What Are We Worst at Covering?

So, I read a blog post whose prompt is this posts title, with We being journalists. I responded to the original post and I thought it would be nice to repost here.

As a side note, Kirstof is an amazing reporter. I usually love anything he writes and he often offers some great insights. Someone worth keeping up with.

The original article.

My comment:

“And public health is related to science, which traditionally has been a weakness in journalism, although coverage has improved dramatically over the last 25 years (and at the Times truly is splendid!).”

Being rather young, I can’t comment much on the improvement of science reporting over the past 25 years, but I can tell you that its definitely, in my opinion, easily the most underreported subject today. I don’t necessarily want to pick on the Times per se, but, other then when Swine Flu caused the big hysteria that it did, when was the last time a Science article made it to the frontpage?

In the above post you state that public health is journalisms biggest failing, and then you mention that most people don’t know what rotavirus is. I argue that public health policy, in terms of providing universal health coverage, is actually reported quite heavily (and rightly so), but that your specific example shows how poorly the science behind public health is snubbed.

Indeed, for something so important its suprising how little science reporting is emphasized in our biggest publications. Science has been solely responsible for our improved standards of living, which in turn has given us the luxury to treat eachother with the respect that human beings deserve. Civilization is a product of our science and I think you would be suprised how quickly it would disappear without our modern technological wonders.

I don’t want to be too harsh Mr. Kristof, because I think you do a beautiful job reporting on something else that is very much underrported as well, which is the plight of the developing world and the billions that live with proverty everyday. But even in this case, science holds the key to alleviating much of the suffering and pain that continues on this planet even today, in an age when it should have been eradicated long ago.

So please, I beg you and the Times, and other major publications, to grace your front pages with a science article or two a day. It has made so much possible for you and me and the rest of the civilized world and it can offer so much more.

Thanks.