Science – Close Read

A Q&A about my job and science journalism

A couple weeks ago, some students from a university in South India got in touch to ask a few questions about my job and about science communication. The correspondence was entirely over email, and I’m pasting it in full below (with permission). I’ve edited a few parts in one of two ways – to make myself clearer or to hide sensitive information – and removed one question because its purpose was clarificatory.

1) What does your role as a science editor look like day to day?

My day as science editor begins at around 7 am. I start off by catching up on the day’s headlines and other news, especially all the major newspapers and social media channels. I also handle a part of The Wire Science‘s social media presence, so I schedule some posts in the first hour.

Then, from 8 am onwards, I begin going through the publishing schedule – which is a document I prepare on the previous evening, listing all the articles that writers are expected to file on that day, as well as what I need to edit/publish and in which position on the homepage. At 9.30 am, my colleagues and I get on a conference call to discuss the day’s top stories and to hear from our reporters on which stories they will be pursuing that day (and any stories we might be chasing ourselves). The call lasts for about an hour.

From 10.30-11 am onwards, I edit articles, reply to emails, commission new articles, discuss potential story ideas with some reporters, scientists and my colleagues, check on the news cycle every now and then, make sure the site is running smoothly, discuss changes or tweaks to be made to the front-end with our tech team, and keep an eye on my finances (how much I’ve commissioned for, who I need to pay, payment deadlines, pending allocations, etc.).

All of this ends at about 4.30 pm. I close my laptop at that point but I continue to have work until 6 pm or so, mostly in the form of emails and maybe some calls. The last thing I do is prepare the publishing schedule for the next day. Then I shut shop.

2) With leading global newspapers restructuring the copy desk, what are the changes the Indian newspapers have made in the copy desk after the internet boom?

I’m not entirely familiar with the most recent changes because I stopped working with a print establishment six years ago. When I was part of the editorial team at The Hindu, the most significant change related to the advent of the internet had less to do with the copy desk per se and more to do with the business model. At least the latter seemed more pressing to me.

But this said, in my view there is a noticeable difference between how one might write for a newspaper and for the web. So a more efficient copy-editing team has to be able to handle both styles, as well as be able to edit copy to optimise for audience engagement and readability both online and offline.

3) Indian publications are infamous for mistakes in the copy. Is this a result of competition for breaking news or a lack of knack for editing?

This is a question I have been asking myself since I started working. I think a part of the answer you’re looking for lies in the first statement of your question. Indian copy-editors are “infamous for mistakes” – but mistakes according to whom?

The English language came to India in different ways, it is not homegrown. British colonists brought English to India, so English took root in India as the language of administration. English is the de facto language worldwide for the conduct of science, so scientists have to learn it. Similarly, there are other ways in which the use of English has been rendered useful and important and necessary. English wasn’t all these things in and of itself, not without its colonial underpinnings.

So today, in India, English is – among other things – the language you learn to be employable, especially with MNCs or such. And because of its historical relationships, English is taught only in certain schools, schools that typically have mostly students from upper-caste/upper-class families. English is also spoken only by certain groups of people who may wish to secret it as a class symbol, etc. I’m speaking very broadly here. My point is that English is reserved typically for people who can afford it, both financially and socio-culturally. Not everyone speaks ‘good’ English (as defined by one particular lexicon or whatever) nor can they be expected to.

So what you may see as mistakes in the copy may just be a product of people not being fluent in English, and composing sentences in ways other than you might as a result. India has a contested relationship with English and that should only be expected at the level of newsrooms as well.

However, if your question had to do with carelessness among copy-editors – I don’t know if that is a very general problem (nor do I know what the issues might be in a newsroom publishing in an Indian language). Yes, in many establishments, the management doesn’t pay as much attention to the quality of writing as it should, perhaps in an effort to cut costs. And in such cases, there is a significant quality cost.

But again, we should ask ourselves as to whom that affects. If a poorly edited article is impossible to read or uses words and ideas carelessly, or twists facts, that is just bad. But if a poorly composed article is able to get its points across without misrepresenting anyone, whom does that affect? No one, in my opinion, so that is okay. (It could also be the case that the person whose work you’re editing sees the way they write as a political act of sorts, and if you think such an issue might be in play, it becomes important to discuss it with them.)

Of course, the matter of getting one’s point across is very subjective, and as a news organisation we must ensure the article is edited to the extent that there can be no confusion whatsoever – and edited that much more carefully if it’s about sensitive issues, like the results of a scientific study. And at the same time we must also stick to a word limit and think about audience engagement.

My job as the editor is to ensure that people are understood, but in order to help them be understood better and better, I must be aware of my own privileges and keep subtracting them from the editorial equation (in my personal case: my proficiency with the English language, which includes many Americanisms and Britishisms). I can’t impose my voice on my writers in the name of helping them. So there is a fine line here that editors need to tread carefully.

4) What are the key points that a science editor should keep in mind while dealing with copy?

Aside from the points I raised in my previous answer, there are some issues that are specific to being a good science editor. I don’t claim to be good (that is for others to say) – but based on what I have seen in the pages of other publications, I would only say that not every editor can be a science editor without some specific training first. This is because there are some things that are specific to science as an enterprise, as a social affair, that are not immediately apparent to people who don’t have a background in science.

For example, the most common issue I see is in the way scientific papers are reported – as if they are the last word on that topic. Many people, including many journalists, seem to think that if a scientific study has found coffee cures cancer, then it must be that coffee cures cancer, period. But every scientific paper is limited by the context in which the experiment was conducted, by the limits of what we already know, etc.

I have heard some people define science as a pursuit of the truth but in reality it’s a sort of opposite – science is a way to subtract uncertainty. Imagine shining a torch within a room as you’re looking for something, except the torch can only find things that you don’t want, so you can throw them away. Then you turn on the lights. Papers are frequently wrong and/or are updated to yield new results. This seldom makes the previous paper directly fraudulent or wrong; it’s just the way science works. And this perspective on science can help you think through what a science editor’s job is as well.

Another thing that’s important to know is that science progresses in incremental fashion and that the more sensational results are either extremely unlikely or simply misunderstood.

