Unlike mainstream journalism, science journalism is under no expectation, feigned or real, to be objective. Because no one reads science journalism any more.
It's therefore no surprise that every science journalist in an informal analysis of science journalism articles on politics supports President Obama. Is it because they are super-smart liberals and Republicans are anti-science? No, there is no evidence basis for the Obama endorsement, he has simply replaced President G.W. Bush's anti-science methods with his own, on different issues, but he has edited reports, manipulated science to suit his agenda, and said blatantly anti-science things, no differently than every president since Reagan. They're going to vote for every Democrat over every Republican in every instance, and that is why mainstream media no longer bothers to carry science departments. They already have political journalists and those are at least only 70/30 Democrats.
Alex Berezow at Real Clear Science takes LiveScience to task but he could have picked almost any publication, including here at Science 2.0, and the results would have been similar. If Romney says something stupid about airplane windows, all Republicans are stupid. If 53 Democrats in Congress insist biologists are out to kill us with Frankenfood, no Democrats are stupid, they simply have an anti-corporation position but still love science. Somehow.
In Science Left Behind, I have a chapter on the Death of Science Journalism and quotes from scientists, liberals every one, who say 'good riddance.' Because scientists recognize that science does not need political cheerleaders and science journalists seem to have gone into the field to 'make a difference' in the culture wars rather than actually talk about science, so they are basically useless and it's better just to let scientists write the stories on their blogs.
All three articles, particularly the last one, appear to have been written in order to score some political points or to cater to a left-leaning demographic of readers. But, that's not good. Increasingly, conservatives are distrusting science. Could it be that science journalism, which clearly favors one side of the political spectrum over the other, is partially to blame for this trend?
Conservatives used to have the highest trust levels in science but in the last 25 years, as the demographic of science skewed harder left (in America anyway) that trust has gone down. The problem is that everyone sees the bias and it impacts their confidence too. Now both conservatives and independents don't trust science equally, the only ones who still do are liberals - except when it comes to vaccines, food, medicine, pharmacology, the environment, energy and dozens of other issues. For those, science is an a la carte world view.
Unfortunate.
Are Science Journalists Rooting for Obama? by Alex Berezow, RealClearScience.com
