Letters

Euro-Science News Lab Break-Ins Gene Sequencing IEEE’s Voting Rules Bernard Dixon’s short Opinion piece “Why Does the U.S. Neglect Euro-Science” (January 25, 1988, p. 11) on the asymmetry between U.S. and European mass media coverage of science neglects one of the made by Harrois-Monin in her original article. That point is that the proportionate coverage of European science by U.S. periodicals is a matter of editorial policy and practice. American journalist

Jerry Kidd

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Bernard Dixon’s short Opinion piece “Why Does the U.S. Neglect Euro-Science” (January 25, 1988, p. 11) on the asymmetry between U.S. and European mass media coverage of science neglects one of the made by Harrois-Monin in her original article. That point is that the proportionate coverage of European science by U.S. periodicals is a matter of editorial policy and practice.

American journalists, particularly those who are regular staffers on popular monthlies, do not have the main say in topic selection; their editors do. As Harrois-Monin indicates, these editors operate on what they believe their readers want to see. Whether these beliefs are correct is another matter altogether. To suggest, as Dixon does, that the pattern of popular coverage has anything to do with the perceptions or attitudes of American scientists requires the acceptance of a chain of logic that is absent some links.

—Jerry S. Kidd Library and ...

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