If you are keen on plumbing deeper depths, you could also consider questions about where authority comes from and how it is constructed in a narrative, the importance of indeterminate knowledge-states, the pros and cons of scientism, what constitutes scientific knowledge, how scientific publishing works, etc.

A science editor has to know all these things and ensure that in the process of running a newsroom or editing a publication, they don’t misuse, misconstrue or misrepresent scientific work and scientists. And in this process, I think it’s important for a science editor to not be considered to be subservient to the interests of science or scientists. Editors have their own goals, and more broadly speaking science communication in all forms needs to be seen and addressed in its own right – as an entity that doesn’t owe anything to science or scientists, per se.

5) In a country where press freedom is often sacrificed, how does one deal with political pieces, especially when there is proof against a matter concerning the government?

I’m not sure what you mean by “proof against a matter concerning the government.” But in my view, the likelihood of different outcomes depends on the business model. If, for example, you the publisher make a lot of money from a hotshot industrialist and his company, then obviously you are going to tread carefully when handling stories about that person or the company. How you make your money dictates who you are ultimately answerable to. If you make your money by selling newspapers to your readers, or collecting donations from them like The Wire does, you are answerable to your readers.

In this case, if we are handling a story in which the government is implicated in a bad way, we will do our due diligence and publish the story. This ‘due diligence’ is important: you need to be sure you have the requisite proof, that all parts of the story are reliable and verifiable, that you have documentary evidence of your claims, and that you have given the implicated party a chance to defend themselves (e.g. by being quoted in the story).

This said, absolute press freedom is not so simple to achieve. It doesn’t just need brave editors and reporters. It also needs institutions that will protect journalists’ rights and freedoms, and also shield them reliably from harm or malice. If the courts are not likely to uphold a journalist’s rights or if the police refuse proper protection when the threat of physical violence is apparent, blaming journalists for “sacrificing” press freedom is ignorant. There is a risk-benefit analysis worth having here, if only to remember that while the benefit of a free press is immense, the risks shouldn’t be taken lightly.

6) Research papers are lengthy and editors have deadlines. How do you make sure to communicate information with the right context for a wider audience?

Often the quickest way to achieve this is to pick your paper and take it to an independent scientist working in the same field. These independent comments are important for the story. But specific to your question, these scientists – if they have the time and are so inclined – can often also help you understand the paper’s contents properly, and point out potential issues, flaws, caveats, etc. These inputs can help you compose your story faster.

I would also say that if you are an editor looking for an article on a newly published research paper, you would be better off commissioning a reporter who is familiar, to whatever extent, with that topic. Obviously if you assign a business reporter to cover a paper about nanofluidic biosensors, the end result is going to be somewhere between iffy and disastrous. So to make sure the story has got its context right, I would begin by assigning the right reporter and making sure they’ve got comments from independent scientists in their copy.

7) What are some of the major challenges faced by science communicators and reporters in India?

This is a very important question, and I can’t hope to answer it concisely or even completely. In January this year, the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India organised a meeting with a couple dozen science journalists and communicators from around India. I was one of the attendees. Many of the issues we discussed, which would also be answers to your question, are described here.

If, for the purpose of your assignment, you would like me to pick one – I would go with the fact that science journalism, and science communication more broadly, is not widely acknowledged as an enterprise in its own right. As a result, many people don’t see the value in what science journalists do. A second and closely related issue is that scientists often don’t respond on time, even if they respond at all. I’m not sure of the extent to which this is an etiquette issue. But by calling it an etiquette issue, I also don’t want to overlook the possibility that some scientists don’t respond because they don’t think science journalism is important.

I was invited to attend the Young Investigators’ Meeting in Guwahati in March 2019. There, I met a big bunch of young scientists who really didn’t know why science journalism exists or what its purpose is. One of them seemed to think that since scientific papers pass through peer review and are published in journals, science journalists are wasting their time by attempting to discuss the contents of those papers with a general audience. This is an unnecessary barrier to my work – but it persists, so I must constantly work around or over it.

8) What are the consequences if a research paper has been misreported?

The consequence depends on the type and scope of misreporting. If you have consulted an independent scientist in the course of your reporting, you give yourself a good chance of avoiding reporting mistakes.

But of course mistakes do slip through. And with an online publication such as The Wire – if a published article is found to have a mistake, we usually correct the mistake once it has been pointed out to us, along with a clarification at the bottom of the article acknowledging the issue and recording the time at which the change was made. If you write an article that is printed and is later found to have a mistake, the newspaper will typically issue an erratum (a small note correcting a mistake) the next day.

If an article is found to have a really glaring mistake after it is published – and I mean an absolute howler – the article could be taken down or retracted from the newspaper’s record along with an explanation. But this rarely happens.

9) In many ways, copy editing disconnects you from your voice. Does it hamper your creativity as a writer?

It’s hard to find room for one’s voice in a news publication. About nine-tenths of the time, each of us is working on a news copy, in which a voice is neither expected nor can add much value of its own. This said, when there is room to express oneself more, to write in one’s voice, so to speak, copy-editing doesn’t have to remove it entirely.

Working with voices is a tricky thing. When writers pitch or write articles in which their voices are likely to show up, I always ask them beforehand as to what they intend to express. This intention is important because it helps me edit the article accordingly (or decide whether to edit it at all). The writer’s voice is part of this negotiation. Like I said before, my job as the editor is to make sure my writers convey their points clearly and effectively. And if I find that their voice conflicts with the message or vice versa, I will discuss it with them. It’s a very contested process and I don’t know if there is a black-and-white answer to your question.

It’s always possible, of course, if you’re working with a bad editor and they just remodel your work to suit their needs without checking with you. But short of that, it’s a negotiation.

The worst poem ever

How does feel to write a story and then, just like that, have everyone read it as well as be interested in reading it?

How would it feel to not have to hope quasi-desperately that a story does well after having spent hours – if not days – on it?

How would it feel to not slog and slog, telling yourself that you just need to be proud of covering a beat few others have chosen to?

“Good journalism can only emerge from being a good citizen” – but is there a way to tell what kind of citizenship is valuable and what kind not?

