Science faces amputation

In a time of recession managers often have to make necessary budget cuts but at what cost? CNN argues that the science unit is redundant but what do you think? Would you cut the department and the anchor?



New York Times
December 4, 2008, 10:34 am — Updated: 11:25 am -->
Science Journalism Implosion, CNN and Beyond
By Andrew C. Revkin
CNN is firing science correspondent Miles O’Brien and six producers. (Credit: CNN)
CNN is eliminating its seven-person unit covering science, the environment, and technology, saying its “Planet in Peril” programs do the trick. Curtis Brainard, who assesses environmental coverage for the Columbia Journalism Review online, in a comprehensive piece on the move, said: “[T]he decision to eliminate the positions seems particularly misguided at a time when world events would seem to warrant expanding science and environmental staff.”
Of course, the situation at CNN is hardly isolated. Newspaper coverage of science outside of health and wellness is steadily eroding. Even here at The Times, where the Science Times section celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2003 and management has always supported strong science coverage, we (like everyone in print media) are doing ever more with less.
At CNN, among those leaving will be Peter Dykstra, a seasoned producer focused on science and the environment, and Miles O’Brien, a longtime CNN reporter and former morning news anchor, who I got to know when he turned to climate coverage in a big way several years ago. (See his spicy interview with Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who challenges dire climate projections.)
Just in case you think this is a new trend, consider this flashback to the 1980’s, which shows how the public-service aspect of journalism — sustaining coverage of important arenas even if it does not “sell” — is a hard fit in a world focused on the bottom line:
In the mid 1980’s, early in my science-writing career, I was hired by the Los Angeles Times to be one of the first reporters for a planned weekly science section like the established Science Times of The New York Times. While things were getting set up, I was assigned a slot in the San Fernando Valley, reporting on everything from gasoline in the groundwater to a days-long hunt for Martina Navratilova’s lost dogs. Before my first year was up, the section was canceled.
I was told by management that the paper’s business side made the case that it was selling personal-computer ads in the sports section, so why did it need a science section? I moved back east to be an editor at Discover Magazine (and shortly afterward wrote my first long story on global warming).
It turns out that the Los Angeles Times’ move back then was just an early-stages hint of the shrinkage of science journalism to come, in all markets and media. My sense is that while it’s easy to blame pencil-pushing accountants for all of this, it’s also worth examining how we teach science and engineering (and new generations of media consumers).
One reason I aimed my third book on the environment (co-published by The Times) at younger readers was in hopes that it might kindle a bit of excitement in science as a journey and adventure, and not a static set of facts. My guess is that until a new generation is engaged in the importance and possibilities of science from the bottom up, science journalists will remain a threatened, if not endangered, species. What do you think?