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Comment by SpelingBeeChamp | Hacker News Reader

It is not a journalist's job to be an expert in the subject they are covering. That's why journalists interview experts, and why journalists don't use themselves as sources.

If you are writing from your own knowledge rather than attributing your information to others, I would argue that you aren't really practicing journalism. (There's nothing wrong with that, I just think it's something else.)

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Unless a journalist is merely acting as a typist "not using themselves as sources" is not enough.

Journalists gather, assemble and interpret information, and sometimes they build the dreaded 'narrative' for the reader. In this case they must not only _source_ knowledge but consume and comprehend it - at which point they _are_ operating in the specific domain of the information they gathered.

Different knowledge requires differing degrees of investment to comprehend, and for non-trivial subjects being an SME that covers most of the domains involved is going to allow you to validate interpretations made on assembled knowledge i.e the stuff you are operating on rather than merely regurgitating.

I am open to the idea that a journalist could separately have good investigative skills and other journalistic things I am not aware of while not being an SME in much of anything - but in which case they should always work with one or more SMEs, much like the sibling comment's suggestion from 'cousin_it'.

Some topics are simpler than others. For example, a lot of stories on "science" tend to focus on people instead. They tell the narrative of the research team, and their success, and usually pick out a single individual to tell a human story about. Often this takes a moralistic or political angle. "A [politically fashionable identity group member] has [destroyed boundaries / revolutionized topic / other post-modern language]." This is not necessarily a bad story to tell, but it's clearly about people and groups of people, rather than a story about science.

By contrast, if journalists were solely focusing on the science, the article would simply be a reprint (or summary) of a research paper. Now, to be fair, some news outlets do a very nice job of this, while others turn everything into a human story, or at least, focus on a part of the story the journalist can understand.

I think this is partially due to the limitations being described. The journalist likely can't understand the science in a meaningful way, but can understand the people, and how they talk about their research, and how the public perceives that. Helpfully, this will also likely be the story that will appeal to more readers. And so, the incentives are aligned in a few directions against the "better" (read: more precise, and requiring more expertise) story.

I could bring as examples innumerable “Experts“ who give bad and highly opinionated comments that journalist can skew and apply to their own narrative. If you are versed in what you write about it’s easier to separate fluff and worthless commentary from actual information.

There's a great Twain story about this: http://inthesetimes.com/rural-america/entry/18515/how-i-edit...

Would it be too much to ask that, when a journalist writes on a topic they don't understand, they should ask an expert "hey can you sanity check this" before publishing?

It's not necessarily malice. Experts rarely have time to review some bullshit for free and the tight timelines don't help.

I asked some science journalists about this on Twitter. Tight deadlines are a problem, but the bigger issue is that there’s some sort of journalistic principle about not letting “sources” see—-or approve—-the completed article.

I don’t totally understand why, but I think they were a little unclear on what most scientists want, which is more like checking language and details (a lot of words that seem synonymous aren't in technical contexts) than controlling the overall message.

Seems like the obvious argument for open, post-publication review.

... and yet newspapers are shutting down comment sections

Newspaper comment sections are highly problematical. You have occasional thoughtful posts mixed in with hundreds of completely moronic, bigoted, and deeply stupid posts. When a comments section gets bad enough that it demands moderation, perhaps it's better to get out of that business entirely. (No need to get rid of the letters to the editor.)

If the journalist talked to the expert while writing the article, the expert will always be happy for a chance to sanity check. The only reason that's so often not done is because the journalist is on a power trip.

In Germany we have this organisation:

https://www.sciencemediacenter.de/en/

for journalists to quickly find an expert to ask.

The problem here is that it's easy to find an expert to mirror the point of view of the journalist, and thus make any point of view seem objective.

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