as it stands, the misinformation is contained within the joke papers, so it really is not reflective of the issue as a whole, and really falls under the misrepresentation of information in general by the media rather than something specific to science. I can guarantee that you will find fifty poorly written article on major current events for that one article on science.

[Octopus Rex]

I think all this entertainment/information thing is irrelevant and people are tying themselves up in semantics knots with it.

I'm going to expand on Kitty's last couple of sentences here: ALL the articles are like this in the Sun, poorly written, poorly researched and generally very lazy etc., it's not just the science articles. I can see why someone would have a problem with a paper like that existing/what effect does it have on its reader, but singling out one category/topic as if it's receiving a greater injustice than the other just seems pointless, because that's really not the case. This is not an issue of science reporting, but one of tabloid reporting in general.

[Harmanoff]

As has been stated many times already, just like there have been numerous (ignored) requests to not get hung up on the sun.

Maybe its time we get more examples on poor science reporting so we can see just how widespread it is. Anyone?

[Kroggy]

Just about every headline with the Study finds X causes/prevents cancer format.

[boolybooly]

Nice photo though, really is a lovely specimen, it has that tail in line with the spine which gives it a vaguely reptilian quality. You can see from that how its ancestors might once have been lizards and from the hands and feet how it is adapting to tree life and its descendants might easily become apes.

I have a friend who studies Lorisidae (http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Lorisidae&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi). They are just so cute and adorable.

I think what is remarkable about this story in the Sun is that they printed it at all. Science is not their usual interest, more normally sex scandals, heinous crimes and football. If it makes the sun then it shows evolution is for every man not just the preserve of privileged toffs any more ;)