“The good journalism has gotten better, and the bad journalism has gotten a lot worse.” — @picardonhealth summarizing how #science #journalism has changed since 1987, in tonight’s @RCIScience event, underway now.
2/ @picardonhealth cautions against “false balance” — the all-too- common practise of pretending that two opposing points of view are equally valid (which is especially problematic in health & science reporting). #scicomm
3/ “Take the time to do it right.” — @picardonhealth says it really doesn’t matter if his story comes out five minutes after, say, the TO Star’s version of the story. “Only journalists worry about that.”
4/ “What I don’t write can be as important as what I do write.” @picardonhealth notes that not everything needs to get amplified — not every study, not every paper. If it’s dubious, it’s best to let it be. #scicomm
5/ When people complain about news/journalism paywalls, @picardonhealth replies, “Yeah, and it’s a shame Starbucks charges for coffee, too.” #scicomm
6/ Facebook has been “a destructive, parasitic force” that has damaged the quality of information available to people, @picardonhealth says.
7/ Asked if the pandemic has had any silver linings, @picardonhealth notes that more of us are reading and talking about science than ever before. We now talk about mRNA vaccines “like we talk about hockey.”
8/ And that’s a wrap! Congrats again to @picardonhealth for winning this year’s @RCIScience Fleming Medal (very well deserved!) and to @heysciencesam for doing a great job of moderating tonight’s event!
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