I had a pretty heady column about satellites for my first endeavor here at the Oregon Daily Emerald.
But according to the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 605., it is a federal offense for me to publish it in the U.S.  And I try to avoid those. So much for freedom of speech!
Instead, let’s talk about something that is legal: Futurity.org. Are you a university researcher or professor who feels like your work is not getting enough attention in the mass media? Well, you might have been if you were one of the brains behind Futurity, the world’s newest science-only, web-based wire service for journalists.
The service went into live beta in March 2009 (and formally launched on Sept. 15) and has four major categories: Earth and Environment, Health and Medicine, Science and Design and Society and Culture.
Futurity describes itself as “an online news source featuring the latest discoveries in science, engineering, the environment, health and more from North America’s leading research universities.” Members include Yale, Cornell, Berkeley, and probably my favorite, this university.
The idea is that we journalists don’t give them the coverage they want, so they will skip us altogether. To be fair, many newspapers used to include a science section, but when was the last time you saw one? They’re extremely rare these days. On the other hand, magazines like Discover, Popular Mechanics and Scientific American are, well … scientific. Enough for me at least.
Futurity’s Web site boldly states: “… significant has been the recent decline in science and research coverage by traditional news outlets. For decades, universities have partnered with journalists to communicate their work to the public, but that relationship is evolving. At the same time, research universities are among the most credible and trusted institutions in society, and now have the ability to deliver their news and information directly to readers without barriers or gatekeepers.”
It’s almost acidic — looks like we’re being dumped. I hope in earnest that I get to keep the golden retriever. This also puts up red flags immediately: What information are you purveying that can’t or won’t make it through journalistic channels? What is so outlandish or bizarre that you have to create an entire new science-information live Web site to spread it around?
The issue that I have with this, aside from wanting a job in the future, is while many researchers are brilliant (you kind of have to be, right?), what validation do we have to prove their integrity? Some of the smartest people in our society are the biggest crooks. Indeed, the first abuse I can see for this service is promoting a new invention or idea for capitalistic gain with no backstop or safety nets to prevent it. I can also see favoritism being played, and who knows how inter-university or university-to-university politics will play a role, since only three universities run the site. This site claims to be a bastion of truth and trust, yet the foreseeable problems in this short column are enough to steer me away.
Perhaps even more worrisome, their content delivery system relies heavily on social networking sites and ultimately on Joe Average, and well, a lot can get lost in translation on Facebook and Twitter.
The entire idea behind journalists is that we exist as fair-handed truth tellers. It is our job to impartially gather and relate what we see, barring us hooligan opinion writers. News and sources are verified, reporters and photographers are vetted, and while there are always bad eggs, on principle we can’t exist without our credibility.
I’m not some buffalo slowly eating grass, oblivious to all the changes going on. At the same time I have to balk at the fact that this site has decided to essentially circumvent journalism — and all the things in that territory, which includes a lot of benefits.
What this site essentially translates into is a Wikipedia for people with degrees with no statement of trust, truth or accuracy. The difference being there’s one main editor that controls the flow of information and it’s not a communal effort. So, what has really changed? This is just an online magazine where articles are posted and people comment, but there’s a dearth of author replies, and it has a lot of fancy university logos — it skips the journalistic process.
I say let the researchers go back to researching and stop playing journalist — their time is better spent doing that than writing magazine-style versions of their own research essays. And let the journalists do their job, looking at and reporting on the research. Bottom line, cutting out journalists is a mistake, and you’re losing a lot of quality control and content-filtering systems as well as fair and impartial viewpoints. There are just too many critical failure points throughout this idea, and the information is too important and necessary to just lay it out there willy-nilly. It works for other types of information like junk on Wikipedia and a library of Kanye West’s public embarrassments.
But I, personally, need to trust my science. If people were perfect and trustworthy and intrinsically “good” it would work amazingly, but the fact of the matter is that people aren’t those things for the most part. Some part of me just wants to tap Futurity on the nose and say, “No. Bad internets. lol.”
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