Comments on: Kepler Detects the Atmosphere of a Distant World

By: ccp

ccp — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:56:23 +0000

Don’t slit your wrists yet. I’ve been a science writer more years than I want to admit to, and know very well the role that it’s supposed to play (those classes in media law and politics didn’t go wasted, you know ). It pleases me that journalism is NOT a government-funded entity — although FOx News does its best to be a propaganda arm of the right wing interests who don’t care to have people read all the news unless it’s been vetted by those same interests. Anytime I hear someone whine about how the media should be licensed, I have only to point to FauxNews as an example of why that would be a very bad idea.

Fortunately, we have other outlets. When I bitch about the “if it bleeds it leads” mantra, it’s due to many years of writing science and seeing it relegated to back pages behind the astrology column and/or only on the front page if astronauts die or a scientist lies or something dramatic, as you point out. The good thing about this so-called “new media” is that there are more outlets that can specialize in science, etc. The bad news is that they get dissed by the same mainstream media that falls down on the job in terms of reporting science. All we can do is keep trying to get the word out.

Back when I did work at a newspaper, the science stories that got through were mostly about local scientists, in addition to stuff that made nationwide headlines. Occasionally I’d get an editor who would not have a clue about science and would assign the most asinine things (like “does an egg stand on its end on the equinox”) in the interests of science.

I never said they’d ignore it if an Earth-like planet is found… and do agree that it’ll be news. There was a story float by this morning about Epsilon Eridani that I need to go chase down. If true, it might make the front pages, but I can guarantee you, some editor will put a headline over it that makes no sense.

By: Paul Sutherland

Paul Sutherland — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 06:56:24 +0000

I think we also run up against a phenomenon which I will term “planet fatigue”. Now that there are more than 300 extrasolar worlds detected, the reaction from news editors of the day seems to be “not another one, yawn.” It reminds me of how people (or maybe the media?) lost interest so quickly in Apollo or shuttle launches and sadly it took high drama (Apollo 13) or disaster (Challenger and Columbia) to put them back on front pages.
Where I think you are wrong is that when the first truly Earth-like planet is found by Kepler or CoRot or whatever, it WILL be a huge story and it will be prominently reported. People are fascinated by the possibility that there might be life elsewhere in the universe.
Like you, I personally find stories about extrasolar planets fascinating. It would please me if the papers were full of them and other aspects of astronomy on a regular basis. Some night editors are more keen on space science than others and so who is on duty can make a difference to what appears. I certainly keep plugging away to put space stories on the agenda in the UK.
The endless rolling out of the Michael Jackson saga leaves me cold. I have no interest in hearing any more about him. But I know a judgment is being made on a daily basis as to what readers and viewers want to see. It is on such judgments that circulations rise and fall. Remember that, with the possible exception of the BBC(?), news outlets are not government departments of education with a duty to report what is “worthy”. They are commercial operations that exist to make money in a highly competitive market by offering what they judge to be the right mix of information and entertainment.
If that sounds depressing, I’m just trying to give my honest appraisal. Perhaps it says more about the audience than the media itself. Right, I’m just off to slit my wrists.

By: ccp

ccp — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:13:52 +0000

Paul, yes, I mentioned that Spitzer detection in my response to Daniel. I wondered about that and CoRot, too, but I see a difference in the type of discovery that this is. And, for it to come from essentially engineering and test data is quite impressive.

I am not surprised that NASA didn’t mention other results either, but not because it’s uniquely an American thing. As I mentioned to Daniel, I’ve seen releases and conferences from other non-USA institutions that also failed to mention other, related discoveries during their conferences; of course they (as the NASA people did) mention them in the related papers– which is as it should be. The press conference atmosphere is always one of having less time to talk about all the details than one wants. I construe that as the issue, not that it’s us ugly Americans slighting those poor other scientists.

You mentioned the Mars Express orbiter methane info not being mentioned, but I do recall seeing it mentioned in resulting news stories, so obviously SOMEBODY picked up on it. What bugged me about THAT story was the wild hype that the press did put on it when it finally came out. Farting Martian cows, indeed! And, while I did read about it on the institution web site, I saw very little in the mainstream NON-US press about it, and I specifically looked for it right after the news was released. I think it finally did trickle out after a while.

Perhaps this story was a bit hyped, but it is an interesting story and I think that the scientists might be forgiven for being excited by what they found. And for the six or seven hours after the conference that I was able to watch the news online, I saw nothing about it — much less mentioning CoRot or Spitzer or any other planet-detecting methods. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that stories about extrasolar planets are fascinating — and they strike such a chord of interest among the public that the press never seems to pick up on. It’s a shame when stuff doesn’t get picked up by the media, no matter who does the work. There’s a ton of really interesting science out there that should be getting press and it just doesn’t.

About that term “hype” — it seems to get applied more often than it should. Think about it.

By: Paul Sutherland

Paul Sutherland — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:14:38 +0000

I was interested in the Kepler story but for newspapers, how much was really news? The planet had already been discovered. As Daniel says, CoRot had detected similar lightcurves. Plus we have had “first detection of planets’ atmospheres” stories before from Hubble and Spitzer. I seem to recall that one even said we could tell the weather!
I am not surprised that NASA failed to mention the CoRot results. If it is not American, it is not important. The release about methane on Mars in January failed, as far as I can recall, to mention that it had already been detected by Europe’s Mars Express orbiter!!
And while, as a journalist, I understand the need to put spin on stories to get them on the news agenda, even I thought it was a hype too far to suggest that Kepler had spied the planet’s phases. A phase is a shape – not a change in brightness.