In the spirit of collaboration, lets work together to improve science communication and journalism. The quality of the product can only improve by co-opting one of the paradigms in science that is worthwhile – the notion of review.
I discuss how cases of sexual harassment at the academic workplace could be covered by journalists, examining the responsibility of individual scientists and of the institutions they belong to.
A scientific organization that gives its members the green light to interact with journalists and the public, without insisting that every such interaction be filtered through an administrative layer or otherwise controlled, is doing things right.
The thrill of writing the story and the pride of having carried out the research still belong to the individual journalist and scientist respectively, but the activity, as a whole is more important than that.
Some scientists say they should have the right to review stories in which their work or words are covered prior to publication. Journalists disagree.
