The following was sent to all subscribers today:

With a new year brings new changes. As many of you know, I began this project in April, 2009, with high hopes. In that time, this list has grown far more than I expected and along the way we’ve been able to assist writers and reporters in getting quality experts for their stories. Great!

Without mincing words, I’m passing the torch on this project. I think there’s much more potential here than I am currently capable of offering.

The good news

The good news is that is Peter Shankman of Help A Reporter Out has graciously agreed to take on new sources/subscribers for science-related queries. Just yesterday Peter launched a new format for HARO, and it features more science-related topics than before (Biotech, Green Tech, Education, etc.).

I think it’s a natural fit. Rather than simply give my list to Peter, which I have maintained I would never do, he suggested that each member of Bridge2Science sign up for HARO.

HARO was my primary influence for Bridge2Science and I’ve been a subscriber of HARO for nearly two years now and it has helped me more than once, both as a source and as a writer. I highly recommend it. With more than 29,000 reporters and more than 100,000 sources, you will be in excellent company.

So, please: subscribe to HARO here. If you’re a reporter, your queries can be made here.

Thanks for your support and good luck in the great work you all do.

Facebook causes slavery, violence and lousy media coverage, a new study released today shows.

There’s an inherent danger in promoting research studies that are not yet peer reviewed. Foremost is that many people, reporters in particular, probably do not fully understand what peer-review technically means. This being the case, Ohio State University recently had to go on the offensive against an avalanche of misinformation reported about a study the university had promoted.

Earle Holland, Ohio State’s assistant vice president for research communications, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review this month, details the situation.

He says:

From the start, we knew that the news release we were distributing had a chance for ample news coverage. After all, it involved the ubiquitous “social media” and student grades, either of which is all-but-guaranteed to garner attention.

What we didn’t figure was how badly most of the conventional news media would muck up the story in the process. Ultimately, the entire episode offers a good lesson in the inherent risks of reporters’ cavalierly covering the social sciences, as well as the risks that young researchers can face in dealing with the news media.

Holland notes the university was upfront about the limitations of the study in question, which showed a correlation between Facebook use and lower student grades. The key point is, of course, that correlation is not the same as causation. Scientists and researchers know this. Reporters do not, and it’s a great source of misinformation (see here and here for examples). Read the rest of this entry »

We were fortunate enough to be interviewed and featured on Current.com today. Please visit here for the Current story, and here for the complete, unedited interview for “Science is Speaking.” Special thanks to Delia Stanley for the support!

A manifesto for credibility

The emergence of the Information Age has given most everyone access to an unlimited wealth of knowledge. More recently, as social online media have flourished, there is an even greater rate of participation.

With that, curiously, has been a trend to claim expertise. Tim Ferriss’ book, The Four Hour Work Week (which I recommend with some reservations) has a section on how to transform yourself into an expert at something. Among the suggestions: get yourself published, get interviewed by the news media, add your name to ProfNet and so on. Follow these tips, and you too can become an expert.

Not so fast. While, in theory, each of these is true to some degree, and defining one’s self as expert is merely the act of doing so, the reality is that the term expert is being bandied about too loosely, now apparently more than ever.

What about those who spend years upon years building skill sets and specialized knowledge? Those with master’s degrees in a particular field, or those who hold a doctorate – don’t they technically have more expertise than these new, self-proclaimed experts? Read the rest of this entry »