Of course, I’m also asking myself questions about why it is that I chose to be a journalist and then a science journalist.

The first one doesn’t have a short answer and it’s probably also too personal to be discussing on my blog. So let’s leave that for another day, or another forum.

Why science journalist? Because it’s like Kip Thorne has said: it was the pleasure of doing “something in which there was less competition and more opportunity to do something unique.”

When I tell people I’m a science journalist, a common response goes like this: “I’ve distanced myself from science and math since school”. And it goes with a smile. I smile, too.

Except I’m not amused. This mental block that many people have I’ve found is the Indian science journalist’s greatest enemy – at least it’s mine.

What makes it so great is that, to most people, it’s a class- and era-specific ‘survival skill’ they’ve adopted that has likely made their lives more enjoyable.

And we all know how hard it is give fucks about the wonders that unknown unknowns can hold. It’s impossible almost by definition.

Then there are also so many fucks demanded of us to be given to the human condition.

But Ed Yong’s tweet I will never forget, though I do wish I’d faved it: there’s so much more to science than what applies to being human.

Of course, there’s the other, much simpler reason I’m thinking all this, and so likelier to be true: I’m just a lousy science journalist, writing the worst poem ever.

Featured image credit: Pixel-mixer/pixabay.

The metaphorical transparency of responsible media

Featured image credit: dryfish/Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

I’d written a two-part essay (although they were both quite short; reproduced in full below) on The Wire about what science was like in 2016 and what we can look forward to in 2017. The first part was about how science journalism in India is a battle for relevance, both within journalistic circles and among audiences. The second was about how science journalism needs to be treated like other forms of journalism in 2017, and understood to be afflicted with the same ills that, say, political and business journalism are.

Other pieces on The Wire that had the same mandate, of looking back and looking forward, stuck to being roundups and retrospective analyses. My pieces were retrospective, too, but they – to use the parlance of calculus – addressed the second derivative of science journalism, in effect performing a meta-analysis of the producers and consumers of science writing. This blog post is a quick discussion (or rant) of why I chose to go the “science media” way.

We in India often complain about how the media doesn’t care enough to cover science stories. But when we’re looking back and forward in time, we become blind to the media’s efforts. And looking back is more apparently problematic than is looking forward.

Looking back is problematic because our roundup of the ‘best’ science (the ‘best’ being whatever adjective you want it to be) from the previous year is actually a roundup of the ‘best’ science we were able to discover or access from the previous year. Many of us may have walled ourselves off into digital echo-chambers, sitting within not-so-fragile filter bubbles and ensuring news we don’t want to read about doesn’t reach us at all. Even so, the stories that do reach us don’t make up the sum of all that is available to consume because of two reasons:

We practically can’t consume everything, period.
Unless you’re a journalist or someone who is at the zeroth step of the information dissemination pyramid, your submission to a source of information is simply your submission to another set of filters apart from your own. Without these filters, finding something you are looking for on the web would be a huge problem.

So becoming blind to media efforts at the time of the roundup is to let journalists (who sit higher up on the dissemination pyramid) who should’ve paid more attention to scientific developments off the hook. For example, assuming things were gloomy in 2016 is assuming one thing given another thing (like a partial differential): “while the mood of science news could’ve been anything between good and bad, it was bad” GIVEN “journalists mostly focused on the bad news over the good news”. This is only a simplistic example: more often than not, the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ can be replaced by ‘significant’ and ‘insignificant’. Significance is also a function of media attention. At the time of probing our sentiments on a specific topic, we should probe the information we have as well as how we acquired that information.

Looking forward without paying attention to how the media will likely deal with science is less apparently problematic because of the establishment of the ideal. For example, to look forward is also to hope: I can say an event X will be significant irrespective of whether the media chooses to cover it (i.e., “it should ideally be covered”); when the media doesn’t cover the event, then I can recall X as well as pull up journalists who turned a blind eye. In this sense, ignoring the media is to not hold its hand at the beginning of the period being monitored – and it’s okay. But this is also what I find problematic. Why not help journalists look out for an event when you know it’s going to happen instead of relying on their ‘news sense’, as well as expecting them to have the time and attention to spend at just the right time?

Effectively: pull us up in hindsight – but only if you helped us out in foresight. (The ‘us’ in this case is, of course, #notalljournalists. Be careful with whom you choose to help or you could be wasting your time.)

Part I: Why Independent Media is Essential to Good Science Journalism

What was 2016 like in science? Furious googling will give you the details you need to come to the clinical conclusion that it wasn’t so bad. After all, LIGO found gravitational waves; an Ebola vaccine was readied; ISRO began tests of its reusable launch vehicle; the LHC amassed particle collisions data; the Philae comet-hopping mission ended; New Horizons zipped past Pluto; Juno is zipping around Jupiter; scientists did amazing (but sometimes ethically questionable) things with CRISPR; etc. But if you’ve been reading science articles throughout the year, then please take a step back from everything and think about what your overall mood is like.

Because, just as easily as 2016 was about mega-science projects doing amazing things, it was also about climate-change action taking a step forward but not enough; about scientific communities becoming fragmented; about mainstream scientific wisdom becoming entirely sidelined in some parts of the world; about crucial environmental protections being eroded; about – undeniably – questionable practices receiving protection under the emotional cover of nationalism. As a result, and as always, it is difficult to capture what this year was to science in a single mood, unless that mood in turn captures anger, dismay, elation and bewilderment at various times.

