"emerging data suggest that, in some circumstances, the media reporting of science is surprisingly accurate and portrays a message created by the scientific community. As such, there are reasons to believe that the hyping of research might be part of a more systemic problem associated with the increasingly commercial nature of the research environment."
Via online., Author described favorable media coverage and public relations support for new crop biotechnologies announced - and lack of scientific evidence of effectiveness during the following 18 years.
8 p., What do journalists think about information source trustworthiness, bias, and fairness in communicating agricultural biotechnology issues? Fifty Texas journalists and 40 national agriculture journalists representing newspapers and television media responded to this study. Journalists believed university scientists/researchers and newspapers were trustworthy, unbiased, and fair, while activist groups were untrustworthy, completely biased, and unfair in communicating agricultural biotechnology issues. They were most opposed to public opinion outweighing scientists' opinions when making decisions about scientific research. A substantial positive correlation occurred between national agriculture journalists' attitudes toward democratic processes in science (i.e., the extent that public opinion is considered in scientific decision-making processes) and trust in newspapers.
