Glamorizing Science

As far as websites go, there isn't really any limitation to the amount of space a journalist might have to explain scientific theories to the depths that they deserve, but the particular genre of scientific writing and "accommodation writing," as Jeanne Fahnestock calls it, stemmed from almost an entirely print medium; most of these types of articles used to be found in magazines like the Scientific American and Science, both of which have now switched to online publications. While in the past, as both of the analyzed sources (Jeanne Fahnestock in "Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts" and M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer in chapter 4 of their book Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America) have indicated, there were limitations of space; thusly, it was imperative that a journalist get the most pertinent information in their article as concisely as possible without completely fabricating the results or findings of the scientists they are quoting. However, there is still the problem of, as the Killingsworth-Palmer chapter states "if a particular source proves to be more willing about sharing information or to have a more interesting slant on a particular story, journalists may consciously or unconsciously privilege that source and thereby betray their own objectivity." On page 135. As a journalist, the constraints placed on their product are far more vast and limiting than those of the scientist writing for their peer group. Journalists have to make things interesting.
 However, with the age of digital media, while space is virtually unlimited, we still have the problem of engaging a non-scientific audience. This generally means having to have an interesting title and subtitle to get a potential reader to click on the article in the first place. As Killingsworth and Palmer say on page 134 of their book, "for a story to be considered 'news,' it must tell readers something they don't already know, something they haven't already heard or become accustomed to." This has to mean that topics don't often get revisited if small discoveries that slightly alter the outcome (at least in the eyes of the general public) even if the small discoveries actually drastically alter the meaning to the scientific community. If something seems to be curing cancer, to the journalists and general public that something cures cancer whether or not it causes other complications.
 The end goal of most journalism seems not to be to complicate things (as most scientific endeavors seek to do) but rather to simplify them—the author's job, as Fahnestock describes on page 281 of her article is to "glamorize." She states "[…] glamorizing is the (accommodating) writer's purpose throughout the accommodation, part of his heavy task of bringing a deliberately dry research report into the realm interesting journalism." The author wants to be recognized, they want to make a splash in the world of journalism and propel themselves forward to fame. This is how you get a writer like Jonah Lehrer. His audience trusted him because he wrote things that sounded interesting and as long as there was some scientific jargon and "cited" sources then obviously the reader is educating and bettering themselves.
 Educating and bettering ourselves is a large mass appeal of some of these well-known science (and non-science publications) give us as readers. There is a certain prestige in reading a particular publication on a regular basis. So, then, of course, we want to take things at face value. "We are pattern seeking primates," as Dr. Michael Shermer says in his TED talk "Why Do We Believe in Unbelievable Things?". We have something called association learning and our default state is to believe. So, if a journalist knows that if something is attention-grabbing enough that people will default believe their article and the only obstacle is writing style and rhetoric, why not omit a few words and make it interesting?