So, to simplify our exercise, let’s do that furious googling – and then perform a meta-analysis to reflect on where each of us sees fit to stand with respect to what the Indian scientific enterprise has been up to this year. (Note: I’m hoping this exercise can also be a referendum on the type of science news The Wire chose to cover this year, and how that can be improved in 2017.) The three broad categories (and sub-categories) of stories that The Wire covered this year are:

GOOD	BAD	UGLY
Different kinds of ISRO rockets – sometimes with student-built sats onboard – took off	Big cats in general, and leopards specifically, had a bad year	Indian scientists continued to plagiarise and engage in other forms of research misconduct without consequence
ISRO decided to partially privatise PSLV missions by 2020	The JE/AES scourge struck again, their effects exacerbated by malnutrition	The INO got effectively shut down
LIGO-India collaboration received govt. clearance; Indian scientists of the LIGO collaboration received a vote of confidence from the international community	PM endorsed BGR-34, an anti-diabetic drug of dubious credentials	Antibiotic resistance worsened in India (and other middle-income nations)
We supported ‘The Life of Science’	Govt. conceived misguided culling rules	India succumbed to US pressure on curtailing generic drugs
Many new species of birds/animals discovered in India	Ken-Betwa river linkup approved at the expense of a tiger sanctuary	Important urban and rural waterways were disrupted, often to the detriment of millions
New telescopes were set up, further boosting Indian astronomy; ASTROSAT opened up for international scientists	Many conservation efforts were hampered – while some were mooted that sounded like ministers hadn’t thought them through	Ministers made dozens of pseudoscientific claims, often derailing important research
Otters returned to their habitats in Kerala and Goa	A politician beat a horse to its death	Fake-science-news was widely reported in the Indian media
Janaki Lenin continued her ‘Amazing Animals’ series	Environmental regulations turned and/or stayed anti-environment	Socio-environmental changes resulting from climate change affect many livelihoods around the country
We produced monthly columns on modern microbiology and the history of science	We didn’t properly respond to human-wildlife conflicts	Low investments in public healthcare, and focus on privatisation, short-changed Indian patients
Indian physicists discovered a new form of superconductivity in bismuth	GM tech continues to polarise scientists, social scientists and activists	Space, defence-research and nuclear power establishments continued to remain opaque
/	Conversations stuttered on eastern traditions of science	/

I leave it to you to weigh each of these types of stories as you see fit. For me – as a journalist – science in the year 2016 was defined by two parallel narratives: first, science coverage in the mainstream media did not improve; second, the mainstream media in many instances remained obediently uncritical of the government’s many dubious claims. As a result, it was heartening on the first count to see ‘alternative’ publications like The Life of Science and The Intersection being set up or sustained (as the case may be).

On the latter count: the media’s submission paralleled, rather directly followed, its capitulation to pro-government interests (although some publications still held out). This is problematic for various reasons, but one that is often overlooked is that the “counterproductive continuity” that right-wing groups stress upon – between traditional wisdom and knowledge derived through modern modes of investigation – receives nothing short of a passive endorsement by uncritical media broadcasts.

From within The Wire, doing a good job of covering science has become a battle for relevance as a result. And this is a many-faceted problem: it’s as big a deal for a science journalist to come upon and then report a significant story as finding the story itself in the first place – and it’s as difficult to get every scientist you meet to trust you as it is to convince every reader who visits The Wire to read an article or two in the science section per visit. Fortunately (though let it not be said that this is simply a case of material fortunes), the ‘Science’ section on The Wire has enjoyed both emotional and financial support. To show for it, we have had the privilege of overseeing the publication of 830 articles, and counting, in 2016 (across science, health, environment, energy, space and tech). And I hope those who have written for this section will continue to write for it, even as those who have been reading this section will continue to read it.

Because it is a battle for relevance – a fight to be noticed and to be read, even when stories have nothing to do with national interests or immediate economic gains – the ideal of ‘speaking truth to power’ that other like-minded sections of the media cherish is preceded for science journalism in India by the ideals of ‘speaking’ first and then ‘speaking truth’ second. This is why an empowered media is as essential to the revival of that constitutionally enshrined scientific temperament as are productive scientists and scientific institutions.

The Wire‘s journalists have spent thousands of hours this year striving to be factually correct. The science writers and editors have also been especially conscientious of receiving feedback at all stages, engaging in conversations with our readers and taking prompt corrective action when necessary – even if that means a retraction. This will continue to be the case in 2017 as well in recognition of the fact that the elevation of Indian science on the global stage, long hailed to be overdue, will directly follow from empowering our readers to ask the right questions and be reasonably critical of all claims at all times, no matter who the maker.

Part II: If You’re Asking ‘What To Expect in Science in 2017’, You Have Missed the Point

While a science reporter at The Hindu, this author conducted an informal poll asking the newspaper’s readers to speak up about what their impressions were of science writing in India. The answers, received via email, Twitter and comments on the site, generally swung between saying there was no point and saying there was a need to fight an uphill battle to ‘bring science to everyone’. After the poll, however, it still wasn’t clear who this ‘everyone’ was, notwithstanding a consensus that it meant everyone who chanced upon a write-up. It still isn’t clear.

Moreover, much has been written about the importance of science, the value of engaging with it in any form without expectation of immediate value and even the usefulness of looking at it ‘from the outside in’ when the opportunity arises. With these theses in mind (which I don’t want to rehash; they’re available in countless articles on The Wire), the question of “What to expect in science in 2017?” immediately evolves into a two-part discussion. Why? Because not all science that happens is covered; not all science that is covered is consumed; and not all science that is consumed is remembered.

The two parts are delineated below.

What science will be covered in 2017?

Answering this question is an exercise in reinterpreting the meaning of ‘newsworthiness’ subject to the forces that will assail journalism in 2017. An immensely simplified way is to address the following factors: the audience, the business, the visible and the hidden.

The first two are closely linked. As print publications are shrinking and digital publications growing, a consideration of distribution channels online can’t ignore the social media – specifically, Twitter and Facebook – as well as Google News. This means that an increasing number of younger readers are available to target, which in turn means covering science in a way that interests this demographic. Qualities like coolness and virality will make an item immediately sellable to marketers whereas news items rich with nuance and depth will take more work.

Another way to address the question is in terms of what kind of science will be apparently visible, and available for journalists to easily chance upon, follow up and write about. The subjects of such writing typically are studies conducted and publicised by large labs or universities, involving scientists working in the global north, and often on topics that lend themselves immediately to bragging rights, short-lived discussions, etc. In being aware of ‘the visible’, we must be sure to remember ‘the invisible’. This can be defined as broadly as in terms of the scientists (say, from Latin America, the Middle East or Southeast Asia) or the studies (e.g., by asking how the results were arrived at, who funded the studies and so forth).

