Science and nature as sources for scientific news : are journalistic news values a factor?

Science has become of paramount importance to all of our lives. Therefore, the way science is communicated to the public through the mass media is of great importance. This study investigated some of the aspects of scientific news to look for identifiable characteristics to better improve the communication between scientists and the public. Every article from two science journals, Science and Nature, that the Associated Press wire service used as the source of news stories between Jan. 1, 1990 and Dec. 31, 1991 were analyzed for journalistic news values as well as other variables which could have led to their being used. A sample of journal articles which were not used by the AP also were analyzed and the two compared. The news values analyzed in the study were impact, conflict, uniqueness, bad news and currency. Other variables in the analysis included whether the article was featured or mentioned on the cover of the journals or whether the article was featured in a special section of the two journals. The results showed that there are some journalistic news values present more often in articles chosen as the source of a news story. Other characteristics of the two magazines themselves also were shown to be important factors in article selection.