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The new release about the measurements performed by Andrea Ghez's group at @UCLA about the orbit of the star S2 around the black hole in the center of our Milky Way are not only really cool astrophysics. They're also a nice experiment in science journalism and astro coverage. 1/2
For one, they demonstrate the difference between a press release and a story written by an independent science journalist. The two genres tend to blur a bit - press releases can be found as "news items" on institute/university websites; those interested in science read both. 2/3
But at least for a classical press release, there is a fundamental difference. For studies of the central black hole in the Milky Way, there are two major competing groups of astronomers. Ghez and her group at UCLA, and the group of Reinhard Genzel at MPE @maxplanckpress 3/4
(Full disclosure: I am employed by @maxplanckpress, although via a different institution, namely @HdAstro, and was involved in writing the @mpi_astro press release on measurements that are important in this context; more about that later.) 4/5
Classical press releases are institution-focused. The whole story might involve other researchers and institutions as well, and press releases tend to - tune those additional contributions out. 5/6
Sometimes this is the case even within a collaboration - the press release might only focus on its own researchers' contributions and leave out those of others. Competing groups are made to vanish even more often, of course. 6/7
The @UCLA press release is a case in point. To be sure, there are no wrong statements in this release, as far as I can see. Indeed, the wording is very carefully chosen. They do not claim this was the first measurement of its kind newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/einst… 7/8
But the text definitely has blinders. No mention that there is another group that has done similar measurements, and even the first example of *this* particular measurement (gravitational redshift for the star S2 / S0-2). 8/9
Again, that's par for the course. It's how most press releases are written. So it's not unusual in any way. 9/10
(Problematic? Yes, given that those texts are also meant to be read by the general public directly, who might feel somewhat deceived on discovering that key parts of the story have been deliberately left out, but press release evolution hasn't got to that point.) 10/11
But it does demonstrate the difference between PR for a specific institute and a (good) journalistic story, at least given the current habits of writing press releases. This makes for an interesting experiment. 11/12
It's a nice litmus test for good vs. bad science writing. A good science journalist will *know* (or find out!) about the background. His or her reporting on the new UCLA result will include wider context. So let's see how different outlets are doing! 12/13
First, @NatGeo with @nadiamdrake reporting. nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/0… - successfully passes the test, as the earlier GRAVITY measurements are described. Good science journalism - context given. 13/14
@NatGeo @nadiamdrake (The associated video by @WinokurJulie is less journalistic/documentary and more public-relation-like/promotional in that respect. Only the UCLA group is shown; no mention that there is anyone else doing those same measurements.)
@NatGeo @nadiamdrake @WinokurJulie Next up: @ScienceAlert with (I think? Not immediately clear from the Twitter bio) @riding_red reporting. sciencealert.com/another-test-o… - the earlier Genzel group measurements are mentioned early on, and it's also pointed out why this is important. 15/16
Namely because it gives us independent data from two groups, going after the same physics using different instruments (which are likely to have different measuring errors/biases). From the point of view of science, that's very cool. 16/17
Measurements by different (and competing!) groups, using different instruments and telescopes, giving the same physics should increase our confidence in the results. Here, too, good science journalism that passes the context test. 17/18
Next, @PhysicsWorld - rather brief overall, physicsworld.com/a/einsteins-ge… but with a spot-on description of the context, namely the GRAVITY measurement. Another example of good reporting, here by Sam Jarman. 18/19
@PhysicsWorld Now, for the first fail. Sadly, it's the text published by @Reuters - so likely to be picked up by a number of other outlets. Written by Will Dunham: reuters.com/article/us-spa… - and it gives *no* context other than the (limited) context contained in the press release itself. 19/20
@PhysicsWorld @Reuters It does explain the gravitational redshift (a term the @UCLA press release avoids), but makes no mention of the earlier first measurement of the gravitational redshift for that particular black hole. Not good. 20/21
@PhysicsWorld @Reuters @UCLA And again, because it's by @Reuters , it propagates. @euronews for instance makes use of that story (slightly edited): euronews.com/2019/07/25/sta… - and so they're reproducing the press-release blinders. Not good, and not good journalism. 21/22
@PhysicsWorld @Reuters @UCLA @euronews Next up, @SPACEdotcom with a text by @cqchoi - sadly, with the same science journalism fail. No context, no mention of the earlier measurement. space.com/supermassive-b… 22/23
Even worse: There are direct quotes (not wrong, but misleading regarding the context) calling this the start of a new era, and stating how excited the scientists are that they were now able to finally measure something that was, before, only predicted theoretically. 23/24
Reading this, how can any reader *not* think that this is the first time this particular cool measurement has been made? (By being told about the context by a science journalist, that's how. But that additional information is sadly missing in this case.) 24/25
This text has propagated as well, namely to @NBCNews who now have the same context-less, blindered version on their website: nbcnews.com/mach/science/s… 25/26
@NBCNews Ooh, I just saw this: The Berkeley version of the press release here news.berkeley.edu/2019/07/25/mil… even includes mention of the Genzel group and GRAVITY measurements! Shout-out and kudos to @bobthesciguy who authored the text. 26/27
So, looks like I need to revisit my initial thesis. There *is* a new generation of press releases that's not stubbornly institution-centric and even mentions competing groups, when necessary for the context. 27/28
