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Policy

The Metropark Desk

Where chemistry reaches beyond the world of science

by Rick Mullin
December 4, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 49

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Credit: Rick Mullin/C&EN
The Northeast News Bureau was quiet for three days last month while the business writers mixed with the science crew in Washington, D.C.
Credit: Rick Mullin/C&EN
The Northeast News Bureau was quiet for three days last month while the business writers mixed with the science crew in Washington, D.C.

Every fall, my colleagues at C&EN's Northeast News Bureau and I travel to the home office in Washington, D.C., to connect with the rest of the magazine at our annual advisory board and staff meeting. We in the bureau, which is in a place called Metropark in Edison, N.J., are the business writers. Most of the editors at the home office, fondly referred to at the bureau as "The Show," are science writers. There are some mysterious types there as well—they write about the government.

I am reminded when I make this trip of my first visit to The Show in 2002, to interview for my job with then editor-in-chief Madeleine Jacobs and then managing editor Rudy Baum. I'll never forget entering the gleaming 16th Street building, that architectural tribute to science and modernism. Nor will I forget the interview, especially the part where Jacobs asked what I considered the best educational background for a journalist covering the chemical industry.

"History," I said.

"Which," she asked, "is the worst?"

"Any kind of science background," was my answer.

I vaguely remember Baum rising out of his seat at this juncture, and Jacobs touching his elbow. "Let him explain," she said, smiling at me with a hint of nervous tension in her eyes.

Leading with how there are generally all sorts of exceptions to rules, I explained my views on how information is processed differently by historians and scientists—how I see historical research as closely related to news reporting and science as averse to weekly deadlines.

Lively discussion ensued.

At this year's advisory board meeting, one of our advisers from the business world asked why C&EN isn't referenced more often in the general press. The answer, off the top of somebody's head, was that the nonscience public would have no interest in stories it doesn't understand.

That was not a good answer. For me, it immediately brought to mind Bob Windt and Birdie Jaworski, people who made clear at two points in my career as a journalist that the general public can deal with science, technology, and other "highly specialized" subject matter. In fact, they find that stuff interesting.

Windt goes back to my cub reporter days at an energy management magazine in the early 1980s. He was a freelance promotions man—his background was in boxing—who sold our stories to the news syndicates. Nearly as old as the century in those days, Windt would bound into the newsroom toward the end of the week. He'd throw his fedora on a vacant seat and, regardless of the time of day, say, "Good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon. Whadaya got for me?"

We'd be ready for him with a stack of stories we thought suitably accessible to the general public—articles about fuel and power prices, usually. These bored him. Instead, he went for what we thought he'd consider esoteric—the articles he'd grab from a reporter's desk about the inner workings of a desiccant dehumidification system or an arcane pay-through-energy-savings plan for purchasing computer-controlled air conditioning. "This is hot stuff!" he'd say, typing up a press release and a carbon copy on an office Remington. We'd chuckle, until we saw our name in the New York Times on Sunday.

Jaworski, a friend of mine, is an Avon lady. She is also a writer, but not a scientist. I had dinner with her in New York City in May, and for a joke, I brought along the May 8 issue of C&EN featuring our annual cosmetics cover story.

I received an e-mail from Jaworski the next week saying she'd read the issue cover-to-cover. More recently, she told me that she uses the magazine in consultation with her customers.

You would expect her to be interested in articles about cosmetics, but she also liked other stories, such as the one on the Iraqi Virtual Science Library. Jaworski admits she is unfamiliar with a lot of the science in C&EN. But she took the time to look up a few words because she found the stories interesting.

The public's ability to handle science also comes up in court. This year, C&EN's William Schulz reported on "the CSI effect"—the near demand by jurors, inspired by the TV show, to see scientific evidence—and the requirement that such evidence first be submitted to a judge's scrutiny (C&EN, Feb. 27, page 36). There are questions about the judges' ability to vet the science, but not about the juries' interest.

One of the nice things about being a nonscientist at C&EN is that I have little choice other than to look at the chemical enterprise through the eyes of Bob and Birdie. I see science and look for context—business context. I find that, and the science comes along for the ride. What I lack in chemistry knowledge at the molecular level, I have a chance to make up for with perspective, which is as important to a journalist as empathy is to a teacher or curiosity is to a scientist.

The correct answer to our adviser's question is that there is no good reason why the general press isn't picking up on our high-tech editorial content. We just have to show them what we've got.

Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.

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