Appealing to the Masses: the Fidelity/Publicity Struggle

Influenza strains, particle physics, under-funded scientific ventures, contagious ferrets, and stasis theory crowd my mind, and I need to write something along the lines of science accommodation.  Okay, I can do this.  But really, what about that H5N1 virus locked away in a vault?  Is that the sort of science that should not be widely publicized, for the sake of keeping potentially dangerous knowledge from the bioweapon-extremists?  But I diverge….

          Considering science accommodation, my initial thought is: does the science writer accommodate the science, or the public?  If accommodating is “fitting in with the wishes or needs of” (thanks, Merriam W), then it seems by Fahnestock’s analysis that the crossover from original science texts to articles for public consumption prioritizes the wishes of the community audience to comprehend, greater than it keeps fidelity to the original text.  Is this a bad approach?  I don’t think so.

Journalists know it’s poor practice to cite another journalist’s article.  Source material should be just that—from the original source.  Therefore, science writers’ reins are loosened and they are allowed more freedom for interpretation, on account of their work not being the pinnacle piece from which all others will stem.  Their purpose is to inform their audience, the general public, not to create a piece which the multitudes will cite.  In reading, we appreciate a balanced piece, compelling facts, and a semblance of closure.  The science writer has a difficult job then, to take a research paper which is highly-specialized, full of phrases such as , “our tests suggest” and “it is probable,” and without a clear-cut conclusion, and turn it into a well-balanced meal that the public can sit down and enjoy, all the while not greatly compromising truthfulness to the original text.  Now, onto stasis theory.  If we, as readers, look for these elements in a piece: “…to be convinced that a situation exists…what caused it…whether the situation is good or bad, and what should be done about it and by whom,” (Fahnestock, 290) then what is the journalist to do when the research does not lend itself to such clean argumentative rhetoric?  Poet’s license, it seems.  Perhaps the science writer sees the implicative questions, partial conclusions, and conjectures where the scientist’s caution and accountability to a higher audience (i.e., nature, rather than the public) prevented.  While I am not calling for gross misappropriations of research, I do believe that an element of accommodating the public is presenting a digestible article.   This includes, perhaps, the tangents of which the human mind is so fond.  Tangents and conjecture spur thought, which is the point of the article, no?  In the end, science writers create in a different genre than research writers, and are given license by that.

So, the challenge: how does one woo the public without cheating on the scientist?  Can faithfulness be maintained, as the science writer walks the fine line between providing intrigue for the masses without making enemies of scientists?  Saved by the bell; it’s the deadline to post.  We will talk more on this later, I’m sure.