Science and medical coverage in the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post - A six-year perspective

A content analysis of the science, medical, and environmental news reported in the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post in biennial periods from 1989 to 1995 explored seven hypotheses about science reporting, news select ion, and writing that were derived from the qualitatively based literature. Outcome variables were the percentage of news stories that are generated b y events or are episodically generated, of news stories that are generated by science issues, of news stories with an embedded human interest componen t, of news stories with an embedded educational/informative component, of c onflicts between scientists embedded as a writing motif, of news stories wi th a focus on pioneer science, and of news stories with a focus on textbook science. Five of the seven hypotheses with regard to the overall frequenci es of science-reporting motifs within both newspapers were rejected. Expect ed qualitative patterns received only partial and equivocal support within the rime periods surveyed. The findings suggest that science journalism per formance, if assessed over longer period of lime, may vary from some qualit ative case-study presumptions. Case studies of science news may not reflect a news organization's overall reporting, editing, and news selection trend s, which appear to be more broadly prudent and responsible within the newsp apers surveyed than some previous scholarship suggests.