Denyse O'Leary is in Sudbury attending the Canadian Science Writers Conference. One of the speakers was Lawrence Krauss&mdahs;who is speaking in Toronto tomorrow evening.
Here's how Denyse reports on what she heard [Science writing: There are not - repeat, NOT - two sides to the story].
Dr. Krauss went on to say that there is an innate tension between journalism and science. The problem is, “journalists think there are two sides to every story.” According to him, this is not true: “Most times, one side is simply wrong.”The problem with Denyse O'Leary is that she hears but doesn't listen. Krauss said that "most times, one side is simply wrong." He also said that journalists and editors don't get this, they almost always pretend that there are two sides to every story.
Oh well, that’s all right then. Having been informed that one side is simply wrong, the journalist can forget about getting a range of opinion and simply act as a shill for the approved view.
The beauty of that strategy is that if there are problems with the approved view, the journalist is guaranteed never to find out, so she will always be sure she and her sources are right.
Dr. Krauss later conceded that “The editors are the bad guys.” Yes, indeed, in the sense that editors often come up with additional people for us writers to interview, people who offer additional perspectives. They, like us, see most stories as having many sides, not just one, so they are guilty of multiple sins, and we are complicit (when we are doing our job, that is).
Denyse then proves his point.
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