Lecture: John Rennie and Carl Zimmer
John Rennie. Photo: Courtesy of John Rennie.
From tawdry gossip to nuggets of hard news, blogs serve every conceivable market niche. In the free-for-all of discussion, debate, rumor-mongering, and (on rare occasion) reporting that prevails in the blogosphere, solidly reported science would, presumably, be a rare find. Yet, amid what the blog search engine Technorati estimates are some 60 million blogs, there are a few that strive to cover science beats with precision and style.
On February 27, 2007, Scientific American blogger John Rennie and freelance writer and blogger Carl Zimmer gave students and faculty in NYU's journalism department a show-and-tell crash course on how to cover the science beat using blogs.
Describing Scientific American's blog as a place that provides a "water-cooler feeling," Rennie emphasized the importance of sparking informal discussions, rather than adopting a "staid" or "starched" tone that might discourage spirited exchanges among readers, via posted comments. In SciAm Observations—-originally Rennie's brainchild—-the writers achieve an informal, jocular tone that allows the audience a glimpse of the personalities behind the magazine. Personal jabs, for example, have occurred between one contributor and "the deluded senator from Oklahoma," James Inhofe. "If I were completely staid and button-down, as many people would like to think Scientific American always is," Rennie told an audience of about 25, "it would be very, very boring because the personal voice is what really enlivens all our blogs."
Carl Zimmer, a prolific freelance science writer, offered another perspective on blogging. He started his personal blog, The Loom, to take advantage of the freedom to write about topics that interest him, such as evolutionary science, without having to endure the time-consuming editing process. When blogging, said Zimmer, "I just write about what I find interesting and hope that other people who find it interesting will come along."
Carl Zimmer. Photo: Courtesy of CarlZimmer.com.
The editorial autonomy inherent in blogging enables Zimmer to expand his archive of what he calls "obsessions," which include writings about the complex lifecycles of parasitic flatworms, among other topics he hasn't been able to pursue in published articles. "There are lots of things out there that I find fascinating that I suspect an editor would have a hard time with," Zimmer explained.
What makes blogging truly unique, Rennie and Zimmer agreed, is that it transforms passive readers into critical commentators. Empowered to respond to blog posts, readers can take on the roll of interactive fact-checkers by verifying the accuracy (or lack thereof) of reporting they believe to be biased or simply wrong. Knowledgeable online readers can quickly and easily catch and publicize a reporting mistake, Rennie noted, which places blogging "on the frontlines" of fact-checking.
Still, Zimmer admitted, the sudden influx of comments that pour in soon after he posts an article was at first difficult to adjust to. "There are a lot of educated readers [who] point out all the wrongs," Zimmer said. "You have to learn to loosen up because you [can't] pretend you didn't make a mistake. … Readers will not respect you if, in response to a commenter, you hide your mistakes and get all snooty about it."
Embedding links within a post also allows readers to gauge the blogger's reliability. These "living footnotes," as Zimmer calls them, give readers instant access to the sources for a blogger's assertions of fact, enabling the reader to judge for himself whether an article is based on careful research or unsupported agenda. For Rennie, citing sources via Web links is an effective gesture of professional journalism. But on some issues, he allows, "the fight will come find you" no matter how well-sourced your assertions are.
Because he's associated with a mainstream magazine, suggested Rennie, he has to be careful to avoid overly personal expressions of opinion, which might lead readers to suspect him, and his affiliated magazine, of ideological bias. For better or worse, he said, he's inextricably associated with Scientific American in the minds of his readers. "So if I say even half of the stupid things that come into my head on a regular basis," he said, "it's bad for Scientific American."
Although the two bloggers compete for readers, Rennie and Zimmer emphasized the importance of mutual support in the blogging community at this nascent stage, when bloggers are struggling to compete with better-established print and broadcast outlets. The Loom, for instance, is linked as one of their "Favorite Blogs" on the SciAm Observations homepage. "The commercial reality of this is [that] all of us who are working in science writing…are on the same side," Rennie said. "We are a happy little club.”