On the other hand, ‘the hidden’ is what will – or ought to – occupy those journalists interested in digging up what Big X (Pharma, Media, Science, etc.) doesn’t want publicised. What exactly is hidden changes continuously but is often centred on the abuse of privilege, the disregard of those we are responsible for and, of course, the money trail. The issues that will ultimately come to define 2017 will all have had dark undersides defined by these aspects and which we must strive to uncover.

For example: with the election of Donald Trump, and his bad-for-science clique of bureaucrats, there is a confused but dawning recognition among liberals of the demands of the American midwest. So to continue to write about climate change targeting an audience composed of left-wingers or east coast or west coast residents won’t work in 2017. We must figure out how to reach across the aisle and disabuse climate deniers of their beliefs using language they understand and using persuasions that motivate them to speak to their leaders about shaping climate policy.

What will be considered good science journalism in 2017?

Scientists are not magical creatures from another world – they’re humans, too. So is their collective enterprise riddled with human decisions and human mistakes. Similarly, despite all the travails unique to itself, science journalism is fundamentally similar to other topical forms of journalism. As a result, the broader social, political and media trends sweeping around the globe will inform novel – or at least evolving – interpretations of what will be good or bad in 2017. But instead of speculating, let’s discuss the new processes through which good and bad can be arrived at.

In this context, it might be useful to draw from a blog post by Jay Rosen, a noted media critic and professor of journalism at New York University. Though the post focuses on what political journalists could do to adapt to the Age of Trump, its implied lessons are applicable in many contexts. More specifically, the core effort is about avoiding those primary sources of information (out of which a story sprouts) the persistence with which has landed us in this mess. A wildly remixed excerpt:

Send interns to the daily briefing when it becomes a newsless mess. Move the experienced people to the rim. Seek and accept offers to speak on the radio in areas of Trump’s greatest support. Make common cause with scholars who have been there. Especially experts in authoritarianism and countries when democratic conditions have been undermined, so you know what to watch for— and report on. (Creeping authoritarianism is a beat: who do you have on it?). Keep an eye on the internationalization of these trends, and find spots to collaborate with journalists across borders. Find coverage patterns that cross [the aisle].

And then this:

[Washington Post reporter David] Fahrenthold explains what he’s doing as he does it. He lets the ultimate readers of his work see how painstakingly it is put together. He lets those who might have knowledge help him. People who follow along can see how much goes into one of his stories, which means they are more likely to trust it. … He’s also human, humble, approachable, and very, very determined. He never goes beyond the facts, but he calls bullshit when he has the facts. So impressive are the results that people tell me all the time that Fahrenthold by himself got them to subscribe.

Transparency is going to matter more than ever in 2017 because of how the people’s trust in the media was eroded in 2016. And there’s no reason science journalism should be an exception to these trends – especially given how science and ideology quickly locked horns in India following the disastrous Science Congress in 2015. More than any other event since the election of the Bharatiya Janata Party to the centre, and much like Trump’s victory caught everyone by surprise, the 2015 congress really spotlighted the extent of rational blight that had seeped into the minds of some of India’s most powerful ideologues. In the two years since, the reluctance of scientists to step forward and call bullshit out has also started to become more apparent, as a result exposing the different kinds of undercurrents that drastic shifts in policies have led to.

So whatever shape good science journalism is going to assume in 2017, it will surely benefit by being more honest and approachable in its construction. As will the science journalist who is willing to engage with her audience about the provenance of information and opinions capable of changing minds. As Jeff Leek, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, quoted (statistician Philip Stark) on his blog: “If I say just trust me and I’m wrong, I’m untrustworthy. If I say here’s my work and it’s wrong, I’m honest, human, and serving scientific progress.”

Here’s to a great 2017! 🙌🏾

TIFR’s superconductor discovery: Where are the reports?

Featured image: The Meissner effect: a magnet levitating above a superconductor. Credit: Mai-Linh Doan/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

On December 2, physicists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) announced an exciting discovery: that the metal bismuth becomes a superconductor at a higher temperature than predicted by a popular theory. Granted the theory has had its fair share of exceptions, the research community is excited about this finding because of the unique opportunities it presents in terms of learning more, doing more. But yeah, even without the nuance, the following is true: that TIFR physicists have discovered a new form of superconductivity, in the metal bismuth. I say this as such because not one news outlet in India, apart from The Wire, reported the discovery, and it’s difficult to say it’s because the topic was too hard to understand.

This was, and is, just odd. The mainstream as well as non-mainstream media in the country are usually quick to pick up on the slightest shred of legitimate scientific work and report it widely. Heck, many news organisations are also eager to report on illegitimate research – such as those on finding gold in cow urine. After the embargo on the journal paper lifted at 0030 hrs, I (the author of the article on The Wire) remained awake to check if the story had turned out okay – specifically, to check if anyone had any immediate complaints about its contents (there were two tweets about the headline and they were quickly dealt with). But then I ended up staying awake until 4 am because, as much as I looked on Google News and on other news websites, I couldn’t find anyone else who had written about it.

Journal embargoes aren’t new, nor is it the case that journalists in India haven’t signed up to receive embargoed material. For example, the multiple water-on-Mars announcements and the two monumental gravitational-waves discoveries were all announced via papers in the journal Science, and were covered by The Hindu, The Telegraph, Times of India, Indian Express, etc. And Science also published the TIFR paper. Moreover, the TIFR paper wasn’t suppressed or buried in the embargoed press releases that the press team at Science sends out to journalists a few days before the embargo lifts. Third, the significance of the finding was evident from the start; these were the first two lines of the embargoed press release:

Scientists from India report that pure Bismuth – a semimetal with a very low number of electrons per given volume, or carrier concentration – is superconducting at ultralow temperatures. The observation makes Bismuth one of the two lowest carrier density superconductors to date.

All a journalist had to do was get in touch with Srinivasan Ramakrishnan, the lead author of the paper as well as the corresponding author, to get a better idea of the discovery’s significance. From my article on The Wire:

“People have been searching for superconductivity in bismuth for 50 years,” Srinivasan Ramakrishnan, the leader of the TIFR group, told The Wire. “The last work done in bismuth found that it is not superconducting down to 0.01 kelvin. This was done 20 years ago and people gave up.”

