Slaves to journals, serfs to the web: The use of the internet in newsgathering among European science journalists

Abstract

This article describes the first survey of European science journalists working for general national print media and news agencies in 14 different countries of the European Union. The survey was carried out through the internet and calls for participation were sent to 208 journalists from 102 different media. Answers were received from 97 science journalists, a response rate of 46.6 percent. After the survey, interviews with 12 of the respondents were conducted. The main conclusion is that not only are science journalists becoming more dependent on scientific journals in their daily reporting, they are also spending a lot of time on the internet – 3.5 hours a day, on average – an activity that increases the concentration on breaking news and prevents them from going outside the newsroom to write more feature stories. In consequence, readers are receiving a distorted image of science as a series of ‘discoveries’ or ‘breakthroughs’, distant from the real daily world of scientists and the scientific process. This dependency on the internet, and on ‘ready-to-write’ press releases from scientific journals, is threatening science journalism, as professionals are controlled by the same embargoes, are using the same sources and visiting the same sites, no matter what country they are working in. This loss of information diversity is a consequence of the introduction of the internet in newsrooms, but also a result of the increasing media awareness of science sources.

Science journalism: the standardisation of information from the press to the internet

“…A study by Granado [2011] -which collects the responses of 208 science journalists from 102 printed journals and agencies in 14 countries of the European Union -concludes that the majority of professionals in this area confess they are "slaves" to high-impact journals.…”

“…However, this type of analysis is interesting to establish whether the new Web 2.0 instruments will facilitate the production of 'original reportages' that we mentioned in the previous paragraphs. The published scientific literature has not reviewed these issues, which should be subjected to future research, although some studies mainly focused on the change in the access to sources [Curtin and Rhodenbaugh, 2001;Gans, 2010;Hu and Sundar, 2010;Granado, 2011] have given a clue about the future of science journalism in these new media.…”

“…Journalists look for news without leaving the editorial office [Granado, 2011]. In fact, according to a study by this author and based on interviews with science journalists, professionals specialising in this area spend an average of 2 to 3 hours daily browsing the Internet, and they emphasise that this channel has facilitated direct contact with scientists, the expansion of information and the access to documents that were previously unavailable.…”

“…The emergence of the Internet and its impact on science journalism is a new subject of study for scholars who focus on issues such as the standardisation of information [Granado, 2011], the difficulty to study the impact of science coverage onto the general public through a medium which carries content that is easily modifiable [Riesch, 2011], or the interaction with the audiences and its role in the overall representation of science [Brossard and Schefeule, 2013].…”

Tratamiento de la información científica en las ediciones digitales de los periódicos españoles

“…En un análisis basado en entrevistas a periodistas científicos (Granado, 2011) éstos afirmaban que internet ha facilitado el contacto directo con los científicos, la ampliación de la información y el acceso a documentos que antes no estaban disponibles, pero también ha incrementado la dependencia de las revistas de impacto y de las notas de prensa de los centros de investigación. La información científica es ahora menos diversa y más homogénea que antes debido a la concentración de los periodistas científicos en unas cuantas fuentes.…”