Mariette DiChristina-Gerosa is executive editor of Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States, which has been covering developments in science and technology for more than 150 years. Today, the magazine appears in 20 foreign language editions and has a total of more than 1.1 million copies in circulation worldwide; it includes coverage by professional journalists as well as articles written by scientists. DiChristina-Gerosa teaches science writing in the graduate program at New York University and in 2009 will be president of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), a 2,800-member professional organization of science journalists and communicators. Her 20-year career in journalism includes local newspaper coverage as well as serving as executive editor of Popular Science magazine.
What are you looking for from scientist sources?
At Scientific American, nearly all of the sources are scientists. We’re looking to them for something new and interesting, something unique, and perhaps most important, something to interest our readers. News is a commodity; everyone’s got the insta-deadline news. As soon as the research is in the journal, it’s out there. As a magazine editor with a longer production timeframe, I can’t print that. So we're looking for stories that aren’t just the simple snapshot, but trends, analysis, observations over a longer time scale – something we can do well that the others can’t.
Do you have a background in science? Does that matter?
No, I don’t have one and I’m not sure if it matters. Science writers the world over have different backgrounds: Some are PhDs, some are journalists, and some have an engineering degree. Any kind of science training is helpful, but in the field it’s not the be all and end all. Today, the younger reporters seem to have at least a bachelor’s degree in a science discipline and often a master’s degree in science writing. But we come at science journalism from all sorts of backgrounds. If you were to do a survey of the 2,800 members of NASW, I bet you’d find 2,800 answers to that question. Scientists devote huge chunks of their lives to knowing something in great depth and detail, and the journalist will know nothing so well, so I can see how we keep scratching our heads at each other. At the end of the day, however, we’re all – both scientist and journalist – seeking knowledge.
How important is the scientist to your story, generally?
The answer is different for the different areas of the magazine. For the feature well, the bulk of the stories are written by scientists or by professional writers. One reason we might use a professional writer would be that a story is breaking quickly and a scientist couldn’t put the story together quickly based their schedule, or a particular story is so controversial that we cover it with a journalist to avoid any suggestion of bias. As another example, we might try to get someone at the top in the field, but the field is too young to do that. Or the story needs reporting legwork, which a scientist may not be able to do. Once we were doing a story on voice synthesis systems and I asked a researcher at a company to see if he could write a short summary about other research in his field. He gave it a good effort – we were looking for a short box or sidebar – but the scientists at the other companies said, “Forget about it, I'm not telling you anything.” So in that case, we’d turn to a journalist to ask the questions.
How do you handle the balance between scientific accuracy and "dumbing down" information?
Of course, many people accuse Scientific American of dumbing things down, and my response is that finding the appropriate level for readers is less of a science than it is a craft. When we are working with the scientists who write for Scientific American, that may be only time they write for a popular publication in their lives. So we spend quite a bit of time speaking with them before they begin the writing process. We try to explain who our readers are, the level that’s appropriate, what our format requires. In the editing process, it’s very collaborative and we’d say, for instance, “Maybe this formula isn’t something we’d put in the magazine.” We do all those sorts of negotiations. Sometimes we accept the fact that the language of everyday English is just not as precise as the technical terms in science, and in that case, we may offer the term and define it or find a way to do without the term, and the scientist accepts it as accessible to the readers. I’m making a distinction here between precision and accuracy; something can be less precise and yet not be wrong.
What suggestions would you give scientists for how to successfully communicate to journalists and the general public? What should they keep in mind?
I would say to the researchers this is a question that’s easy to ask, but hard to answer without specifics. Researchers should generally keep in mind what I tell my science journalism students: Be very afraid, because no one has any obligation to listen to you. So what you say has to be relevant – it could be wondrous, or beautiful to look at, or full of meaning. But what has to come across is what the new research or finding would mean to the average person. The other thing I’d recommend to any researcher is something I do in my own writing: Talk to friends about it. Talk to someone out of your immediate field, in everyday conversation, and listen to what are the stories you tell them, that you bring back from the lab, that catch people’s imagination. There is something so formal about the act of sitting down and writing that we often seize up; but in everyday conversation we naturally pick out what’s most interesting to focus on. I try to be very anxious someone will turn the page on me and that helps me focus on holding the reader’s attention.
Talk about some ways scientists have been useful to you in covering a story.
One thing every reporter loves is when something happens in a scientist’s lab and they tell you about it directly, or they at least make themselves available. That sounds really simple, but if someone’s not willing to speak with you, that’s not useful. And if they can say, “I can talk to you” and when, or even “I can’t talk to you,” that’s also really helpful. One thing that’s usually hard for anyone outside of journalism to understand is that sometimes the story has to go to the printer or on the website right now. We can’t always wait.
What would you like to see scientists do differently in interviews with you?
Even before an interview, they could tell a reporter to look specifically at certain journal articles or background information. I’m sure they’re tired of basic questions and journalists can do the legwork before the interview. Scientists need to realize that they’re also in control of the process. Both of us – scientist and journalist – want to get a good story that’s clear and pleasing to our readers, so I think being understanding about each other’s limitations is most helpful of all.