Scientists need to learn how to communicate with the press. In the past, journalists thought they were simply getting the news to the public. But things have changed. The end of the cold war changed all of this. Support for scientific research required informing the public and policy makers on the importance of the scientific endeavor.
Every scientific society has members doing innovative and far-reaching activities.
But these findings were not being communicated to the public. As a continuing effort, our Society and its members must work to build a strong understanding of science among the public. The reason we avoid speaking to journalists include lack of time, assumptions that journalists would not understand the technical aspects of the research, scholars publish only in refereed journals, the work is too preliminary or too basic for practical application, and fear of being misquoted or misinterpreted. The popular press can assist us to counter confusion, which exists about what science can or cannot do. Journalists are the gatekeepers who control the flow of information, they target information to specific groups, and they provide relevance of the information to our everyday lives.