So, I’m very curious to know what happened. And since no outlets apart from The Wire have picked the story up, we circle back to the question of media coverage for science news in India. As my editor pointed out, the major publications are mostly interested in stuff like an ISRO launch, a nuclear reactor going critical or an encephalitis outbreak going berserker when it comes to covering science, and even then the science of the story itself is muted while the overlying policy issues are played up. This is not to say the policies are receiving undeserving coverage – they’re important, too – but only that the underlying science, which informs policy in crucial ways, isn’t coming through.

And over time this disregard blinds us to an entire layer of enterprise that involves hundreds of thousands of our most educated people and close to Rs 2 lakh crore of our national expenditure (total R&D, 2013).

Science Quiz – August 4, 2014

Every week, I create a science quiz for The Hindu newspaper’s In School product. It consists of 10 questions and only developments from the week preceding its day of publication (Monday). The answers are at the end.

But this week’s quiz is a little different. 2014 marks the hundredth year after the start of World War I, a global war that raged from 1914 to 1918. The scale of the conflicts provided an ample stage for the demonstration of the best technology of the time, albeit mostly for destructive purposes. This week’s quiz has 10 questions about that technology.

The British artillery in action during World War I. — Image: Wikimedia Commons

World War I marked the first use of chemical weapons: At the Battle of Bolimov in Poland in January 1915, Germany released the gas xylyl bromide on the battlefield but it became harmless because of the cold. The first lethal use of chemical weapons was at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium in April 1915, when Germany used which yellow-green-colored gas to kill 6,000 French soldiers within 10 minutes?
In response to the above attack, the American inventor James Bert Garner invented which simple device to protect combatants on the battlefield from inhaling poisonous gases? This device contained activated charcoal, which is a form of carbon that has a high surface area and absorbs many pollutants from the air. Later on, this device was developed for dogs as well as horses, and during World War II, was reinvented to be lighter and more effective.
The Australian-British physicist William Bragg jointly won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915 for using X-rays to study crystal structures. In the same year, the British assigned Sir Bragg to develop one of the world’s first scientific systems of sound ranging on the battlefield. What is sound ranging?
The early 20th century saw the rise of industrialism and, along with it, the ________, a new form of motorized transport at the time. In January 1915, German and Ottoman forces set off to raid the Suez Canal. With help from Arab and Egyptian forces, the British advanced over the Sinai peninsula using the ________ to defend the canal. They also conquered the nearby area known as Palestine, an act that led to the later formation of the states of Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Fill in the blank(s).
The German inventor Ferdinand von ________ patented the design of a kind of airship, which have come to be named after him, in 1895. During World War I, they were used by the German army to bomb Britain, killing some 500. They then went out of service in 1919 after the defeat of Germany, but then reentered service in 1926 to fly people between Europe and North and South America. They would eventually be retired in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Name the inventor and the name of the airship it came to belong to.
The first military use of __________ was in World War I. The British were reluctant to give their pilots these things because the British thought they would help cowardly pilots survive, effectively encouraging cowardice and reducing team morale. In July 1916, the American inventor Solomon Lee Van Meter, Jr., introduced the world’s first _________ that could be worn as a backpack, and had the revolutionary ripcord: a falling pilot need only pull the ripcord and the _________ would come into play and hopefully save the aviator’s life. Fill in the blank.
The 1916 Battle of Jutland is well-known for being the only battle during World War I that was fought exclusively using _____, between the British and the Germans. At the time, it was only the third battle of its kind, the first two being fought during the Russo-Japanese War. By 1917, the Germans were numerically overwhelmed by the British and started attacking neutral resources in the vicinity, leading to the USA declaring war on Germany in the same year. Fill in the blank with another form of transport.
The continuous metal track that had been developed in 1770 was bettered in the early 1900s. It consisted of a strip of metal plates bolted end-to-end that would run like a belt around two wheels. Such a mechanism was coupled with the four-stroke internal combustion engine, invented in the 1850s by Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci, to give rise to what extremely heavy, slow but very destructive weapon first used in World War I?
During World War I, troops used to move in long, narrow ditches on the ground called trenches, which protected them from above-ground attacks by enemy troops. To counter this protection, the Germans developed a weapon they created two versions of, called the Kleinflammenwerfer and the Grossflammenwerfer. They were first used in July 1915, and very effectively. When fired into trenches, their effect would flush out British and French troops. Their principal mechanism was to channel oil through a rubber tube and toward a wick. What does Flammenwerfer translate to in English?
The first light, or portable, _______ ___ was developed by the Americans. It was the first of its kind that could be operated by just one man. It was adapted by the British army, and its use was decisive during the Battle of Hamel in France in July 1918, where it reduced the battle time from a potential weeks or months to less than two hours. Fill in the blank.

Answers

Chlorine
Gas mask
Using the sound of firing guns to locate where the guns are using sensors like microphones
Railways
Zeppelin
Parachutes
Ships
Tanks
Flamethrower
Machine gun

Science Quiz – July 28, 2014

What’s a haboob?
American biologists tracked ____ ______ over 15 years. On July 25, they announced that their species could be protected from collisions from ships moving in waters along the western coast of North America, contributing to their long-term survival. Fill in the blanks.
In the last last two decades, over 1,500 planets outside the Solar System have been found. In the week of July 21, 2014, astronomers said that life on these planets would find it easier to evolve if they had ______, which would keep surface temperatures from varying too much between day and night. Fill in the blank with the name of a visible object found commonly in Earth’s atmosphere, with types like uncinus, spissatus, nebulosus, congestus, etc.
Researchers who were studying the behavior of dogs found that man’s best friends also experience ________ like humans do, implying that this emotion may not require complex minds. Fill in the blank.
Paleontologists have found 70-million year old footprints of ____________ ___ in Canada. The prints show three pairs of limbs moving parallel to each other, suggesting that these reptiles might have hunted in packs. Fill in the blanks with the name of a dinosaur whose name in Latin means “king lizard”.
If a group of scientists from America and France are to be believed, the evolution of the sizes and shapes of human-made airplanes are mimicking the evolution of the sizes and shapes of what?
According to a report published on July 22, 2014, which animal (with the nomenclature Loxodanta africana) has the world’s most sensitive nose, possessing over 2,000 genes to sense smells (as opposed to humans’ about 400)?
The spots on a _____ _______ are masked by their black fur, making it harder to tell them apart or document their numbers. According to National geographic, however, these animals are less rare than supposed, having been found to be particularly common in the Anshi-Dandeli tiger reserve, Karnataka. Fill in the blanks.
Twenty years ago, in July 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart and collided with the _______, providing the astronomers with their first chance to observe to two extraterrestrial bodies colliding within the Solar System. The comet is also unique because it was found to be orbiting the planet instead of the Sun. Fill in the blank with the name of the planet.
July 25 was the 94th birth anniversary of this British biophysicist who made great important contributions to the study of molecular structures. Around 1953, she helped James Watson and Francis Crick discover the double-helix sructure of DNA, a watershed moment in the history of molecular biology. Name her.

