Journal journalism

Back in the 1970s, one of the hot fields of biology was co-evolution. Biologists dwelt on how the symbiosis between organisms such as plants and insects helped drive their mutual evolution. Since the 1980s, science journals and science journalists have been undergoing a co-evolution of their own. Today, that relationship is driving much of the science coverage, as reporters unwittingly cede more and more judgment to the journal editors in exchange for easy stories. Here's how it evolved. In the early 1980s, science reporters would receive, in the mail, the abstracts from Science magazine and an advance copy of the New England Journal of Medicine. It was incumbent on the reporter to sift through the jargon, look for local angles, and dig out the gems that would make good reading, viewing or listening. But when Nature decided to stake a claim on the US market, it added an important innovation. Instead of simply sending out abstracts or advance copies, the editors of Nature started crafting clever synopses of the stories they thought would have popular appeal. This salesmanship worked and other journals followed suit. A classic example dates back to 1988. Science published a paper called “Changing the Identity of a tRNA by Introducing a G-U Wobble Pair near the 3' Acceptor End,” which journalists universally ignored. But a few weeks later, Cell published a similar paper. It was billed in the Cell press release as the “second genetic code,” and that story got prominent play, to the dismay of the slighted author of the Science paper. Science realized that it, too, needed to send out sexy lay-language teases of its contents to lure reporters. So it joined in the trend. Science still distributes abstracts of all its articles, but few reporters ever report on the also-rans that aren’t among the 12 or so articles chosen for special treatment. It’s obvious that this prepackaging works well (though the New England Journal of Medicine still gets plenty of ink without any digests or gimmicks). Wire service reporters are always on the lookout for something quick and easy to put out. So are local TV stations, which are a major source of news for Americans, and which may require a health/medicine/science reporter to find something to put on the air every single day.