* UCSD’s program for science grad students & postdocs
* MIT’s Writing Program
* Lehigh University-Journalism (environment & risk communication)
* University of Wisconsin
* Johns Hopkins (in Washington, DC)
* Caltech (though it doesn’t have a formal program, it seems to produce a number of science writers)

I agree that it is more likely to be editors than the writers who got the story wrong–unless they are just rewriting the press release.

I included “junk” (within quotes) in my story as a cue to readers that conserved non-coding sequences were something they’ve heard of before. I’m sure some of my readers are familiar with CNSs, but I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that most aren’t.

Perhaps this perpetuates the myth that our genomes are full of biochemical detritus, but I doubt it.

There are notable exceptions, of course, but it appears to me that many science journalists don’t have any more of a background in science than they do in politics. I don’t know of any schools that focus on science in their mass communications programs. Considering how the assignment desk works, I imagine that most of the people that are science writers were writing about something else until a copy editor says “Hey, Johnson, here’s something from the wire that looks interesting about junk DNA. Give me a piece on it by deadline.” Suddenly, Johnson is the “science writer” for the paper or the magazine.

I’m not saying that science writers should be required to have PhD’s, but I am saying that with the media as it is, there is no wonder that accurate science journalism is a problem. It would be nice to be able to say “Here’s a great story, read up on the background of DNA and check out the literature and if it has new information that sheds light on regulator genes give me a piece by next week.” With the budgets for writers being continually cut at the major dailies, I don’t see this happening too much.