Science Press Releases

Sometimes I feel for the fellows working the Science press racket. They have to distill the complicated nature of research science into a tidbit that the mainstream media will be able to digest and regurgitate into yet another tidbit.

But sometimes I am annoyed. I feel the words "strange", "mysterious", "hidden", and "stunning" have no place in a science press release. The best ones use direct references to the science, do not declare commonly known principles or phenomena as "mysterious", and work their best to educate the reader about the science being done. They do not use poor analogies. I know a few of the writers, and sometimes problems like these develop not from them but from their employers.

This is not that. And the Register called him out on it. It is in no way the worst example of the science press release. I would be more sympathetic if the writer would take the Register's criticism to heart about that analogy.

Truth and media reports: Chicago fog

Kristyn Hartman wasn't trying too hard on her "live" report for the 10 o'clock news report for WBBM Channel 2 in Chicago, about the fog stopping all flights at Midway. As she reported live from the top level of Midway, you could see the parking garage off in the distance--indicating the bad fog had lifted, even while she says "As you can see, because of the thick fog...". At the worst of the fog, it was in fact a few hundred feet visibility, as they had been reporting, as they were interviewing and getting the stock shots. But they should have admitted the fog had lifted at the time of the live report, as the parking garage is over 3000 feet from the location of the live report. Sloppy reporting. Even just a few minutes after the live report, Ed Curran the meteorologist was reporting visibility was a full mile at Midway.

P.S. This isn't to disparage the seriousness of the fog this evening. It was very dense this evening. But it wasn't dense at the moment of the live report, and that's all I'm trying to write.