Answers

An intense dust storm that occurs in arid regions of the world, also known as a sandstorm. They are carried by winds moving into a thunderstorm.
Blue whales
Clouds
Jealousy
Tyrannosaurus rex
Birds
African bush elephant
Black panther
Jupiter
Rosalind Franklin

Science Quiz – July 21, 2014

(This week’s quiz is astronomy-heavy.)

July 20, 2014, was the 45th anniversary of a landmark incident in the history of exploration: the ______ __ spaceflight landed the first humans on the moon.
Name the NASA spacecraft launched in 2007 to study the two largest asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. In the week of July 14, 2014, the spacecraft helped scientists discover that the second largest asteroid had an evenly thick crust for unknown reasons.
The European Space Agency probe named Rosetta is getting closer to the comet it will aim to land a probe on in November 2014, at the end of a decade long mission. With 12,000 km between them, Rosetta’s pictures of the comet are starting to show it might actually be two icy bodies stuck together instead of being one round lump. Name the comet.
A very well-preserved fossil of a 520-million year-old predator was found in the Yunnan province of China in the week, of July 14, 2014. In fact, the fossil was so well-preserved that parts of its nervous system and brain are clearly defined. What is the geological period between about 543 million and 486 million years ago called?
The Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 that crashed on July 17 had on board several scientists en route to a conference in Australia. Name the conference, well known because it is the most-attended by scientists studying the disease ____. It was first organized in 1985. Fill in the blank.
On July 16, 2014, which Middle East country announced plans to launch an unmanned probe to Mars in the year 2021?
An 80-meter wide crater was discovered in the Yamal peninsula in northern Siberia on July 16, 2014. What do geologists think caused this “hole” in the ground to appear?
Orbital Sciences, a private spaceflight company, launched its Cygnus cargo spacecraft that arrived at the International Space Station on July 16 carrying supplies. The spacecraft was named ______ ____ in honor of the NASA astronaut who co-holds the record for the most space missions flown by an American woman. She passed away in February 2012. Fill in the blanks with her name,
The Convention on Biological Diversity has been ratified by 51 countries around the world. The conversation brings into force the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization on October 12, 2014. What does this protocol require the 51 countries to do?
Name the American designer, architect and inventor after whom the spherical molecules composed entirely of carbon, called fullerenes or buckyballs, are named. The inventor’s 119th birth anniversary was on July 12.

Answers

The Apollo 11 moon-landing, which saw the USA land the first humans on the Moon in 1969
Dawn
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Cambrian Period
AIDS
United Arab Emirates
A mixture of water, salt and gas may have ignited underground, causing an explosion that blew the hole
Janice Voss
If a company or person uses genetic resources for commercial purposes, it/the person is required to share a part of the earning and profits with the communities involved in protecting those resources
Richard Buckminster Fuller

Science Quiz – July 7, 2014

The _______ region of southwest China is some 4.5 km above sea-level. At this altitude, the air is rarefied and makes breathing difficult for humans. However, the _______ people are an exception, according to American and European scientists. On July 2, they said they had found a gene these people had inherited from an extinct human species of humans called the Denisovans that enabled them to breathe and live normally in areas where the air was thin. Fill in the blank with the name of the region or the people.
On July 2, NASA launched a satellite named OCO-2 that will monitor Earth’s carbon dioxide levels 24 times every second. Specifically, it will record where on Earth carbon dioxide is being produced and where it is being removed from the air, revealing a very detailed picture of this greenhouse gas. What does OCO stand for?
Name the first storm of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season which is also one of the earliest hurricanes to have occurred in a calendar year.
The __ ____ is a system of warm ocean temperatures that occurs over the Pacific Ocean and influences how strong or weak the Indian monsoons can be. Usually, the part of the Pacific close to the coast of South America becomes warmer than usual, and the part close to Indonesia becomes cooler. However, in 2009, the entire ocean showed signs of warming, which according to many climate models reduced the strength of the 2009 monsoon season in India, which ended in a drought. A week ago, the World Meteorological Organization issued an assessment that the same kind of warming was happening in 2014 as well, and that’s why this year’s monsoons could be weak. Fill in the blank with the name of the warming phenomenon, which in Spanish means “The Boy” – a reference to a young Jesus because this phenomenon’s effect is noticed around Christmas.
A DNA analysis of more than 30 hair samples purportedly from the creature called _______ are actually from cows, bears, raccoon and some other animals, according to scientists from Oxford University, July 2. Fill in the blank with the name of a long-sought creature that has also been known as a Yeti in the Himalayan region.
On June 30, ecologists from Spain said they had made a strange observation: according to them, there were only some 7,000 to 35,000 tons of plastic in the world’s oceans where there should have been millions of tons. They were able to arrive at this number by travelling around the world on a ship called the _________ in 2010, studying plastic concentrations. They have two explanations for this: either the they are being disintegrated into smaller and smaller bits, or they are being carried deeper into the ocean. Name the ship.
On July 5, 1687 – 327 years ago – the great British physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton published the book that first described his laws of motion and law of universal gravitation. The book has a long name, and is colloquially known just by the third word of its name, which means “Principles” in Latin. What is it?
What is the Cassini Grand Finale?
If sea ice continues to melt at the rate at which it is melting now, the world’s population of _______ ________ will be cut by 50%, according to a new study published on June 30. Fill in the blank with the name of a bird which has been made famous through movies like ‘Happy Feet’.
July 1 was the 368th birth anniversary of a famous German philosopher and mathematician. He is acknowledged as one of the inventors of the mathematical tool called calculus, and for his extensive work on mechanical calculators, refining the binary system used in modern computers, and for his optimistic philosophy. Name him.

