Monday, September 12, 2005

Science Reporting

Journalism is a lot like the federal government. Instapundit gives one example of this. Science coverage is almost uniformly awful, because the journalists have less of clue than the readers or researchers. Often research is misrepresented in a way that is dangerous and foolhardy. But this par for the course.

Have you ever seen a person happy about a story they were personally involved in? I haven't. Quotes are mangled. Truth is stretched to fit the writer's premise. But somehow when the story isn't about us or something we know about, we assume that the press got it right. At some point I realized this was stupid and I stopped paying attention to them. If they're getting everything I know about wrong, chances are they are getting everything else wrong too, I'm just not informed enough to realize it. This is also why I stopped reading Consumer Reports and switched to consumer review websites instead.

How is this similar to the federal government? Have you ever seen someone who wanted more federal intrusion into their business? Everyone complains about the Fed taking our money and us not seeing a dime. But when it comes to someone else's business, one we know little about, then more regulation is suddenly better. I wish people would just wizen up and shut their traps sometimes and Hollywood is a prime example. Nobody in Hollywood wants the government to get involved in rating the content they produce, yet when it comes to someone else's products they're full of opinions.

No comments: