Archaeologists often complain about journalists sensationalising their research. We're 'stumbling upon' things that 're-write the history books' and match current political concerns. Recently, those aspects of news coverage have often been direct quotes from the researchers. Why? > - ThreadSky

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sarahmay1.bsky.social • 60 days ago

Archaeologists often complain about journalists sensationalising their research. We're 'stumbling upon' things that 're-write the history books' and match current political concerns.
Recently, those aspects of news coverage have often been direct quotes from the researchers.
Why? >

Comments

toriherridge.bsky.social•60 days ago

Maybe journalists got fed up being blamed for copy that always originated with the researchers, who then pretended they accidentally tripped up and fell into a media story, and of course never said anything hyperbolic or over-egged their results…

sarahmay1.bsky.social•60 days ago

Perhaps, but I have certainly known many instances where the hyperbole came from the journalists. But indeed, it's possible that some have always overegged things and journalists are just now showing that is quoted

toriherridge.bsky.social•60 days ago

But non-sarcastic answer is that press-releases have become better at following journalistic form (inverted pyramid, use of quites), to encourage churnalism/max chances of it being picked up. This does indeed encourage leaning in to tropes.

toriherridge.bsky.social•60 days ago

Especially as, to get the right sort of quote, usually leading questions like “How has this revolutionised our understanding of X” or “how does this discovery change the world?” are asked.

If the answer is “probably not much, research is incremental” you most likely wont get a press release

sarahmay1.bsky.social•60 days ago

> are university press officers encouraging researchers to make their press releases more attractive to journalists?
Have we all just got so used to these tropes that we default to them when writing for a public audience?

slightlymuddy.bsky.social•60 days ago

Not new I'd say, I remember Clive Gamble talking about the "logic of the last discovery" when I was his student. Certainly in palaeoanthropology, every new find was "the most important", presumably to justify further funding.

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