More often, however, the science journalists will deal with soft science stories, or features. These are stories that do not depend on the news value of timeliness. Features are what journalists call timeless stories. They are stories that did not happen yesterday, but are continuing over time. They describe a fact or set of facts, a personality, a process or a state of being, for example. If the hard news is the spread of the avian flu, for example, the science journalist can write a feature about the disease. What is the nature of the disease, the cause, the symptoms. How is it transferred from birds to humans? This separate feature can be published in the same issue where the hard news about the spread of the disease is carried, or a day or a week later. If the hard news is about the Nobel Prize for Medicine winners, for example, the science writer can write a feature about the scientists, which can come out in the same issue which carried the hard news, or a little later. If the hard news is about the outbreak of SARS in Singapore, for example, the science journalists can write a feature about a SARS patient, how he got it, the symptoms he experienced, the treatment, how he coped with the disease and survived. Or, as happened in Singapore, the science journalist can write about the doctors and nurses who braved contracting the disease to treat the patients of this contagious sickness. The format for the soft science story is the format for features, the opposite of the inverted pyramid style. The story has an eye-catching lead, which contains not necessarily the most important fact, and develops gradually, often chronologically, using description, color, quotes, even dialogue and dramatization. It may end with a punch line or the most important fact of the story. Journalists and journalism students know these things and so we will not discuss them extensively here. They are described adequately in journalism textbooks (see Figure 8). Science stories, hard and soft, share common features with general news stories. In most cases, it is merely the topic that distinguishes science stories from the general stories reporters write. One might also say that science reporters share most of the traits and skills of the general reporter—a nose for news, a skeptical eye, a passion for accuracy, a gift for writing and expressing himself or herself, diligence in digging for facts, and resourcefulness, among others. 63
Issuu converts static files into: and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.