Name:Heather Country:United States Birthday:3/4/1986 Gender:Female
Interests:writing, reading, science, Mary Kay, my family, and my friends Expertise:grammar : ) Occupation:Catoosa County News Reporter Industry:Biology, English, journalism
A student at Ireland's University College Dublin added a quote that he made up to Oscar-winning composer Maurice Jarre: "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear."
And apparently it started turning up in newspapers. Blogs and such picking it up would be expected, but newspapers?
From the article on Ars Technica by John Timmer:
Of course, it shouldn't be a surprise that journalists use Wikipedia as part of their research—especially in this case, as Jarre's entry comes out on top of the heap in a Google search for his name. However, the discovery that so many of the writers apparently failed to find an additional source on that quote comes at a rather awkward time for journalists in traditional media, who are facing a struggle to stay above water as the newspaper industry is sinking and the line between traditional journalism and casual reporting gets ever blurrier.
A key part of the argument for maintaining traditional journalism is that its trained reporters can perform research and investigations that the untrained masses can't, and the content they produce is run by editors and fact-checkers. The revelation that their research is often no more sophisticated than an average Web surfer's, and that the fact checking can be nonexistent, really doesn't help that argument much.
My first thought is maybe the reason journalists are turning to shortcuts is because there aren't enough of us around to do our jobs correctly. Deadlines and due dates make for shoddy work if you wait until the last minute .Maybe the problem is that journalists have gotten lazy or disillusioned by the fact that their jobs are hanging over the edge of cliff, and they're just waiting for the moment it falls. Or because they are too stressed out because paying their bills has become difficult with all the pay cuts.
Not that I'm excusing them because he's right: who will do a journalist's job if the journalist himself won't? Of course maybe some of the reason why newspapers are dying is because we don't have that many real journalists left.
For anyone who's interested, I'm not real worried about my corner of the newspaper industry. The Catoosa County News will be around as long as News Publishing stays afloat. We're not in the middle of a big city; things move more slowly 'round here. There are too many people who love their newspaper and don't look at a website. In the time that I need this job to survive, it's not going anywhere, though it's not going to pay well.
I am not a political person, and this is not meant to be a blog about politics. I find politics boring, complicated, and impossible. So I just kind of ignore them usually.
But Obama's gotten my attention lately with new policies about scientific research (specifically stem cells) and scientific integrity. He just generally seems to have an interest. Which is pretty awesome to someone who thinks science is cool and who has the desire to communicate scientific knowledge to everyone.
"Obama's decision to enunciate a policy on scientific integrity is partially a direct outgrowth of the previous administration's policy on human stem cells, which was sold in part based on a justification that rested on inaccurate scientific claims. Many scientists considered this part of a pattern in which science was misrepresented if an accurate portrayal would have conflicted with policy decisions, and scientific expertise was secondary to ideology in many scientific appointments."
Wasn't aware of this little issue. Makes sense though. Like I said-- not political.
"The OTSP has responded by giving each principle its own page on the OTSP blog, and allowing the public to post comments, while voting the comments of others up or down....it's an interesting attempt to obtain the public's input using a medium that the public's actually using."
Awesome. Yay for the Internet.
"Earlier this week, Obama gave a speech at the National Academies of Science in which he announced the general goal of having the US devote three percent of its GDP to research and development. That would be a greater percentage than at the height of the space race."
Again, so cool. I wonder what good will come of this new interest in science. I wonder what bad will come too, but such is science-- it's objective without results restrained by morals. Which is the point.
"But the most striking thing about speech (to me, at least) was Obama's emphasis on attracting more students to the science and technology education track. 'I'm going to participate in a public awareness and outreach campaign to encourage students to consider careers in science and mathematics and engineering,' Obama said, 'because our future depends on it.' "
Yay. Maybe more geeks like me will come out of the woodwork.
I’m going to get on a short soap box now…. Just a warning.
I am a young reporter—young in age and young in the business—so maybe I shouldn’t be talking, but I get aggravated at the news stations around here (and I can say that because I don’t know even of the reporters). They write so …. different than a newspaper—and I don’t think it’s a good different. I read the articles that the competition writes, including the TV stations.
The TV stations’ articles always sound sensationalized and overdramatic. They don’t even sound like an article. (Hmmm, I guess they sound like TV.) But in any case, they never sound like my articles. They don’t necessarily get the facts wrong; they just play them up and make them sound more exciting than they are. I mean, whatever happened to being unbiased and objective?
And I’m not the only one who thinks it. From fanboy.com:
These days to be an anchor on one of the three news networks gives you the audience of a rock star. More and more the field becomes less about breaking news and more about personality and opinion — and that’s the beginning of their end. While various tech pundits write sermons about the demise of newspapers due to the net, the real story that everyone is missing is that cable news networks are slowing having nothing to do with actual news.
