Journalism and Science are two different disciplines; infact, journalism is an art while science is science but you see, they share an agenda in common, one which drives them to dig up evidences to produce facts from experiments and research so that the outcome they present is credible enough to gain acceptance; They both seek what could be regarded as truth. Even at that, they have different values which apparently raised the controversy of separating science from journalism many years ago.

In the midst of this controversy, Quentin Cooper put it that science values precision, lasting facts, details and numbers wile journalism values brevity, immediate and personified stories. That was his argument many ears back.

The contemporary journalism views information communication from a very different lens now; the information need of the society is drastically growing with the latest developments and journalists need to present information in a credible format for the masses to rely on your judgment. As such we have photo journalism where photos or videos are filmed to support written columns, for confirmation. Now that’s science playing a major role in journalism, on a lighter note though.

From a larger spectrum, the study of journalism as it is today accommodates the application of scientific methods in research. This includes statistical analysis and the use of numbers, case study (experiment) and observation to retrieve detailed facts and show precision in figures if necessary. Now that’s the beginning of the use of science in journalism.

Bringing it back to school you will discover that most undergraduate project topics in mass communication require scientific and statistical evidence of the research outcome. Therefore undergraduates serve surveys, questionnaires, code and do few other things to retrieve meaningful information for their research.

While this is so, the finishing touch a journalist should give this sort of verified information is to present an analysis, telling what such information means to those concerned. Not everyone understands the language of science and so requires an explanation using the language ordinary people can understand.

From this dimension, journalism has trained personnel who report from various fields. And so we have environmental journalists, health journalist, economic journalists, political journalist, science journalists, sports journalist and all. These specifics define their angle of reportage not just in science.