Answers

Tibetan
Orbiting Carbon Observatory
Hurricane Arthur
El Niño
Bigfoot
Malaspina
Principia (the full name is ‘Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica‘)
NASA has planned that, starting in late 2016, the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn will start orbiting between the planet and its innermost ring before plunging into the gas giant to kill itself by September 2017.
Emperor penguins
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

Science Quiz – June 30, 2014

A team of Scottish scientists announced the discovery of the world’s oldest animal-built _____ in Africa in the week of June 23. According to them, they were built by small water animals called Cloudina that existed about 548 million years ago. Fill in the blank with the name of a type of build-up of organic material. In fact, today, the world’s largest single structure made by organisms is also one such ____.
Scientists were able to find out what Neanderthals living in Spain 50,000 years ago ate by studying fossilized remains of their ____. An analysis of a sample of this showed that members of this extinct human species ate mostly meat but also a lot of vegetables. Fill in the blank.
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center, named Sagittarius A*. On June 26, South African astronomers announced the discovery of a galaxy named SDSS J150243.09+111557.3 some 4.2 billion light-years away from Earth. How many black holes does it contain at its center?
Name the USA-based company that plans to fly passengers toward the uppermost reaches of Earth’s atmosphere in 2016, propelled by a parachute-style balloon attached to a capsule. It plans to charge $75,000 per person for the two-hour trip. Last week, it announced the successful completion of its balloon’s test flight, claiming that it established a world record for climbing to the highest altitude for a vehicle of its type.
On June 26, scientists unveiled the genetic blueprint of the ________ ___, a freshwater animal found in South America that can generate an electric shock of up to 600 volts. Despite what their name suggest, these animals are better related to the catfish, and grow up to 2 meters long. Fill in the blanks.
A new animal has been discovered in western Africa. It looks like a long-nosed mouse, weighs about 28 grams and is about 19 cm long from nose to tail. But don’t let its very small size deceive you: genetic testing of the creature revealed that its DNA is actually related to that of the elephant! Name it.
This is the first rocket designed by Russia since 1991, i.e. after the dissolution of the USSR. On June 27, it was supposed to be launched for the first time when its computers automatically aborted the launch for some reason. After inspection, it was slated to launch on June 28, when it was delayed again. Name it.
What did monkeys evolve to keep those from one species mating with another, according to scientists from the UK?
In the late 17th century, the British scientist Isaac Newton defined a number called the _____________ ________. The exact value of this number corresponds to the strength of a particular force of nature. The value of this number is thought to be constant throughout the universe. Despite its prevalence, however, scientists don’t yet know its exact value. In the week of June 23, Italian researchers announced that they had measured the value of this constant to a new level of precision using a technique different from that used in history. Name the constant.
June 26 was the 190th birth anniversary of this Irish physicist and engineer for whom the SI unit of temperature is named. He contributed extensively to the field of thermodynamics, although he made his wealth and fame by working on the electric telegraph. Name him.

Answers

Reef
Feces
Three!
World View
Electric eel
Elephant shrew
Angara
Distinct faces
The gravitational constant
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (Kelvin is the unit)

Science Quiz – June 23, 2014

Every week, I create a science quiz for The Hindu newspaper’s In School product. Although it is geared exclusively at school students, it should be available for adults as well because it’s a great place to find the news packaged plain and simple. The quiz consists of 10 questions and only developments from the week preceding its day of publication (Monday). The answers are at the end.

The construction of the world’s biggest optical telescope began on June 19. It’s called the European Extremely Large Telescope, being built by the European Southern Observatory. Name the country in which it is being built.
How big can a galaxy get? Astronomers are not sure, but on June 20, they announced that they had found evidence to believe its size might be controlled by the size of the ____________ _____ _____ at its center. Fill in the blanks with the name of an object whose gravitational pull is so strong, even light can’t escape it.
In the week of June 16, a bunch of NASA scientists announced that they had used the Spitzer space telescope to measure the size of an asteroid named 2011 MD. This asteroid is one of the three candidates the space agency plans to pull out of its location and into an orbit around the moon so astronomers can study it better. In which part of the electromagnetic spectrum does the Spitzer space telescope observe the universe?
What is the name of NASA’s mission to drag an asteroid into an orbit around the moon? The agency plans to execute this mission by 2025.
Name the Canadian company that claims to manufacture the world’s only quantum computers. These computers have been mired in controversy even until June 20 because many scientists claim these computers are not faster than conventional computers even though their name implies they’re supposed to be.
Name the American chemist who invented a polymer named Kevlar in the 1960s. Kevlar is used in bullet-proof vests because, weight for weight, it is five times stronger than steel and adept at slowing down bullets and shrapnel. The inventor herself won her country’s National Medal of Technology in 1996 for her work that has helped save thousands of lives. She died on June 20 at the age of 90.
_______ commonly eat other insects. On June 19, however, an Australian scientist announced that there was evidence that many species of them also ate fish and that, in fact, such species were found on all continents except Antarctica. Fill in the blank with the name of an insect that is the seventh most diverse organism on the planet.
The International Space Station will get its first ______-_____ in November. It is being made by an Italian company named Lavazza, which announced its plans on June 17. Fill in the blanks (think small).
Name the NASA spacecraft that will go beyond the orbit of Neptune in August 2014, and become the first fully-operational human-made object to go that far.
Name the French physicist and philosopher after whom the unit of pressure is named. His 391st birth anniversary was on June 19, 2014.

Answers

Chile
Supermassive black holes
Infrared
Asteroid Redirect Mission
D-Wave
Stephanie Kwolek
Spiders
Coffee-maker
New Horizons
Blaise Pascal