Of course this shouldn’t be too shocking in the world of cable — after all it’s a rare day when MTV plays a music video. But at some point last year with the tragedy of Mumbai the internet via Twitter started to become the place where news would break first. At first it was unusual, but these days I’d be surprised if I found out about a story first by watching television. And what’s interesting is that where once upon a time I’d look at CNN’s website I no longer go there — in fact ironically I find myself looking at newspaper sites much more when I want a detailed analysis of a story…
….That’s why this Larry King vs. Ashton Kutcher Twitter race for the most Twitter followers is so morbid — what we’re watching is the start of televised news taking its place as a secondary medium. Don’t get me wrong CNN isn’t going off the air for quite a few years, but when that event does happen (most likely when Gen Y hits their peak of buying power) we’ll look back at time as a key turning point. What CNN isn’t getting in this race is that the more users they gain on Twitter — the more it helps Twitter to become the next CNN.
What I’m wondering is if any of the media we have now will last. Don’t answer that.
Anyway, TV stations are feeling the change in the times as much as newspapers are—just more slowly. And it’s encouraging that some people are beginning to see what the world will lose when newspapers die: journalism.
Where do students go when they want something done in their school system? Not to the principal, or the superintendent. To the newspaper.
There’s power in information. And reporters hold it in flying fingers on a keyboard and scratchy, muffled files on a recorder and terrible handwriting in a notepad.
This excerpt also makes me wonder what’s so great about Twitter. Maybe I just haven’t looked at it enough to become addicted.
Which leads me into a totally different subject. I’ve talked to Don about this a lot. At some point in the semi-near future all of the social networking sites, like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace are going to combine. Honestly, I can’t wait. I feel like I’m missing things because there are different things going on on different sites. Some of my friends are on Facebook and some are on MySpace. And I wish there were a way I could combine them to keep in contact with everything.
I had been duplicating everything on Facebook and MySpace, but that stopped because it’s tedious and time-consuming, and just generally annoying and frustrating. So now my MySpace status reads: Heather thinks you should get on Facebook if you want to talk to her.
So imagine you're coming home from work, and you've got the latest results from your research about psychiatric disorders and your primate test subjects on the brain. (Haha, totally didn't do that on purpose).
And suddenly, you notice someone has torched your car.
Is your first thought, "OMG, I will never use primates in research again!! I must cleanse myself of this terrible sin in the fire made by the morally and politically righteous!"
Nope. It's probably more along the lines of "Is my family okay?" Then "WTF?"
It always bothers me when people protest against violence with more violence. In what parallel universe does that make sense?
Apparently this latest act against researcher using animals as test subjects is a part of a string of violence (look at the third paragraph).
So now that begs the question of what do you think? Do you think we shouldn't use animals in research? It's a big topic for scientists, especially animal-loving scientists like myself. (Wait-- did I just call myself a scientist?)
To me, it's inevitable. If you have the choice between experimenting on animals and on people, then you choose the animals. But be nice to the animals. Feed them, water them, shelter them. Don't treat them like garbage. They're not, and they're not just tools either. There's a certain amount of dignity that needs to go with experimental research-- bc of the noble goals of the research. If we're trying to help humanity by curing cancer, etc. then we need to treat the animals and employee who make that possible with respect.
Isn't it the job of sentient beings to go beyond the survival-of-the-fittest-attitude of the jungle and bring in mercy and justice and love?
Of course I'm sure some would say that if you're a sentient being, then you'd respect the animals by not doing tests on them.
Well, if you don't test on animals, are you going to do tests on people? We want to make advances in medical care, right? Someone's gotta be tested. And well, animals seem the lesser of two evils.
These are the arguments that run through my head. How 'bout yours?
The second one is a fairly lengthy article, but it has a lot of good things to say. And so does the first one. They mimic each other really.
With science units being cut, the science journalists who are left are going to have to rely-- because of the volume of work--on press releases written by the very people who the press releases are about. That bothers me a bit. I mean, let's be biased.
Of course, that's where blogs come in. Here's a medium where you can say whatever you about whatever you want. And people read it. (Or at least you hope they do.) Of course then the scientists who are doing the research are writing the blogs and you're back to the same problem.
Now we see one of the reasons that science writers are useful to society.
The good thing about blogs, as Robert Lee Hotz, a science journalist for The Wall Street Journal, is that we're in a "golden age" of science communication. Because there are so blogs and specified websites, there's a lot of information. This makes me happy. I like to know that information about science is out there and is being read.
On the other hand, since the MSM (hehe) is cutting out the science and technology units, then there's not going to be as much science in the news-- the regular news that everyone sees, hears, watches, etc.
Since the entire point of wanting to be a science writer is to communicate to people who don't necessarily like science, that hurts my soul.
Bascially, it means that only the people who care will seek out the information.
And where does the problem come from? Money, of course.
Science doesn't make money for a newspaper. Plus, they think, "Well, since there's so many blogs around and special sites for sites, then why should we be paying people to be doing the work?"
Does anyone else find that a little circular? It's like the science units are being cut because someone else will do the work and because they're being cut someone else is doing work.
Oh and what's up with Europe's science journalists not having as hard of a time as ours? That'll take more research, or possibly Don explaining it to me. : )
------ Things I've figured out after two blog entries:
The reason you blog is bc you get to write about something you care about and are passionate about. Yay.
The reason you don't is bc it takes the most precious commodity on the planet-- time.
