Thread by @People_Of_Space

So my final thread on this last full day of tweeting - and my God what a day for anyone who is interested in .... checks notes.... Mars. What I wanted to do is make a few points about journalism .... and in particular, people who write about space #Mars #JournalismIsNotACrime

To set some context, then, what exactly is a “space journalist”? It is an interesting question and one which is fairly easy to answer. As a journalist, your function is to report what happened and also why.

In that last photo, the bearded fellow at far right was one of the most extraordinary space reporters I ever met - and I was just out of shot when that picture was taken btw. Jonathan Eberhardt was an award-winning reporter -- washingtonpost.com/archive/local/…

Jonathan lives on with the award in his name issued by the AAS dps.aas.org/prizes/eberhart and he is the only person I know who has ever written a folk song about Mars -- Lament for a Red Planet....

I can't say I knew him well but he was one of the many people who helped fire my knowledge of Mars, mainly by talking to him about Viking where he stayed for the whole of the primary mission in 1976. And yes, I thanked him for that later companionship

He was one of the writers who set the gold standard: he often knew more than people working on the projects he reported as he had the full overview. And he - as with all reporters - had a duty to report what he found

A journalist, however, is not a cheerleader, even though, yes, you can agree that space exploration is a worthwhile endeavour. Some will report it and think it is a colossal waste of money, time and effort

I happen to think it isn’t – space exploration is about our species showing that just occasionally we can rise above all the horrors that human beings are capable of. But as a journalist, had a duty to report other views

Whatever your own views about space, journalists hold people to account: and they get to ask difficult questions. Space is a terribly unforgiving environment, and again, reporters have a duty to report whatever it is has happened

One of the more vivid examples of this was written by Kathy Sawyer of The Washington Post - her first ever report on space occurred on an unseasonally cold Florida morning in early 1986.... washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-…

Journalists are not partisan - and I don’t mean dressed as peasant-folk with machine guns hiding from the Nazis in Crete – though some social media people are. That’s absolutely fine so long as the distinction is made

People can say they are a journalist or even become a space expert. Yet in the same way I would like to claim I will be the next James Bond*, it ain’t necessarily so (along with things you read in the Bible or watch on Fox News)

* Nearly

Here is one important fact: journalists are never more important than the story.

And here is another: they should be wary of hype, gushing prose or self-regarding nonsense spouted by people who by any normal yardsticks should be institutionalised

My Mars co-author Elizabeth @howellspace is a working journalist. Take a look at her feed. It’s all about her stories, not claims of who she has met, what she has eaten and who she managed to buttonhole for a selfie for five minutes at a lunch

As someone who mainly tweets in a personal capacity about our cats, things that make me laugh and the occasional sarcastic comment, I don’t claim to be a “space journalist” any more

I was a journalist who wrote about space and then cybserspace, science and then technology. Now I write books, scripts and ever so slightly acerbic tweets

And that was it. I enjoyed it, it was great fun, what a bloody privilege, but that's it. Nothing more, nothing less.

But I am glad I kept all of my notes - and yes, I still want to go to Mars. Thank you for listening.