The biggest weakness of blogging right now is its circular nature. Blogs tend to have audiences that consist of people who all, basically, agree with each other.

That is because blogs, as much of the rest of the web, are social cooperative in nature while journalism (and science) is authoritative elitist for good reasons.

But to get that kind of responsive audience blogs have to compete. So there is no lack of competitive views (or approaches to blogging), nor of web services that tries to bring them out. (With different levels of success, to be sure.)

And yes, and individual scientist writing about their area of research will give you their individual bias, tempered by their critical thinking and journalistic skills and willingness to fairly represent other opinions. In the end you still need this, and a good science journalist can have this too without being a scientists.

Also, keep in mind, most scientist bloggers write outside their area of expertise also (like me). There, I am just an interested and informed lay person, not an expert. We criticize bad science blogging as much as we do bad science journalism (and in my opinion the lines are increasingly blurring)

To emphasize again – our point is not that science bloggers are good and journalists are bad, but that bad science journalists don’t understand science and/or the specific needs of science journalism and science journalists and science bloggers would do well to work together.

So how would science bloggers, or even scientists-turned-journalists, solve that problem? If we fault the interviewed experts for driving an agenda, we’d have to also fault an expert trying to do the job of a reporter — maybe more so, since there’s a chance that person would be inclined to seek “balanced” comment from sources they themselves agree with. You can’t say that one person fails to represent the community and then ask one person to do just that.

Overall, I don’t think you *have* to be a scientist to be a good science writer, any more than you *have* to be a professional athlete to write well about sports. It all comes down to approach. People complain all the time that the trick is not to teach science as if it’s a list of facts, but as a way of thinking. The same is true for journalism. “Bad” journalism can fall into a formula: sensational headline + oversimplified list of reasons the lay public should care + maybe a comment from another expert. Good journalists will be critical thinkers, have a healthy dose of skepticism, be willing to ask thoughtful and sometimes challenging questions, and know when and where to seek balanced opinions. That applies to any beat, for any readership.

You have a point, and I’d like to see those revenue figures as well, comparing them to media sites that actually do release their finances.

Those who don’t back up their statements are no better than Rush Limbaugh, who claims 50 million listeners, with no evidence to back it up:

Why Don’t We Just Pretend Rush Limbaugh has 50 Million Listeners?
http://www.enewspf.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6329&Itemid=0

I appreciate Phil’s solid science. As an online journalist, I’ll be the first to admit there’s much more involved than simply starting a blog and writing. Media liability insurance alone is costly. Convincing others to invest their ads in what many see as a still nascent medium makes it all the more difficult.

We do best when we stick to “old school” journalism: who, what, when, where, why and how; it’s critical for us to let people know where reporting ends and where our opinions begin.

Phil mixes the two, and, in part, I read what he writes because I have faith that his science is accurate and unbiased. (Yes, Phil, faith does matter. You may have a degree or several, but, as one of my colleagues likes to say, it doesn’t matter if a doctor has a diploma on the wall if in fact he graduated at the bottom of his class. I read your blog because astronomers I know and trust tell me this is a good place to learn.)

The fact that Phil argues for his science with editorial commentary doesn’t bother me much of the time.

Ad money. That is the only thing that will define the medium. Writing never paid for newsprint and it doesn’t pay for fiber optic cables.

No blog would be worth anything if it wasn’t plastered with adds. Stop congratulating yourself. Your not embracing a new medium your part of a new revenue stream. There is no new audience, it is the same people. They are just in front of a computer now. And for every site like BA there is a site that will tell you vaccines cause autism, probably two or three. The biggest proof that the internet is no revolution in communication or intelligence is that instead of filtering the crap it just spreads it wider and easier. It hasn’t made information literacy more widespread its just made it easier to confirm what you already thought.

Jamie wrote: “Discounting bad journalists for a moment, having a journalist who doesn’t have a background in the field they happen to be writing about on a given day shouldn’t really be a problem. A good journalist seeks out experts to interview about the story, then mixes that expert’s comments (and possibly opinions) in with the facts of the story.”

I disagree, and I think this is exactly where many journalists get into trouble. You cannot just ask a few experts and get a good feel for a complex or controversial topic. This is the mistake of confusing the authority of an individual scientist with the authority of the community as a whole. The journalist will get a tiny slice of opinion, which may be way off the consensus. I see this all the time.

Journalists also fall into the trap of false balance – they balance both sides of a controversy, even when they are inherently not balanced. This is because they do not have the background to recognize the 5% minority opinion, or sometimes even lone crank, for what it is.

We need primary science journalism, but currently the quality is highly variable and decreasing. Science bloggers are generally not doing primary journalism (but sometimes we do – the lines are blurred), and the best science bloggers, the ones who have risen to the top (like Phil), provide a much needed analysis and correction of mainstream science journalism.