Editorial: How to read science news

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a regular consumer of the news, so you know that for many, the reality of doing science in the US has been changing rapidly since the new US administration assumed office in January.

The headlines come thick and fast. And the options to find commentary seem to multiply by the week. In our increasingly polarized politics and media, it can be hard to untangle what updates about the science world are verifiable facts and which are pushing misinformation or an undeclared agenda.

Additionally, the concept of what qualifies as news media can be confusing. You may face an overwhelming feed of information from many channels and devices. On social media, network news and legacy publications compete with posts from individual content creators. The incoming messages might be news, rumor, analysis, or simply “vibes.”

It’s difficult to know whether the poster is committed to truth telling—or, in the case of artificial intelligence–generated summaries on Google, committed to any principle at all.

Related, earlier this month, a United States attorney in the District of Columbia sent letters to multiple scholarly publishers, asking them how they are funded and how they review manuscripts for articles, according to multiple media reports. This leads us to believe that more and more people are thinking about agendas in scientific writing.

News literacy is part of scientific literacy, so the staff of C&EN want to give you a short primer on how we tend to structure our articles. Understanding our approach might help you identify standards to look for in other media.

The coverage of new discoveries often follows a predictable form. The structure of a succinct science news story has been broken down by countless others, perhaps never more deftly than Martin Robbins’s 2010 spoof article in a blog post for the Guardian, “This Is a News Website Article About a Scientific Paper.” So we won’t go into the details, but it’s worth pointing out the basics.

A news story about a scientific discovery begins with the core of what the researchers reported. Then come things like previous developments that led to today’s news and what the findings could mean for the future.

Usually near the bottom, most science stories include a comment from a person who wasn’t directly involved with the laboratory that published the study. That choice of commenter is key. News outlets typically want someone who has credibility with the global scientific community but enough distance from the research to provide perspective.

In other types of stories, such as one that is focused on something less data-driven than a scientific report, the choice of commenters can reveal the publication’s values. For instance, in a science policy story about changes in US government grants, C&EN might ask a federal official for comment, but we will also speak with scientists affected to understand the downstream implications.

This was the case with recent stories about cuts to grants on long COVID and the prompt restoration of some of that funding: reporter Rowan Walrath included the voices of several scientists across the stories and reached out to people with a range of political affiliations.

Generally, whom a publication speaks to as a source and what it asks that source can tell you a lot about how it sees the world and how it sees you, the reader. But there are other ways to understand the context behind a publication. These questions apply to any outlet, whether it’s a century-old newspaper, a comedian-hosted podcast, or a local newsletter:

• How does it raise money, and is it easy to find that information?
• How does it ensure accuracy and check its facts?
• How is it accountable to its audience when it gets something wrong?

These questions are central to certifications of credibility awarded by the likes of the Journalism Trust Initiative.

For C&EN, you will find answers to these questions on “C&EN’s Standards and Practices" page.

This editorial is the result of collective deliberation in C&EN. For this editorial, the lead contributors are Manny Morone and Chris Gorski.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of ACS.