Why Cover Science in the News?

How science is covered in the news is very important. The majority of people are only exposed to science when it hits the headlines. It is a form of scientific out-reach. Even if you consider yourself to be scientifically literate, the chances are that you pick up new developments from a news outlet, be that catching it on TV, a national paper or a specialised scientific magazine. Now I am not a journalist, and I am not going to demonise how journalists report the science. They have their own pressures and demands which as a non-journalist I cannot appreciate, but that doesn’t stop me considering the repercussions of their work.  

Fundamentally, science needs to be communicated, it is the basis of the scientific model.  Through the sharing of knowledge and building on the foundations laid by others it furthers science as a whole. Therefore this is just a place to write about science in the news that interests me, whether it raises important questions about the process of spreading the news, or that is is badly communicated or even that the new development is really cool and I just want to write about it.