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Scientists don't put much stock in the popular press. They think reporters do a miserable job covering science, either inflating a story beyond reality or just getting it wrong. Who can forget the now infamous cancer cure story on page one of the Sunday New York Times four years ago. The news that, in James Watson's reported words, "Judah [Folkman] is going to cure cancer in two years," sent desperate patients running to their oncologists and argumentative science writers logging into chat rooms for weeks afterward. Angiogenesis inhibitors including endostatin are still in clinical trials. Every coin has two sides, though. Reporters complain that scientists often won't give them the time of day—except to publicize their own results. Nothing sounds more dismissive to a reporter than 'just read my papers.' Scientists hate it when the press hypes sensational stories, especially on the basis of initial, sometimes poorly designed studies. The gold standard of science is reproducibility. Results reported in one lab must be confirmed elsewhere before they're considered reliable. Initial experiments can be misleading. It shouldn't surprise journalists when stories about hot-button issues such as biotechnology are greeted with skepticism by researchers. Take corn and butterflies. An April 1999 study concluded that pollen from genetically modified (GM) corn plants kills monarch caterpillars. Against a backdrop of controversy over GM foods, the press sucked up the story like butterflies at a nectary. A search of major newspapers in Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe turned up 76 articles on the issue by the end of June that year,1 for good reason. If reliable, the results had drastic consequences for public acceptance of GM foods. But was the monarch really in danger? The answer seems to be no. The first hint came in June 2000, when researchers reported that Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) pollen is not toxic to another species, the black swallowtail. Here was an opportunity for reporters to apply salve of perspective to an irritated public. But Lexis-Nexis shows only seven articles on the swallowtail report in the weeks following publication. Not long afterward, distinguished ecologists David Pimentel and Peter Raven published a review minimizing the impact of Bt crops on biodiversity. It might even be advantageous, they concluded. Apparently, most reporters ignored them. That fall, researchers met to discuss preliminary data supporting Bt's good grades. The conclave birthed only one press report though, from Sharon Schmickle of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I could go on—the same thing happened with GM tacos and most recently adulterous chimps. To be fair, the press did track angiogenesis inhibitors since the Sunday Times article appeared in 1998. I turned up 409 citations on Lexis-Nexis, though some seemed minimally relevant. The Times archive listed 32, none by the original writer. And when reporters do follow-up on stories, they can raise more confusion than illumination. How many of us can decide whether dietary fiber is healthful or not? With news of war and high-profile bankruptcies rushing at us 24/7, reporters can't realistically revisit every science story. Still, as guardians of public information, and hopefully trust, journalists should get the story straight, even if it takes months. That's particularly important in science, where firm conclusions rest on a slow, deliberative, accumulative process. We at The Scientist hope to do better ourselves. Let us know if we don't. Barry A. Palevitz (palevitz@dogwood.botany.uga.edu)is a contributing editor. 1. Key words: corn and butterfly; searches may not turn up all relevant articles

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