To recap: Classical, public-relations-centered press releases are in danger of giving you a one-sided story, leaving out the contributions from researchers from other institutions. Good science journalism gives you the context, and goes beyond the narrower PR scope. 28/29
Press releases are evolving – there used to be times (before the Web) when they were really sent out to the press only, and the general public would only see the results if reported on by the regular media. That's different, now that institutes can put own news items online.29/30
But although the target audience has changed, at least for some press releases, the narrow institutional focus hasn't. Those press releases (as in the UCLA example here) are not a valid substitute for a science journalist's coverage of the story. 30/31
We've seen the positive example from @UCBerkeley where the press release *does* give the context, so my story is not as black and white as I initially thought. (And we have seen negative examples where science journalists don't give you the necessary context.) 31/32
Anyhow, this was and remains an interesting text case, and I expect to be adding additional examples of media articles on the (very cool!) new black hole result tomorrow. 32/33
To round things off, here is the link to the paper this is all about, which was published in @sciencemagazine science.sciencemag.org/content/early/… 33/34
...and which, incidentally, is much clearer and much more explicit about what is new/important about these new results. First, it's based on more data, doubling the baseline for the precise measurements. Which is always good. 34/35
Secondly, they used three different spectroscopic instruments in their 2018 measurements, which gave them a better chance of detecting/mitigating instrumental biases. 35/36
Three, they did a very thorough analysis trying to uncover instrumental/measurement biases in their 20-year-long-measurements. And iv) they have publicly released the data for their stellar measurements and some of their statistical analysis. 36/37
(The last bit is a dig at the GRAVITY group, which has included the appropriate diagrams in their paper about the redshift measurements, but not released the associated data. Which is legitimate, but in an age of open science, releasing your data is much nicer of course.) 37/38
(And releasing your data allows others to check up on your results. Again, it's not compulsory right now, but in the interest of good science, it should probably be compulsory to release one's data at least after a certain grace period.) 38/39
Now that it’s morning in Germany, time for a look at the German media! @focusonline is another fail (based on @dpa so I will have to see what *they* wrote): focus.de/wissen/weltrau… - there is a sentence stating that not only measured the orbit with the greatest accuracy yet 39/40
(which I believe is true), but also that they discovered the gravitational redshift. Which once more will make readers think this discovery was the key, and which erases the earlier measurements. 40/41
In particular since there is vague mention of another group testing Einstein at the central supermassive black hole earlier - but at least in the @focusonline directly followed by the statement that the new measurements found the redshift, “in addition”. 41/42
The misleading ordering of the two paragraphs in question might be @focusonline -specific, though. Lübecker Nachrichten also has a @dpa-based text, and there the vague “other group” paragraph comes much later, without the misleading juxtaposition. ln-online.de/Nachrichten/Wi… 42/43
Next, @DownHereOnEarth for @newscientist newscientist.com/article/221118… - this is a difficult one. It does make vague mention of “similar studies in the past” (well no, just the one, one year ago, which was the first to measure the gravitational redshift near this black hole). 43/44
And have a look at this sentence here. That is subtly ambiguous. There is a large effect here and a smaller one. The large effect is that measurements of the closest approach in 2018 gave both groups a giant boost in confidence in the orbit of S0-2. the smaller one is 44/45 
That the additional few months of measurements included in the new paper gives a (comparatively much smaller) boost in confidence for the current UCLA paper relative to the 2018 GRAVITY paper. The choice of words in that paragraph could refer to either. 45/46
By @YahooNews : a brief video with some basic information, but the context of the earlier measurements is again missing. news.yahoo.com/star-orbit-aro… 46/47
Next up, @CNN with @CNNAshley reporting. edition.cnn.com/2019/07/25/wor… Another science journalism fail, sadly. Includes brief mention that the UCLA group is one of only two groups monitoring the full S0-2 orbit, but completely fails to mention that the other group published 47/48
their redshift measurement pretty much exactly one year ago. Instead, the CNN text rather closely follows the one-sided narrative of the press release (which, again, is OK for the press release, but not for science journalism). 48/49
Next, an example where I really don’t know where the mistake is: @StartsWithABang for @Forbes forbes.com/sites/startswi… - Ethan Siegel clearly mentions the GRAVITY measurements, but makes a distinction I can’t follow: that the GRAVITY group merely detected inconsistencies 49/50
with the Newtonian orbit, while the UCLA group was the first to really measure the gravitational redshift. I’ll have to head over to @StartsWithABang and ask. 50/51
OK, I’ve put my question to @StartsWithABang here. let’s see what comes of it. 51/52
@StartsWithABang The @nytimes ran the context-less Reuters story, and thus ended up with the misleading narrow version. Pity, since they do have astronomy-knowledgeable journalists such as Dennis @overbye. 52/53
@StartsWithABang @nytimes @overbye Meanwhile in Germany, the @faznet story does a good job of setting out the context of the various measurements. faz.net/aktuell/wissen… 53/54
@StartsWithABang @nytimes @overbye @faznet Next, @cosmoquestX with their Daily Space podcast, with nice simple explanations of the basics of the measurements, but, sadly, nothing whatsoever about the context of the earlier results. cosmoquest.org/x/blog/2019/07… 54/55
I'm somewhat disappointed, since generally, I hold @starstryder in high regard. But when it comes to this aspect, she dropped the ball, and didn't go beyond the press release information. 55/56
