wu :: forums
« wu :: forums - Article: Beware press releases masquerading as new »

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
Mar 29th, 2024, 12:54am

RIDDLES SITE WRITE MATH! Home Home Help Help Search Search Members Members Login Login Register Register
   wu :: forums
   general
   truth
(Moderators: william wu, Grimbal, Eigenray, SMQ, towr, ThudnBlunder, Icarus)
   Article: Beware press releases masquerading as new
« Previous topic | Next topic »
Pages: 1  Reply Reply Notify of replies Notify of replies Send Topic Send Topic Print Print
   Author  Topic: Article: Beware press releases masquerading as new  (Read 1686 times)
Benny
Uberpuzzler
*****





   


Gender: male
Posts: 1024
Article: Beware press releases masquerading as new  
« on: May 7th, 2010, 11:43am »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

Hello,
 
I visit on a daily basis Science Daily and Physorg
 
I wasn't aware that there were any issues, until I came across this article Beware press releases masquerading as news on ScienceDaily & other sites
 
Your thoughts, please.
IP Logged

If we want to understand our world — or how to change it — we must first understand the rational choices that shape it.
towr
wu::riddles Moderator
Uberpuzzler
*****



Some people are average, some are just mean.

   


Gender: male
Posts: 13730
Re: Article: Beware press releases masquerading as  
« Reply #1 on: May 7th, 2010, 2:42pm »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

Yeah, I've heard about that kind of thing before from Ben Goldacre ( badscience.net ) amongst others. Reporters are under a lot of pressure, so if someone offers them "news" it can be tempting to just run with it. Good reporting costs a lot of time and money.
 
What's also pretty bad is when the PR divisions of universities screw up the press release about actual research, and make claims not at all supported by the article they're basing it on. Or, also fun, when conferences mention interesting presentations by students in their press release and reporters promptly promote them to full researchers and tout preliminary/speculative results as cutting edge science. (Really, anything said at a conference should be taken with a grain of salt until it's actually published in a peer reviewed journal. A lot of work presented at conferences actually never leads to a publication, because sometimes decent ideas simply don't pan out.)
 
[edit]Actually, what that blog you linked to complains about isn't half as bad as what traditional media outlets do. Sure, it'd be nice if they said they just republished press released. But at least they don't mangle it up before rereleasing it. And they're just republishing what bona fide scientific institutions release. What's much worse would be publishing without any skepticism what PR companies dream up.
 
[edit2]Rereading it a bit more closely, I must say I'm a bit surprised at how the writer interprets the line "Adapted from materials provided by Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. Original article written by Nicole Giese" as a claim of original writing, rather than an attribution of source.[/edit2]
 
 
You could always just go to newscientist.com They've got decent original articles. Although even then you may want to read the original research publications.[/edit]
« Last Edit: May 7th, 2010, 3:05pm by towr » IP Logged

Wikipedia, Google, Mathworld, Integer sequence DB
Pages: 1  Reply Reply Notify of replies Notify of replies Send Topic Send Topic Print Print

« Previous topic | Next topic »

Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.4!
Forum software copyright © 2000-2004 Yet another Bulletin Board