Science’s Trust Problem by Louise Lief
In 2018, 84 percent of Americans could not name a living scientists. Scientists, like journalists, must find a better way to connect with the public.
Louise Lief takes a look at a unique commonality between two different worlds – media and science. In a piece on the Trust, Media and Democracy blog from The Knight Commission, Lief highlights the lack of engagement between the scientific community and the public. “The costs to science and society of clinging to inadequate and outmoded means of communication have becomepainfully clear in the past year, as scientific expertise has been ignored or shunted aside,” Lief writes. She highlights some unexplored avenues for the scientific community to make positive changes to increase trust and engagement with the public. Read through the blog post for new approaches you can take as a scientist or if you are involved in somewhat related areas that are slowly becoming more and more pertinent.
Sayo Akao is a recent graduate from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. As digital communication specialist in the News Co/Lab, Akao is assisting the team to create positive change in news literacy through a variety of different approaches.